Single-point agenda: Opposition demands assembly session over Sunday blasts

Requisition signed by 35 lawmakers submitted to K-P Assembly deputy secretary.

PESHAWAR: Opposition parties in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Monday submitted a requisition for a session to discuss Sunday’s attack on All Saints’ Church.

The requisition was signed by 35 lawmakers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP). It was then submitted to the office of K-P Assembly Deputy Secretary Attaullah Khan.

The lawmakers demanded a session be convened to discuss the attack under a single-point agenda and called for preparation of a counter-terrorism policy.

requisition was signed by Opposition Leader Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, PPP’s parliamentary leader Syed Muhammad Ali Shah Bacha, ANP’s parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak and JUI-F’s Maulana Lutfur Rehman among others.



Babak told The Express Tribune the attack was a national tragedy, adding he has requested the speaker to immediately convene a session over it.

He criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, saying they lacked a coherent policy. “No minority was attacked in the tenure of the previous government. Now, the people who had been serving Peshawar for years were wiped out.”

He also criticised PTI chief Imran Khan, adding he did not even give a few words of condemnation against the elements that carried out the attack; instead, he targeted the ANP.

Assembly speaker is bound to call a house session within 14 days of the requisition. The session is likely to be held on October 7.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2013.