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Tuesday, November 03, 2009
By Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: Politicians across the benches established a shameful fact in the National Assembly on Monday that their petty political interests were supreme over the killings in the Rawalpindi blast as they all remained mum over it.
Not a single voice was heard in the Lower House about the brutal killing of 34 poor people amid shouting matches and fiery speeches of the leaders of all the parliamentary parties, who were frantically busy either in criticising or defending the NRO to please their political masters.
The electronic media also instead of focusing on this human tragedy, turned the NRO debate into a big political crisis of the country, thus conveniently turning the attention of the nation from the tragedy.
The politicians sent a loud message to the frightened nation, besieged at the hands of terrorists, that now the killing of 34 citizens was simply a part of our daily life and it did not merit any discussion or taking the top guns of the Interior Ministry, law enforcement agencies to the task for their utter failure to control the situation.
From Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to opposition leader Ch Nisar Ali Khan and PML-Q leader Pervaiz Elahi, all conveniently preferred to ignore this human tragedy in their speeches after the NRO debate turned ugly and one was instantly reminded of the intriguing decade of the 90s, which had finally led to the fall of the governments.
This tragic lack of interest among the parliamentarians greatly benefited Interior Minister Rehman Malik to roam freely in the hall, after he felt no one was going to blast him for these frequent blasts. Some observers believed this was the duty of Ch Nisar to raise a hue and cry over this tragedy. But Ch Nisar had the NRO on his mind. He did not mention it; perhaps he knew that this was also the failure of the Shahbaz Sharif-led Punjab government. Even, Nawaz Sharif did not focus on terrorism in his press conference, as he was busy in telling us how to help the parliamentarians to save their faces from being blackened.
When Pervaiz Elahi stood up amid huge chaos in the House, once again it was expected he would take on the government, but he too preferred to lash out at the Musharraf-made NRO, and, in the process, he became a laughing stock for right reasons. PM Gilani also played his old trick, as he started beating the drums of the NRO by repeating his now boring sloganeering of “taking everyone on board about every issue” under the sky as he was a consensus PM.
Even, the MPs frightened at the thought of fall of government, also found refuge in the NRO debate and no one was seen interested in the plight of those families who lost their bread winners in the blast, or how to rehabilitate them. MQM leader Altaf Hussain too was seen ignoring this human tragedy. The MQM delegation also chose the same day to convey their reservations over the NRO to Rehman Malik.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
