MQM plays opposition, leads commotion

By Hasan Mansoor

KARACHI: Behaving like outraged members of an opposition party, MPAs belonging to the ruling Muttahida Qaumi Movement on Tuesday led the commotion for ninety minutes till the Sindh Assembly remained in session.

They hurled accusations against the opposition Pakistan People’s Party and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.

The galleries were able to witness only a few instances during the brief session when they clearly heard the exact words uttered by the members. Most of the statements remained inaudible.

Speaker Muzaffar Hussain Shah, who left the Governor’s House after Dr Ishratul Ibad concluded his 10-day tour and returned to Karachi early Tuesday morning, adopted his typical tactic of falling silent. This he does whenever the house becomes unruly, and his fingers were tapping the table till his patience gave out and he adjourned the house at 1.15pm, 15 minutes before the scheduled time.

After the house resumed its proceedings, Mr Shah adjourned it again for Wednesday, saying both the treasury and the opposition benches were agreed on the adjournment.

Earlier, when the house resumed the day’s proceedings, the PML’s Imtiaz Shaikh rose on a point of order and denied reports published in some newspapers that he had been engaged in a fight with the opposition leader Nisar Ahmed Khuhro during Monday’s session.

“Nisar is like my brother,” he said. Mr Khuhro agreed with him and said the photograph, whose caption mentioned his “fight” with Mr Shaikh, was actually one in which he was showing a controversial news item published in an MQM-backed newspaper against the late Munawwar Suharwardy.

The MQM’s Qamar Mansoor claimed that the PPP’s Rafiq Engineer had threatened MQM members’ life.

He charged that two local councillors belonging to the PPP and an activist of the Shabab-e-Milli, the Jamaat-e-Islami’s youth wing, with killing the MQM’s activist Rashid Qureshi in Gulsitan-e-Jauhar late Monday night. His remarks enraged the opposition, whose members rose in protest.

The MQM’s members were there to counter them. But the party’s senior members, including Syed Sardar Ahmed and Shoaib Bokhari, remained silent, leaving the younger members, including the ladies, do as they pleased.

The members on both sides exchanged accusations and tried their best to prove each other terrorist. Speaker Shah heard all this patiently and then advised the members not to level charges, which spoils the atmosphere of the house.

The MMA’s Kulsoom Nizamani was unhappy at some MQM members’ attacks on bearded people. “It is unfortunate that members belonging to the MQM make a mockery of bearded people,” she said.

The PPP’s Rafiq Engineer denied Mr Mansoor’s allegation against him and said his party did not believe in the politics of threats. Mr Engineer’s words were countered by the rumpus from the MQM’s seats.

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