Woman MPA suspended
LAHORE, June 21: Punjab Assembly Speaker Afzal Sahi on Thursday suspended a woman treasury member, Zeenat Khan, for three days for showing `disorderly behaviour’, asking her to leave the House immediately.
As the House was aggressively discussing Salman Rushdie issue and Benazir Bhutto’s statement, MPA Zeenat Khan reached the opposition benches from behind and tried to attack opposition members, including Azma Bukhari.
Retaliating, opposition’s woman MPAs started pushing Zeenat Khan, and shouted that she should be taken away. On this, treasury women came to rescue Zeenat Khan.
The speaker said that he would not allow any treasury member to go to opposition benches and vice versa. “From now onwards, if any member violated this House’s rules of business, I will use my powers to restore order,” he said.
The opposition members demanded that the speaker should take action immediately as he had himself witnessed the disorderly behaviour of the treasury MPA. Arshad Bagu said a male treasury MPA had also hit a woman member of the opposition with his pencil.
As Mr Sahi said that he had reserved his ruling on the issue, the opposition members walked out of the House to protest against what they called speaker’s `partial attitude’.
After the Zohar prayer break, treasury’s Amir Sultan Cheema and Rana Qasim Noon, who were asked to convince the opposition members to end their boycott, told the speaker they had brought them back in the house.
The speaker then asked the opposition members whether they would be satisfied with an apology from treasury MPA concerned or seek action against her.
To this, the opposition members unanimously said they wanted speaker’s ruling. Opposition deputy leader Rana Sanaullah, however, asked that when the speaker would give his ruling. He also added that according to the Punjab Assembly’s rules of business, the speaker was required to give his ruling immediately if a member’s behaviour was found to be disorderly in the house.
After discussing the rules of business, the speaker gave his ruling saying that MPA Zeenat Khan should leave the house immediately and stay away from the assembly proceeding for the next three days.
Source: Dawn
Date:6/22/2007
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