PK-661: G-B assembly passes resolution expressing grief over crash

Another resolution passed to rename Gilgit airport after war veteran Shah Khan

GILGIT: The Gilgit-Baltistan legislative assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution to express their grief over PK-661’s crash earlier in December.

All the 47 people aboard an ATR-42 aircraft of Pakistan International Airlines died when their plane crashed into the hillside near Havelian on December 7. Among the victims was 35-year-old Gilgit native Nisaruddin.

With G-B Chief Minister Hafeezur Rehman attending Thursday’s session and the assembly chaired by Speaker Fida Nashad, the house unanimously adopted the resolution expressing grief over the crash and consoling families of the victims.

In another resolution unanimously adopted by the 33-seat assembly, lawmakers agreed to rename the Gilgit airport after Captain Shah Muhammad Khan, a hero of the Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) liberation war against the Dogras in 1947. Khan died last month in Gilgit at the age of 92.

The resolution had been tabled by parliamentary law secretary Aurangzeb Khan.

Major Muhammad Amin from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) moved a resolution for regularising staff in District Headquarters Hospital Skardu. However, Nashad assigned sent the resolution to a select committee for vetting.

As Rehman gave a speech during Thursday’s session, which was the first after the assembly hall had been renovated recently, opposition members rose up in protest.

Muhammad Shafi of the Ismai Tehreek Pakistan (ITP) first objected to allowing the chief minister to speak for an extended period of time.

“When it is our turn [to speak], we are given less than two minutes to speak. It is injustice,” Shafi said as he interrupted Rehman who was in the middle of extolling achievements of his government.

Barkat Jamil, a PML-N member from Astore, however rose up to support the chief minister and asked the speaker to ask Shafi to keep quiet .

“This [interjection] is simply an insult to this august house,” Jamil said.

Upon this, the speaker asked Shafi to sit down and wait for his turn to speak, or leave the house.

Opposition leader Shah Baig, while speaking in the house, criticised the government for spending millions of rupees on renovating the assembly hall.

“Government has so much money to spend on decorations, but it does not have any money to spend on the poor,” Baig said.

Earlier, while speaking in the house, Rehman said they had increased the number of doctors in hospital from 50 to 400 while a cleanliness mechanism had been introduced in the city to dispose garbage.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2016.