In grave danger: Threat to MPA Khatoon Bibi dominates assembly proceedings

Fellow AJIP leader urges lawmakers to arrange their own security as govt failed.

PESHAWAR: A treasury bench lawmaker told the K-P Assembly on Friday she has been getting threats of an attack and a grenade was hurled at her residence.

Nearly breaking down in front of fellow lawmakers, Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan MPA Khatoon Bibi from Swabi said her family was receiving serious threats. She questioned the motive behind such attacks.

“My family, children and everyone is terrified,” she said, asking Speaker Asad Qaiser for help in the matter.

The issue was raised by Awami National Party Parliamentary Leader Sardar Hussain Babak on a point of order. Babak told lawmakers although target killing and extortion had plagued the province for some time, the elite used to be relatively safe.

Babak said Khatoon Bibi and her children were receiving threats and authorities need to take intelligence and special branch reports seriously. “The government should ensure the security of public representatives,” he said.

However, her fellow AJIP lawmaker from Swabi, Babar Saleem, took the house by surprise when he asked Khatoon Bibi not to look towards the government for her security and make personal arrangements instead. Babar said the government could not ensure their security as it failed to do anything when a similar incident occurred with him.

He recalled his residence was attacked with a grenade once and on another occasion, unidentified people opened fire on his house. He said authorities failed to take action in the aftermath of both attacks. The treasury lawmaker asked fellow MPAs to arrange for their own security.

Senior Minister Inayatullah Khan assured he would take up the issue with the police chief and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to ensure the security of Khatoon Bibi and her family. He added the house stood with her in these difficult times and would thoroughly investigate the matter before sharing a report with the provincial legislature.

In the dark

Lawmakers also expressed concerns over increasing power outages across the province and asked the government to take necessary steps to address the subject.

The issue was raised by PTI lawmaker Yasin Khalil through an attention notice. Yasin said the chief minister should take up the issue of prolonged outages at the Council of Common Interests (CCI). He was backed by treasury and opposition MPAs who slammed Wapda for the outages. The MPA agreed that the fear of lawmakers about the coming summer being a difficult one might turn out to be valid.

Qaiser announced a meeting of parliamentary leaders of all parties within a week to chalk out a future course of action against outages.

Back to legislation

The house unanimously passed a resolution to extend the Universities Act 2012 to the Provincially Administrated Tribal Areas (PATA) as some varsities were acting like they were beyond the ambit of laws passed by the provincial assembly. The resolution was jointly moved by the lawmakers from Malakand division.

The house unanimously adopted it along with the K-P Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill 2015 and K-P Ehtesab Commission (Amendment) Bill 2015. The session was later adjourned till Monday.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2015.