Raid on residence of PTI leader: All officials skip meeting of Senate body

ISLAMABAD: Not a single official turned up at a meeting of a parliamentary panel on Thursday to discuss the raid at the residence of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Saifullah Niazi.

The Senate Standing Committee on Interior met here with Senator Mohsin Aziz in the chair.

Aziz warned that he would proceed against all the officials if they failed to ensure their presence in the next meeting under the breach of privilege rule entitled to lawmakers.

He exclaimed how a government official can skip a meeting of a parliamentary panel, adding the committee would not allow anyone to behave like this as this is an insult to the parliament.

The members of the committee especially those belonging to the PTI regretted the attitude of the baboos who skipped the meeting without citing any reason.

The inspector general police, the chief commissioner, Islamabad, the officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and other concerned departments who had been summoned to brief the panel on a raid at the residence of PTI leader Saifullah Niazi last week, mysteriously skipped the meeting.

Senator Kamil Ali Agha, a member of the committee, said that the rulers have made blunders which is the reason they could not even face the members of the committee.

Senator Azam Swati said that a parliamentary panel is the extension of parliament, and the behaviour of the officials who did not even bother to attend its meeting is nothing but an insult to the parliament.

“All those who skipped the meeting of the committee should be taken to task, as this is something which is not acceptable at all,” he maintained.

Some members belonging to PTI who declined to be named told Business Recorder that the officials might have gotten instruction from the “boss” – Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah – not to attend the meeting as the government was behind harassing its political opponents.

They warned that the officials dancing to the tune of Sanaullah, especially IGP Islamabad, and the FIA baboos will be taken to task for whatever they are doing on the instructions of a “fascist regime”.

They said that a government official should not behave like some of the blue-eyed are doing to please their masters at the helm of affairs.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022