Sindh Assembly offers Fateha for Pir Pagara

Controversy on church land brought up as well.

KARACHI: It was as a mark of respect for the departed soul that the Sindh Assembly on Friday decided not to take up any business on its agenda except remembering Pir Pagara VII and his services and contributions.

As soon as the session was called in order at around 11am, provincial law minister, Ayaz Soomro, stood up and suggested to the acting speaker, Dr Sikandar Mandhro (from the panel of chairmen), to adjourn the session after offering Fateha. In the next 25 minutes, it was all over.

Soomro recalled that Pir Pagara was not only the spiritual head of the Hur Jamaat, but a veteran politician whose family and Jamaat had struggled against the British rule in Sindh.

After the prayers for him and Mohsin Raza Zaidi, the father of Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza, the session was adjourned till Monday.

Friday’s agenda included a question-answer session on the relief department, an adjournment motion by Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Imran Zafar Leghari and consideration of the Shaheed Banazir Bhutto Dewan University Bill, 2011.

A report of the standing committee of the assembly on St Andrew’s Church of Karachi and another report on irrigation and power was also part of the agenda.

St Andrew’s Church

The standing committee of the assembly on the revenue department has recommended that the plot owned by the Presbyterian Church (Church of Scotland) known as St Andrew’s Church can be converted for commercial or residential purposes.

The standing committee’s recommendations came following a resolution moved by MPA Saleem Khurshid Khokhar who said that the commissioner of Karachi in 1975 had tampered with the record by transferring the ownership rights to the Karachi Diocese of the Church of Pakistan.

The resolution was not adopted and the assembly referred it to a standing committee to review the matter and suggest possible remedies. The committee has advised the Sindh Assembly to ask the government to cancel the entry in the record of rights made in 1975 and restore its earlier position as it was in 1866.

The report of the standing committee on irrigation and power recommends that the provincial government approach the federal government to direct the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company not to charge flood-affected areas for June and July.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2012.