Sindh Assembly: The agencies are kidnapping people in Sindh, says MPA

Business put forward for private members day ignored for ZAB resolution.

KARACHI:

The long-running issue of enforced disappearances by intelligence agencies found a voice in the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday.

Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Dr Sikandar Mandhro, who is a senior party leader in Badin, told the house that intelligence agencies were involved in kidnapping their own people in Sindh, including members of nationalist parties, instead of protecting the country and guarding its borders.

Dr Mandhro referred to the recent disappearance of three Sindh University students, Arisar and his friends Ahsan Malano and Mohsin Shah, who were picked up when they were at the Sindh High Court in Hyderabad for their case’s hearing. “As they came out of the court some personnel of agencies in plainclothes abducted them. No one knows where they are now,” he said.

Law Minister Ayaz Soomro said he would present a report about the disappearance of the activists. “These students were facing some criminal charges and a court had acquitted them, but they suddenly went missing,” he said, by way of explanation.

Pakistan Muslim League-Functional MPA Nusrat Seher Abbasi also highlighted another human rights case, of a couple who married of their own free will and had survived a murder attempt in Daharki town, Ghotki district. Abbasi said that some relatives of the girl tied the couple to the railway tracks and were awaiting the arrival of the train to crush them. “If the media had not highlighted the case the train would have crushed the married couple,” she said. The law minister said the police had reached the spot and he would furnish a report before the house soon.

Agenda

Tuesday’s session was meant to be a private members’ day, which means that resolutions and private bills submitted by members are dealt with during the proceedings. Despite being on the day’s agenda, none of them were taken up. A resolution to pay tribute to PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was adopted after a three-day debate it.

Around 10 items, including resolutions and private motions tabled by PML-F MPA Nusrat Seher Abbasi, National Peoples Party MPA Arif Mustafa Jatoi and Bilqees Mukhtar, Zareen Majeed and Khalid Ahmed of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement were on the agenda. Speaker Nisar Khuhro said that since most of the session’s time was spent on speeches paying tribute to Bhutto, it was not possible to take up the other items.

MPA Abbasi, who had submitted a resolution recommending that Sindhi be made a national language, requested Khuhro to take up the scheduled items, since it took many months to bring a resolution on the agenda. She said it was an injustice to the members, including her, but her plea went unheeded. Khuhro adjourned the session till Friday, after a short debate on what day it would be called on.

During the current session, which has started on December 16, the speaker has adjourned the session more than three times and it resumed with a gap of two to three days, for different reasons. Members of the government’s coalition partners said that since there was no important agenda, the government just wanted to complete the 100 days of the parliamentary year, which is a constitutional requirement of every provincial assembly.

“It seems like this democratic government wants to spend parliamentary days by celebrating their holidays,” Jatoi remarked.

Barracks for Musharraf

Law Minister Ayaz Soomro explained the reason for a two-day gap – the MQM’s planned event in Sukkur, which would mean that its members would not be able to attend the assembly session. But Archives Minister Rafique Engineer had another answer, based on former president Pervez Musharraf’s announcement that he would return to Karachi at the end of the month. “Actually the law minister will be busy in those days because he will supervise the cleaning at Landhi jail where C-Class barracks will be allotted to Musharraf,” he said.

Soomro, who is in-charge of the jails department, was quick to jump to his feet. “Huzoor, we have already made arrangements and have ordered a ‘kholi’ for him,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2012.