Comments being made about politicians, MPs: Mashhadi

ISLAMABAD: Outgoing MQM parliamentary leader in the Senate Col (R) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi Wednesday said it hurts when on issues like the missing persons and political engineering one hears about involvement of the establishment.

Making his farewell speech in the House, the veteran lawmaker said that when old soldiers like him, who had been completely away from politics during service, hear about such involvement, it really hurts them. The MQM senator said he heard that judges don’t speak but their judgements do, but unfortunately here, judgements are silent, but judges speak, and such things were not good for the future of Pakistan.“When we grew up, when hear and read about judges quoting Aristotle, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Confucius, but now it is very sad that Mario Puzo is quoted, who penned Godfather novel,” he maintained.

Senator Mashhadi emphasised that there was a need to pay attention to what comments were being made about the politicians, parliamentarians and the Parliament itself. He regretted that while the Parliament was supreme but when it would and all and sundry give up powers, then the most powerful would gain more power. “When we don’t want to empower ourselves and look for powers to appoint an SHO and make someone a councillor then there is a need to improve our own standards,” he contended. “It happens when the executive of 200 million people becomes weak itself and can’t remove 200 people and approaches the Army to talk to them and remove them,” he lamented.

The ANP Senator Ilyas Ahmad Bilour, who remained member of the House for 20 years and was also retiring, mostly talked on Pakistan’s political history and hit the elite class (Ashrafia) hard and blamed them for the fall of Dhaka.

He maintained that neither Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, nor Punjab or President General Yahya were behind break-up of Pakistan, but only the elite class, and alleged that the Justice Munir judgement had set the first step towards the fall of Dhaka. He also claimed how late Khan Wali Khan was brought back from London to meet Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and play his role in settlement of the crisis, who went to Dhaka and was taken to Sh Mujib’s residence on his vehicle, as the situation did not allow him to use any other vehicle. But then unfortunately, he noted, dramatic things happened, which led to dismemberment of Pakistan. “Mujib told Khan Wali Khan that they had made up their mind to resolve the crisis through bullets and he (Wali) tried to resist it and wanted reversal of this decision,” the politician from Peshawar recalled. Ilyas Bilour also referred to recovery of arms from the Iraqi embassy by then Major Salahuddin Tirmizi and the National Awami Party was blamed for it. He blamed the elite for forcing Bhutto to send packing two provincial elected governments and arrest of 5,000 political workers.

Wali Khan, he pointed out, had clearly stated in Peshawar in 1982 that the fire ignited in Afghanistan would one day cross the Attock bridge and reach across Pakistan and it happened. The ANP senator wished that the Panama tangle should have been resolved in the Parliament, but some parties, including the PML-N, did not agree to it. He warned against the roll-back of the 18th Amendment, which gave the provinces their rights. “Rolling back of the amendment will mean roll back of Pakistan and the provinces will take their due rights,” he emphasised. Others, who spoke, included Senator Sehar Kamran, Saeedul Hasan Mandokhel, Kamil Ali Agha, Khalida Parveen, Saleh Shah and Maulana Tanvirul Haq Thanvi.