The joint opposition in Senate Thursday warned to move a privilege motion against interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan if he failed to issue an apology for providing "incorrect" figures to the house over killings in terrorism related incidents. Terming the conduct of Nisar as insulting, joint opposition led by opposition leader in Senate Aitzaz Ahsan of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) said they would not take part in the session unless the minister apologised to them.
The opposition members boycotted the proceedings in protest against the behaviour of interior minister, forcing the chair to adjourn the house due to lack of quorum.
Aitzaz, flanked by the leaders of Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) and Balochistan National Party-Awami (BNP-A) announced that the opposition would move a privilege motion against the interior minister for feeding "wrong" information to senators.
"An apology from the minister is the condition of joint opposition to run the session smoothly and if the government prorogued the session, the opposition would requisite it," Aitzaz stated.
He also brushed aside the notion that opposition was giving a walkover to the government by walking out from the Senate. About Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) absence from the joint opposition, Aitzaz quipped that the party couldn't afford to go against Interior Ministry whether the present one or the once that Rahman Malik headed in the recent post.
PPP's Parliamentary Leader in Senate Mian Raza Rabbani castigated Nisar for his attempt to hold the parliament and executive hostage. "Sometimes back, a person namely Sinkdar held the Islamabad hostage for hours and now he [Nisar] was trying to make the parliament hostage," he added.
Rabbani opined that the government had sidelined the parliament and referred to the Pakistan Protection Ordinance law promulgated by the government despite the fact that both national assembly and Senate were in session.
He said that the present government also refrained from discussing national security policy, terms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan and planned privatisation of key strategic assets and demanded that all these vital issues should be brought before the parliament.
"We will not let the government escape and would compel it to take the parliament into confidence over these issues," Rabbani said.
ANP's Parliamentary Leader Haji Muhammad Adeel said that opposition wanted to participate in the house but with dignity and honour and would not tolerate the treatment of Nisar by considering the members as his subordinates.
"If Nisar does not know the etiquettes of talking to MPs, then we will teach him how to talk with parliamentarians", Adeel said.
Opposition Leader in National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah said that Nisar had been adopting any "executive style" rather than a parliamentarian.
PML-Q's Kamil Ali Agha said that opposition had submitted many adjournment motions on increase in the prices of gas, electricity and petroleum but the government was not making those issues part of agenda of the house.
BNP-A's Israrullah Zehri said that the provincial government in Balochistan was also behaving like the one in Islamabad and alleged that the members of provincial government were involved in kidnapping cases in the province.
A day earlier, the interior minister said that courts had sentenced 13,223 people to death since 2002, but only 501 of them had been executed. He said 10,910 death penalties had been announced in Lahore, 1,301 in Peshawar, 541 in Karachi, 449 in Quetta and 22 in Gilgit-Baltistan. Of the 501 executions, 415 were carried out in Lahore, 64 in Peshawar, 15 in Quetta and seven in Gilgit-Baltistan.
The opposition had staged walkouts on two occasions after Nisar refused to withdraw his reply to a question about the number of deaths in terrorism-related incidents which the opposition believed was based on incorrect information.
The house was adjourned till Friday at 10:30am.