Daily Times

The ‘hurriedly called’ session of the National Assembly (NA) was on Friday adjourned due to lack of quorum. The NA Secretariat had at 7pm on Thursday issued session’s meet-up notification, comprising 22 agenda items to be discussed. However, the House could not take up even a single agenda item as the government failed to complete the quorum, which was pointed out by Syed Agha Rafiullah of the PPP.

As the session started, opposition MPs including Agha Rafiullah tried to get floor for speech but Speaker Asad Qaiser, who was in the chair, requested them to sit down and let treasury present a resolution paying glowing tributes to the relentless and valiant struggle of veteran Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Geelani for the right to self-determination of Kashmiri people. The House then unanimously passed the resolution.

The resolution paid tributes to the Geelani who fought for Kashmiri people and stood determined for this cause throughout his life. The resolution expressed deep grief and sorrow over the death of the iconic leader of Kashmir freedom movement. It recognized that the late leader devoted all his life for the freedom movement and always raised voice for the rights of oppressed Kashmiri people and against the Indian atrocities.

The House noted that the famous words of Geelani that ‘Hum Hain Pakistani Aur Pakistan Hamara Hai (We are Pakistani and Pakistan is ours) became a unanimous slogan of the Kashmiri nation. His life is a beacon of light for the Kashmiri youth.

The House also strongly condemned the repressive Indian regime for snatching the body of Syed Ali Geelani from his family, denying him the proper burial as per the Muslim traditions and lodging fake cases against the bereaved family. It demanded of the international community especially the Muslim Ummah to stop India from such cheap tactics.

The House expressed the confidence that the Kashmiri people will succeed in their just struggle for right to self-determination. At the outset, the House also offered fateha for the departed souls of Syed Ali Geelani and Balochistan’s former Chief Minister Sardar Ataullah Mengal.

Soon after the resolution moved by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan, Syed Naveed Qamar endorsed the call of quorum raised by his colleague. He also regretted that for the first time in the history, the House is being run pathetically and ‘undemocratically’.

Some opposition lawmakers also expressed deep concerns over the lockdown of the press gallery during the previous NA session and a hasty meet-up notification of the Lower House. Agha Rafiullah said closing down the gallery is highly condemnable as, he opined, such practices had not been followed even during the dictatorial regimes.

Khawja Saad Rafique, Shazia Marri, Syed Naveed Qamar and some other legislators endorsed the concerns raised by Agha Rafiullah.

Speaker Asad Qaiser, however, said that he had already submitted his stance over the matter. “So, debating this issue again is inappropriate,” he suggested.

Earlier in a statement, the speaker claimed that he had ordered the closure of the press gallery during President Dr Arif Alvi’s address to a joint session of parliament after getting reports about possible clashes between the two journalist groups. He said that he had taken the step in consultation with the Parliamentary Reporters Association (PRA). “I could not afford to see the two groups fight. It would have been an insult to the journalists and the House,” he said, while justifying his act of closing the press gallery for the first time in the country’s parliamentary history.

Interestingly, hours after the speaker’s statement, the PRA categorically refuted the speaker’s claim and challenged him to name the journalists who met him as PRA representatives. Moreover, the PRA also formed a probe committee to determine the real facts of the matter.