Opposition’s protest over street crime deaths mars PA session

Opposition legislators belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) resorted to protest in the Sindh Assembly on Friday, marring the major portion of the proceedings of the new session of the house, against the recurring instances of innocent lives lost in Karachi due to violent incidents of street robberies.

The legislators started a vociferous protest at the outset of the proceedings when the house was about to begin the question hour on the home department to discuss security and law and order issues in the province. They displayed pictures of persons who had lost their lives in the recent incidents of street crime in Karachi.

The opposition leader belonging to MQM-Pakistan, Ali Khurshidi, said the flagrant issue in question didn’t relate to the murder of any single person as this problem had taken the lives of 70 innocent persons in Karachi, who had been murdered by armed street robbers.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, who was present in the house, expressed his displeasure at the way the opposition legislators were protested during the session after leaving their seats.

Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar assured the MPAs that the provincial government was fully cognisant of its responsibilities with regard to law and order, and the provincial police force had been doing its best to prevent the recurrence of crime incidents. He further assured the house that soon there would be improvement in the security situation in the province.

The opposition lawmakers apart from resorting to protest in the house asked stern questions about the deteriorating law and order situation in the city. The opposition leader, while defending the noisy conduct of lawmakers on the opposition benches, said law and order was an important issue for them.

MQM-P lawmaker Quratul Ain lamented highly educated youths in the city were being killed, and even children had become victims of street robberies. She said law-abiding citizens were killed after they were deprived of cash, cell phones and other valuables.

The home minister said such bloody incidents had been highly tragic for him as well. He mentioned that the government had paid financial compensation to the bereaved families of people who had died in such incidents in the past.

He told the house that the aggrieved families were given support by the government to the maximum possible extent. He assured the concerned legislators that the government had been fully discharging its responsibilities in this regard.

Answering a query during the question hour, the home minister said the government had successfully overcome the security issues of extortion of money and target killings in the city. He mentioned that there could never be recurrence of highly tragic incidents like the May 12, 2007 mayhem in Karachi when scores of people had lost their lives in a single day.

While mentioning the achievements of the law-enforcement agencies in restoring law and order in the city, Lanjar declared that he wouldn’t tolerate that policemen were subjected to undue insult.

Speaker Sindh Assembly Syed Awais Qadir Shah once warned of adjourning the session for 20 minutes if order was not restored in the house. Answering other queries during the question hour, the home minister conceded that the judicial system had certain lacunas owing to which accused persons apprehended by police after much hard work escaped punishment.

He told the house that generally the complainant had been missing in criminal cases lodged for street crime incidents, and resultantly the police had no choice but to become a complainant in such cases.

He lamented that eyewitnesses of such incidents didn’t turn up in the courts during the hearing of these cases to provide testimony. He said that in certain instances, eyewitnesses failed to recognise the apprehended accused persons. “Nobody is willing to get involved in the case of anyone else,” he said.

He disclosed that the government would recruit 400 new prosecutors to ensure early adjudication of criminal cases in courts. The MQM-P lawmakers later walked out of the session. The session was adjourned till Monday, June 10.