ISLAMABAD: Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed on Friday said it was decided to deploy Rangers and Frontier Constabulary (FC) at Parliament House, MNA Hostels, and Federal Lodges.
“Parliament House, Lodges, and old MNA Hostels are being handed over to Rangers and FC on election day to avoid any untoward incident which earned bad name to the country,” he said while addressing a press conference here. Regretting the yesterday incident took place at the Parliament Lodges, he said no one was booked under terrorism acts. No MNAs were nominated in any FIRs, he said. He said Ansar ul Islam was declared banned outfit on October 24, 2019.
Under the constitution, no one could keep private militia, he said. He said the police carried out search operation after taking permission of the Speaker National Assembly and obtaining search warrant from magistrate, he said. He said five police officials sustained injuries in the incident while 6 police personnel were suspended. Inquiry has been ordered into the incident and was directed to submit findings of the inquiry within 48 hours.
The minister said police personnel remained polite despite using inappropriate language by Senator Kamran Murtaza. No-confidence motion against the Prime Minister was democratic right of the opposition. However, he made it clear that strict action would be taken if anybody tried to take law into their hands. He categorically said that private militia of any party would not be allowed to take law into hand.
The minister said they were ready to provide more security to the opposition members. The opposition parties did not have support of 172 members for the success of no-confidence motion against the PM and now wanted to flee by sabotaging the motion through some sort of rumpus. He said Nawaz Sharif and Zardari were trying to use Maulana Fazlur Rehman for their personnel gains. Both the opposition parties used Fazlur Rehman in the past, he said.
He asked the JUI-F Head to refrain from using the students of seminaries for political purposes. The minister also vowed to take stern action against those who took law into their hands irrespective of their influence. To a question, he said PM Imran Khan has given a sovereign and independent foreign policy and imperialistic forces were trying to damage it. To another query, he said that he had great respect to all Ulemas belonging to various schools of thought.