KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly session on Tuesday was disrupted when scuffles broke out amongst the treasury and opposition lawmakers, dragging one another from shirt-collars, slapping into faces and using abusive language. All this happened on the eve of Senate election.
The brawl that is first of its kind in the provincial assembly’s history, where lawmakers assailed one another like a swirling dust storm making it unclear to recognize who hits whom. Women lawmakers also got hurt in the scuffle, who also tried to intervene and split up the fighting members.
The violent clash was too seriously to spread, leaving some legislators hurt including PTI’s Kareem Bakhsh Gabol with a slit of his shirt and Sindh Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla.
The brawl, which spontaneously broke out when three PTI’s legislators, suspected to be defected to the ruling PPP, were welcomed by treasury members with throbbing desks and shouting ‘Jiye Bhutto’ as they entered the assembly. The other two PTI suspected deviators are Shaharyar Shar and Aslam Abro.
The PTI members, tried to take Kareem Gabol, one of the three suspected defected legislators, from the house, whom the ruling PPP lawmakers immediately intercepted. Thus, Kareem got trapped between the PPP and PTI lawmakers, as every of them dragging him towards themselves, resulting in a fistfight with a confrontation.
Deputy Speaker Rehana Leghari, who was chairing the session, immediately put off the house until Thursday seeing the environment turning sour and tense. Soon after, the legislators took on one another and begun with the historic fistfight. The assembly was presenting a look of a street fight between rival groups and a complete failure.
Latter, PTI’s legislators also guarded the two other defected members out of the assembly hall in small groups.
Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah told the reporters that his party believed in democracy and denied the PTI’s allegations of kidnapping their members and purchase-selling of votes for Senate election, falling today.
“The unpleasant incident occurred on the assembly floor which should not have happened,” he said, calling the fistfight a ‘drama’. He said it is the discretion of every lawmaker to vote willingly. He said Kareem Gabol, Shaharyar Shar and Aslam Abro had showed their reservations to their party regarding Senate election nominations in video messages.
The minister said Kareem was let go of the house when he himself asked the PPP legislators, who were disengaging him from the PTI’s members grip, he wanted to go with his party lawmakers. He said the PPP has no role in creating the brawl and shrugged off the responsibility.
Mukesh Kumar Chawla alleged the PTI members of threatening its legislator, which he and other PPP lawmakers tried to stop that left him with an injured leg while trying to disengage him [Kareem], he told the newsmen.
Opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, PTI’s Haleem Adil Shaikh accused the Election Commission of Pakistan of the ‘partiality’ saying that “the election commission biased from [by-elections of] Daska to Malir”. He said Senate election will have to be made free, fair and transparent in Sindh.
Speaker Sindh Assembly Aga Siraj Khan Durrani ordered an inquiry into the brawl took place between the PTI and PPP members on the house floor on Tuesday. According to the Secretary Sindh Assembly G M Umar Farooq Buriro, the Speaker has ordered him to carry out an inquiry into the unpleasant incident in the assembly and submit him a report.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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