City Council turns into boxing ring
By M Azeem Samar
Karachi
The City-District Council session on Thursday witnessed unprecedented scenes of unruliness and scuffles, forcing the combined opposition of the city council to stage protest sit-in on main MA Jinnah Road against what its leaders termed unleashing of blatant violence against the opposition council members.
The leaders of opposition groups in city council, after stormy proceedings of the day, declared that in case justice was not provided to them they would continue to boycott every session of the council, stage protest sit-ins and demonstrations on the roads, and publicly rally against the unruly and highly unbecoming behaviour of the treasury benches of the council.
The seriously violent situation at the city council session was caused when a newly-elected member from a union council of Baldia Town and belonging to the opposition bloc was debarred by the convenor of the session from attending his opening session on the grounds that he did not furnish enough credentials to prove his due identification and election to the council.
City Naib-Nazim Nasreen Jalil, who chaired the stormy city council session as the convenor, later informed newsmen that incident in the city council was highly deplorable and undesirable and she tried her best to maintain order and discipline in the session.
She said that the situation during the session had become highly vitiated and charged when the opposition leaders persisted with their demanded regarding presence of the newly-elected council member despite his failure to furnish the official notification of his election.
She said it was her due privilege that she would be presented with the official election commission’s notification of the newly-elected member of the council showing his qualification and election to attend the city council’s meetings. As the newly-elected member did not furnish his election papers, she, while observing her due privilege ordered the sergeant-at-arms of the council to debar him from the session.
However, the council’s opposition leaders said at a separate press conference that there was no reason and justification at all for subjecting their members, including the ladies, to manhandling and thrashing by the treasury benches.
They said the city Naib-Nazim could have peacefully and amicably resolved the controversy over the presence of new member by adjourning the session for a brief period.
They said that their leaders Saeed Ghani, Rafique Ahmed, Ramzan Awan, Yousuf Naz and several other members including women were subjected to blatant drubbing and severe manhandling by treasury members of the council belonging to Haq Parast group. They said that leaders of the Haq Parast themselves demonstrated their involvement in the ugly incident inside the council hall.
They said that newly-elected member of the council, Haji Yaqoob, from Union Council No 6 of Baldia Town, who had been unlawfully disallowed to attend his first session was also subjected to serious thrashing by the Haq Parast members. They said that Haji Yaqoob, after being duly elected from the Baldia Town and had even taking oath of his office, should be given his due privilege to attend the session and there was no justification for the highly biased conduct of the session’s convenor.
Shaikh Mahboob, an opposition member of the council who also claimed that he was too subjected to serious manhandling by the treasury members and said the city Naib-Nazim had displayed her unabashedly biased attitude during the unruly session.
The opposition leaders Rafique Ahmed and Saeed Ghani said there was no rule and precedent whereby a newly-elected member had to present his notification of election to convenor of the session and as such after duly getting elected and taking oath of office, Haji Yaqoob should have been allowed his privilege to attend the council session.
The witnesses and observers who viewed the stormy and unruly proceedings of the session also widely corroborated the allegations of opposition leaders that members of the treasury benches used seriously violent and undemocratic means to ensure ejection of the newly-elected member from the council’s hall.
In the meanwhile, the city council session, which was being conduced minus the opposition members, passed a resolution against the unjust and uncalled for attitude of the opposition leaders and members of the House for not honouring and recognising the rulings and privileges of the council’s convenor.
The resolution presented by leaders of Haq Parast group Masood Mahmood and Asif Siddiqui also severely denounced use of unparliamentary and foul language by the opposition leaders against convenor of the session.
City Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil, however, later informed newsmen that she would try means of mediation and reconciliation with the leaders of opposition in order to resolve the controversy and also to ensure peaceful, smooth, and normalised conduct of the council sessions in future.