Daily Times

The opposition in Punjab Assembly has rejected the Joint Investigation Team constituted to probe the incident of Sahiwal while demanding a judicial commission to hold an impartial inquiry to probe the tragedy. As the session of Punjab Assembly started on Monday evening, former two-times Speaker and now an MPA of PML-N Rana Iqbal moved a motion to suspend the rules in order to have general debate over the Sahiwal incident in which four people including a family lost their lives in an allegedly fake ‘operation’ conducted by the Counter Terrorism Department that was highly condemned countrywide.

Minister for law and parliamentary affairs Raja Basharat opposed the motion of Iqbal as he was reluctant to have a general debate over the issue earlier. The law minister was of the view that we should wait for the report of JIT first and then initiate a debate in the House. “The Chief Minister rushed to Sahiwal from Mianwali as soon as possible and he constituted a JIT as well to submit its report within 72 hours,” said the law minister while adding that a general debate would be held in the House after the submission of JIT report submitted to CM on Tuesday evening. It is not the first incident of its type in the province as several incidents of similar type took place in Punjab where people had to wait for three long years to register the FIR of that incident but here, the CM took prompt action. The law minister was referring to the incident of Model Town that took place during the last government of PML-N in which 14 people were killed. The PML-N lawmakers stood at their benches raising slogans against the government. “JIT Namanzoor… JIT Namanzoor… Zalimon Hisab Do… Khoon Ka Jawab Do…” Slogans were chanted by PML-N’s Uzma Bokhari who was demanding the floor to let her speak but Deputy Speaker Dost Muhammad Mazari didn’t give her the floor, instead giving it to minister for food Samiullah Chaudhry.

Former minister and now an MPA from Sahiwal Malik Nadeem Kamran said that law minister shouldn’t oppose the motion as the whole population of Punjab is eagerly looking at this august House demanding its reaction. “Whenever our colleague is died, we adjourn the session of this House in grief and those people also belong to us who lost their lives in Sahiwal,” said Kamran. The House also recited the Fateha and condolence prayers for the departed souls of Sahiwal incident.

The Parliamentary leader of PPP Syed Hassan Murtaza rejected the JIT as he said that these JIT people are the same who killed the innocents in Sahiwal and therefore the judicial commission should be constituted to probe the tragedy. “The FIR should be registered against the CM Punjab and Prime Minister over the incident and both of them were supposed to resign as the PTI used to do such demands when these people were in the opposition,” Murtaza said.

Leader of the opposition Hamza Shehbaz also endorsed the demand of PPP’s leader while demanding the constitution of judicial commission and said that the facts should be brought to the public. There was earlier a practice here that resignations were demanded over minor issues but I assure you that we’ll not do politics over the issue as it is the issue of humanity only, said Hamza. He also demanded public execution for the culprits of Sahiwal tragedy. Responding the opposition leader, law minister said that we have to establish new democratic traditions and therefore opposition leader should sit with leader of the House over the JIT report that would also be brought in the house. The law minister said that the judicial commission will be constituted if the House rejects the JIT report and demands the commission.

The debate was diverted to the incident of Model Town tragedy when minister for industries Mian Aslam Iqbal said that a guillotine should be established in Model Town (residence of Shehbaz Sharif) in the light of speech of opposition leader Hamza Shehbaz who demanded public execution for the culprits of Sahiwal tragedy. “The assembly session was in progress when the Model Town tragedy took place and we kept insisting to stop the operation there at the residence of Tahir-ul-Qadri but the then law minister Rana Sanaullah was mocking us,” said Iqbal.

Former leader of the opposition and now minister for Housing Mian Mehmmod ur Rasheed also lashed at PML-N while saying that he was demanding the immediate closure of Model Town operation in 2014 when he was the opposition leader. “The then law minister Rana Sanaullah was claiming at that time that they will not allow a state within a state and he was also saying that there were terrorists at the secretariat of Minhaj-ul-Quran in Model Town,” said Rasheed. The former rulers will have to pay price for that tragedy who killed 14 innocent people, he added.

Malik Ahmed Khan of PML-N said that a comparative analysis of Model Town incident and Sahiwal tragedy was presented today in the House from the treasury benches as there is not any match at all between the two incidents. He was of the view that the Model Town incident happened in a result of a standoff between the police and protesters. It is worth mentioning here that CM Usman Buzdar didn’t take the House in confidence over the issue despite the fact that he was there in the assembly secretariat and didn’t bother to even come to the house. The quorum was also collapsed and government didn’t take up the legislative business despite the presence of CM Buzdar in the assembly secretariat.

The session was later adjourned for Tuesday morning due to the lack of quorum.

Published in Daily Times, January 22^nd 2019.