There is nothing particularly mentionable to report about today's proceedings in the Senate or the National Assembly. Both the Houses were adjourned without conducting any business. In fact, when we arrived at the Parliament Press Gallery an official enquired whether it would be possible to have a sitting of the two Houses at all.
This man spoke correctly. We saw extreme anger, sadness, tension written on the faces of legislators, and as a consequence an orderly session of either the Senate or the National Assembly was not possible.
The Senate Leader of the Opposition Raza Rabbani rose immediately after the recitation from the holy Qura'an to protest, as well as to announce a protest walkout on behalf of the combined Opposition.
According to him, it was an expression of sympathy with 41 innocent people martyred on the streets of Karachi, two days earlier. Raza Rabbani also threatened to repeat the protest on Tuesday morning when the Senate would convene Tuesday to discuss adjournment motions focusing on the law and order situation.
He later addressed a news conference in which he again expressed solidarity with what he described, the country wide strike held to protest the Karachi incident.
Innocent citizens and press photographers were injured. According to him, roads were blocked with huge boulders to stop citizens, but miscreants were free to roam on the streets with Klashnikovs, and SMGs in their hands.
In fact he blamed that one group of people was deliberately set on another set of ethnic community, with careful planning. The murder of the Supreme Court Additional Registrar also echoed in the news conference. Someone reported the slain officer's wife saying that he was targeted.
The National Assembly was convened after some time of an interlude of about an hour. Then we witnessed a repeat performance but with greater vehemence. Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain was not present because of his wife death at Sialkot on Sunday. In his absence the Speaker's chair was occupied by Zaheer Abbas Khokar, whose appeal for fathiha for the victims of Karachi as well as the death of the Speaker's wife went unheeded.
Moments later Liaquat Baloch performed this duty. The slogans and catcalls subsided for a few minutes during which Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afghan succeeded in moving a motion that the normal working of the day, question-hour, privilege motion, and adjournment motions be dispensed with, to allow a general discussion on the law and order situation of the country.
Sher Afghan also invited legislators to come out with the whole truth and describe all that they had personally witnessed at Karachi on the fateful day to allow for appropriate action against the offenders and those who had contrived to make the situation of the metropolis ugly.
President of Muslim League Chaudhry Shujaat Husain tried to speak. He remarked that these people (Opposition members) were only interested in making a political capital of a bad situation.
The presiding officer was unable to run the House and adjourned it for Tuesday morning. At this point, the Opposition filed out of the House shouting many slogans such as 'Go, Musharraf Go, 'a refrain of the slogans we were accustomed to hear during the first two years of the Assembly.
The Opposition also made their way next door, outside the Supreme Court building, where a demonstration of senior men and women from the civil society wanted for them. Each person was holding a banner. One banner was inscribed with a line from Faiz's poem Nisar tere galaion par ai vatan, and another with 'masses were the loyal forces of the Chief Justice'.
Among those with a banner was our old friend Kamran Shafi, a former Principal Information Officer. His banner read 'General, this is not personal' The media walked out twice from the National Assembly and the Senate against harassment and because journalist's cameras were broken while they were on duty.
Found at a little distance was a crowd of People's Party workers protesting the firing at the Business Recorder and Aaj TV Channel offices. In the Press Lounge an Aaj channel crew was telling his friend how he had escaped death when bullets were lobbed at the Aaj newsroom.
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