PA concerned at British MPs biased report against Pakistan

LAHORE: Punjab Assembly on Tuesday expressed strong concerns over a report prepared by a group of British MPs accusing Pakistan of oppressing Qadiyanis under state patronage, and asking London to link aid to Pakistan with the compliance of report’s recommendations.

The House expressed concerns while passing a unanimous resolution on private members day tabled by opposition members Rana Muhammad Iqbal, Malik Ahmad Khan, Samiullah Khan and Abdullah Warraich, demanding the government to ask foreign ministry to immediately work to withdraw this report from British parliament, besides taking up the issues of setting fire to Holy Quran in Sweden and republication of blasphemous caricatures in France with the governments concerned with an ambition to prevent such provocative acts against the Muslim world in future.

The resolution noted that the report titled “Suffocation of the Faithful” prepared by All Parties Parliamentary Group for Ahmadiya was completely prejudiced against Pakistan as it levelled baseless accusation of state suppression of Qadiyanis but never confirmed the allegations with Pakistani High Commission, sought its version or made independent probe. The report recommended that Pakistan should be forced to amend its laws in favour of Qadiyanis, and allow them to preach their faith openly and in educational institutions. The resolution noted that this one sided report was not only a conspiracy against the sovereignty of Pakistan which must be immediately foiled but also a sinister plan against the religious freedom and sentiments of the entire Muslim world comprising nearly two billion people.

The resolution strongly condemned the burning of a Quran by white supremacist group in Sweden and publication of blasphemous caricatures by French magazine in the garb of freedom of expression, warning that such acts were deeply hurtful of Muslims beliefs and inflicting deep pain to their hearts, but the western governments callously ignored this fact.

The House passed two other resolutions seeking government action to protect public interests. PPP Parliamentary leader Hasan Murtaza criticised the PTI chief minister Usman Buzdar for replacing the IG police of the province once again after a very short interval, and said PTI government was dealing with public affairs of the province as if it was their personal property.

Samiullah Khan of PML-N said the number of IG police changed by PTI government within two years for fulfilling the personal interests of the ruling elite was less than those changed during the two complete tenures of the PPP and PML-N.

Law minister Raja Basharat, while defending the chief minister’s move to change IGP, alleged that first PPP should look into the poor state of affairs of Sindh which had become completely unmanageable for the party despite that it had been ruling there for more than ten years.

Speaker Ch Pervaiz Elahi also came to help the chief minister by saying the CM has discretionary powers to change and reshuffle as many administrative officials as he pleased for improving the governance and performance of his government. In the end, the speaker adjourned the session sine die.