PA resounds with protest: Sana ‘tried to gag’ opposition over Davis

LAHORE, March 29: Raymond Davis case kept haunting the Punjab Assembly session on Tuesday as the People's Party-led opposition alleged its members were being threatened of 'dire consequences' for raising the issue. Some of the PPP members also staged a sit-in before the podium of Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal, protesting the 'threats' and urging the chair to take action against the accused, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan. After alleging that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and the provincial law minister were on board with regard to release of the CIA operative, the PPP MPAs had to go on the back foot when the treasury started raising slogans against the CIA operative's lawyer, Zahid Bokhari, who happened to be father of a party lawmaker Azma Bokhari. The opposition, it is learnt, was prepared to rap Shahbaz Sharif over the Raymond case, but an "unexpected" counterattack by the treasury forced it to retreat. Shaukat Basra, the PPP deputy parliamentary leader, told the media outside the assembly building that Zahid Bokhari had left the country after receiving life threats. He alleged that Rana Sana also threatened Azma Bokhari that she could be implicated in various cases if she "stressed" on the Raymond issue. In the house, Basra challenged the law minister to face the opposition when Rana Sana quietly left the house. Basra said his party accepted the challenge thrown by Shahbaz Sharif that if proven involved in the release of Raymond, the PML-N government would resign. He regretted that instead of taking the house into confidence on the issue the chief minister chose to give his version in a press conference. It was the Opposition's day when proceedings of the house started over an hour late than its scheduled time of 10am on Monday. Immediately after recitation of the Holy Quran, the Opposition tried to "take over" the proceedings, making it difficult for the speaker to run the house, as PPP members insisted on speaking on "Raymond Davis deal", alleging Shahbaz Sharif and Rana Sana were fully involved in the US national's release process. "The Raymond deal was struck in Raiwind," they alleged, as the house reverberated with a 'sloganeering contest' between the two sides of the political divide. At one stage the Speaker had to point out that some schoolchildren had come to witness the house proceedings so the elected public representatives should behave themselves. He also ordered expunging of controversial and unethical words from the house proceedings record. Amid the deafening noise, the chair asked parliamentary secretary for industries Rana Tajammul to respond to the queries in the Question Hour, making the Opposition to stage a walkout. PPP's Faiza Malik, however, returned to the house to point out lack of quorum. But the treasury managed to assemble enough members, after ringing bells for five minutes, to continue the business. The chair had to intervene time and again to rescue Rana Tajammal, as mostly he was unable to respond to supplementary queries, asking the movers they should put up a fresh (written) question. The parliamentary secretary even failed to name the officer who was probing a postal office fraud in the Food Stamp Scheme of the Punjab government. The war of words between the treasury and the Opposition was still raging when the chair adjourned the proceedings for 30 minutes for Zohr prayer break at 1.15pm. The house met again at 2.55pm only to be immediately adjourned for Wednesday morning, apparently to avert the onslaught over the Raymond issue.