Terrorists have 'paralysed' govt: opposition tells NA
10 June, 2014
ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties in the National Assembly on Monday lashed out at the government, saying it had been "paralysed" by the terrorists who attacked the Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, and Shia pilgrims in Taftan, Balochistan.
Monday's session of the assembly, which was to resume the debate on the federal budget, turned its focus on the latest spate of terrorism in the country. The opposition seized the opportunity to severely target Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan for his perceived silence against terrorist attacks in the country.
"The prime minister kept on searching for his interior minister throughout the Sunday night when terrorists attacked the Karachi airport, and finally found him on Monday morning," opposition leader Khursheed Shah said sarcastically about the way interior minister remained absent from the scene when the "national security disaster" struck the country.
PTI's deputy parliamentary leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi went one step ahead, saying the government was "paralysed and leaderless" while terming the "silence" of the Interior Ministry after the terrorists targeted the Karachi airport as a criminal negligence.
In the absence of the frontbenchers, Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Barjis Tahir attempted to defend the government, but his speech focused only on creating national unity by putting the blame for the present situation on the previous governments.
Khursheed Shah sounded harsh right from the beginning when he talked extensively on the latest incidents and said that this reflected no one and no place is secure in the country.
Shah also took the interior minister to task and said that he had been missing the whole night and was traced in the morning by the prime minister. He said that the situation has reached the point where even parliament is vulnerable to terrorist attacks, and referred to the Sikh protesters intrusion into its premises, saying it exposed the lack of security for the place. He asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to come to the House and take the nation into confidence and tell it who is responsible for this situation.
Meanwhile, Muttahida Qaumi Movement's Abdul Wasim said that when his party pointed towards concentration of the Taliban in Karachi it was humiliated and made mockery of. "The loss of lives in the airport terrorist attack could have been avoided if our concerns were heeded," he said.
Jamaat-e-Islami' Sahibzada Tariqullah said that the weapons used by the terrorists in the attack on the airport were Indian-made, which proves New Delhi's role in the attack.
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