Siraj Durrani says perhaps his captors have come from India

KARACHI: The imprisoned Sindh Assembly Speaker, Agha Siraj Khan Durrani, has said that he has got the impression that perhaps his captors too have come from India after they complained to the court that he was unduly prolonging session of the assembly when in fact the house discussed the resolution on the issue of the very survival of Pakistan.

The Sindh Assembly speaker, currently under arrest by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), informed this to the concerned lawmakers while chairing the session of the house on Friday.

A legislator of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party Ghulam Qadir Chandio, on a point of order during the session, asked about the well-being of the speaker.The speaker expressed his astonishment that his captors had complained in the court in the present day that he had been unduly prolonging the session of the Sindh Assembly for the previous three days. “The way they made this complaint today, I had to think that perhaps they had also come from India,” he said. He said that his captors had complained to the court that they had to sit in the assembly building till late evening to take back the speaker from there as the assembly session remained in progress.

He said that he was not supposed to debar the concerned lawmakers to speak in the house when it was the question of the very survival of Pakistan.The speaker said that the house consecutively for three days had held discussion on the resolution to condemn the Indian aggression and he was not supposed to interrupt the lawmakers when they had been speaking in the house on such a sensitive issue. He reminded in the house that it was a joint resolution of the treasury and opposition benches against the Indian aggression on which the house had held discussion for the three consecutive days. “In such a situation, I couldn’t ask the lawmakers that their time is over as they could not speak any more on the question of Pakistan,” he said.

“Now you can understand well what sort of thinking they have,” said the speaker about his captors.The Speaker also said that he was being subjected to subhuman conditions at the place of his detention (at the hands of the NAB) where even he was being deprived of his sleep. “You people are being kept in jail where the conditions have been a lot different,” said the speaker while pointing his remarks towards the two imprisoned lawmakers in the house — Sharjeel Memon of PPP and Javed Hanif of MQM Pakistan — who attend the session as they come from the prison.

The speaker said that the cellar in which he was being kept for imprisonment had no window or any other provision for ventilation. “We are alive there merely on basis of fans,” he said. He said that tubelights were present in the cellar in such a position that the detainee there was not able to sleep owing to illumination directly coming to his eyes. He said that cellars, which were being used for detention (at the NAB’s place), were constructed in such a manner that they violated the human rights (of the detainees). He expressed his firm resolve to face the charges and cases against him in accordance with the law no matter how much they were baseless and frivolous. The Sindh Assembly speaker said that it was the clear-cut teachings of his party strictly barring him from going against the law and he had to abide by the law.

The speaker complained that his captors (the NAB) had no remorse or even had the realisation of the grave excess they had committed by unduly raiding his residence after arresting him.He said that he could say many more things about his captors or about the conditions of his captivity but would not do so in order to face the charges against him as per the law.

Durrani said that it was not the first time he was being confined to such cellars as he had spent his time at such places earlier too. He said that founder of his party Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had also spent his time in such cellars and later he had silently walked towards the gallows. “I’m just a worker of such a party,” he said.

He thanked the concerned lawmakers for asking about his well-being and health during the time of his confinement. The speaker appreciated the fact that the parliamentary parties’ delegations both from the opposition and treasury benches in the house had separately met him to inquire about his health and well-being after his arrest.

He expressed his remorse that certain TV news channels had been airing false and baseless reports about him without even checking or verifying the authenticity of the claims in such news.