'Shoddily treating women neither Baloch nor Pakistani custom'

Memon condemns forcible breaking and entering into family suite, says she was duly alloted the suite last year.

Condemning the forcible breaking and entering into a family suite in the Parliamentarians’ Lodges, PML-Q lawmaker Marvi Memon said that treating women in such a shoddy manner is neither a Baloch nor Pakistani custom.

The PML-Q MNA said that she was duly allotted the family suite by the National Assembly Secretariat on January 15 last year and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) handed over the suite’s possession to her on March 1 of the same year.

Accusing Senator Humayun Ahmed Khan of misbehaviour, she said he had first unsuccessfully tried to illegally enter into her suite along with a number of personal guards in August last year.

Citing a high-level meeting held soon after the incident, she said in a press statement: “After this incident, a meeting was held between the deputy chairman of Senate and the deputy speaker of the National Assembly wherein it was mentioned that the prime minister has directed for 18 family suites to be constructed, which will be soon available for allotment to parliamentarians. It was, therefore, decided that till the completion of new family suites, I would continue to occupy the suite and would not be disturbed.”

Criticising the high-handedness of the deputy chairman of Senate, she recalled that when the media had highlighted the plight of women after five women were buried alive in Balochistan, it was Mir Jan Jamali who declared that burying women alive was a Baloch tradition.

Accusing CDA officials and other people accompanying the deputy chairman of the National Assembly of breaking locks to all rooms in her suite and worrying about the safety of her personal belongings, including computers, Marvi Memon said her staff was kept under illegal detention. She said that she was worried about the recovery of her missing items, including her cell phones. Marvi Memon said that she was in Nawabshah on November 6 to visit two gang-rape victims when her suite was trespassed.

She said that she has been assured by the prime minister of an amicable solution.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2010.