KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Tuesday paid homage to the famed mystic Sufi saint, Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, on his 278th death anniversary amid protest shouts and disorder in the house.
The ruling PPP’s Heer Soho placed a resolution in the house to pay a tribute to one of the country’s greatest Sufi saints, Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, which received a unanimous vote from both sides.
However, the opposition parties began their protest from the first moment of the session over the killing of a minor girl in a sewerage hole of Lyari. Some of the opposition members brought manhole lids into the house to protest the death of the minor.
Rehana Legari, Deputy Speaker, who was chairing the session, ordered to close down the opposition lawmakers’ microphones and disallowed them to speak. She allowed PPP’s Syed Sardar Shah, Sindh Education Minister, to present a resolution on Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai’s death anniversary, instead.
This out-of-turn permission irked PTI’s Khurrum Sher Zaman Khan to protest who asked the Deputy Speaker to first let the house finish it daily business agenda before allowing any additional business. Khurrum called the deputy speaker “partial”. That also led MQM and PTI legislators standing from their seats and raising loud slogans.
Meantime, Khurrum wanted to speak out his views but Legari did not permit him that made some members of the two main opposition parties including the PTI and MQM to stage a walkout. MQM’s Muhammad Hussain reminded the deputy speaker that Speaker Aga Siraj Khan Durrani had assured the opposition of allocating time for them to speak about their concerns.
Syed Sardar Shah criticised the opposition for raising the issue of minor girl’s death and their demand to discuss the issue of open manhole in assembly. “You want to discuss a gutter on the anniversary of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai,” said the minister, who was favoured with an out-of-turn speech. The deputy speaker also slammed the opposition for their protest, saying the protesting lawmakers need training to learn the assembly’s rules and procedures.
Muhammad Hussain replied that the opposition was well-learned and did not need any such training to learn rules and procedures. He made a counter-criticism on the treasury, saying every year we table a resolution to mark the death anniversary of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitti. He said that all lawmakers in this house love the Sufi saint for his poetry that also teaches humanity and talks about kids, as well as, young and old people.
PTI’s Firdous Shamim Naqvi urged the Sindh government to translate Shah Latif’s poetry into English so that the world could also know about his teachings on humanity. MMA’s Syed Abdul Rasheed, GDA’s Nand Kumar, MQM’s Muhammad Hussain, Fridsous Shamim Naqvi, Syed Sardar Shah, Heer Ismail Soho and others also paid tribute and voted to pass the resolution unanimously.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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