ISLAMABAD: The federal government has assured the Senate that there is no plan to dislodge the Sindh government.
“The government could have dislodged the Sindh government when there were daily target killings,” State Minister for Interior Baligur Rehman told Senate in response to a call attention notice moved by PPP over the raid conducted by Sindh Rangers on Karachi Building Control Authority.
The notice, which was moved by PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar, said that the Rangers’ raid on the Karachi Building Control Authority and other offices on Monday amounted to taking over the functions of the provincial government, and questioned the motives of the paramilitary force behind its overzealous but illegal drive.
He said that the Rangers had been requisitioned in Karachi under Article 147 of the Constitution and under Section 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) specifically to prevent the commission of terrorist acts and other scheduled offences in notified areas.
“Issues in corruption and governance must be addressed resolutely without fear or favour through legal institutions like NAB, PAC, anti-corruption departments and courts and not by resorting to illegality,” he said.
He said under its mandate duly notified, the Rangers have no business to take cognisance of offences like violation of building codes, developmental projects and issues in governance as these were neither acts of terrorism nor included in the scheduled offences. It also needs to be investigated as to whether there was a method in what appears to be madness, he said.
He said that the raids by masked Rangers personnel on government offices and an earlier public rebuke of the political set-up by the corps commander indicated a pattern and a method.
A plan seems afoot to dislodge the provincial government and let the security dominated apex committee and Rangers take over its functions, he said.
Babar said that everyone salutes the sacrifices of Rangers jawans, but that it could not be permitted to do politics using sacrifices of jawans as the basis.
INP