–PTI’s Murad Saeed accuses PTM leaders of abusing parliament and lawmakers
ISLAMABAD: Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) leader and North Waziristan lawmaker Mohsin Dawar on Thursday called for the supremacy of constitution and cautioned that the ‘project’ of declaring everyone traitor will harm the country.
Addressing the National Assembly a day after his release, the lawmaker said the trend of declaring everyone as a “traitor” should be stopped, else there will come a time when the “entire nation, except a few government officers, will be declared traitor”.
Dawar said a “state cannot be run like the way Pakistani state is functioning by crushing dissent”.
The MNA also talked about the arrest of PTM chief Manzoor Pashteen and said that Pashteen was detained two days after Defence Minister Pervez Khattak approached him with an offer to hold a dialogue.
“Who is running the affairs of the country? We are being labelled as traitors,” he said, noting that similar charges were levelled against people like Bacha Khan, Wali Khan, Asfandyar Wali Khan, GM Syed, Attaullah Mengal, Khair Buksh Marri, Fatima Jinnah and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
کل جب مجھے اسلام آباد پریس کلب کے سامنے پولیس پکڑ رہے تھے.تو ایک پولیس اہلکار نعرے لگا رہا تھا.کہ ہندوستان مردہ باد اسلام زندہ باد.یہ ہم کس طرف جارہے ہیں
محسن داوڑ کا قومی اسمبلی میں حطاب pic.twitter.com/P57qFwn4UT
— Rahim Dawar (@RahimDwr) January 30, 2020
However, these charges never stood in the court of law, the MNA said, adding the only person against whom treason charges were proved was former military dictator Pervez Musharraf.
“When he [Musharraf] was convicted the spokesman for an institution questioned the conviction. This is a dangerous thing. Whosoever opposes the Constitution is a traitor.”
Dawar said he was among the 29 people who were arrested from outside the press club while protesting against Pashteen arrest. “The policeman who dragged me and put me in the vehicle was raising slogans of ‘Islam Zindabad’ and ‘Death to India’.
“What kind of mindset is being developed? Now we are being declared disbelievers as well. We were very good Muslims when we were being used in the Afghan jihad,” he said.
The lawmaker noted that workers of the (now ruling) PTI had attacked Parliament House and the PTV offices and even Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Arif Alvi were facing terrorism charges.
“We have not damaged even a single plant during our movement,” he said, referring to PTM demonstrations.
Responding to Dawar, Minister for Communications and Postal Services Murad Saeed claimed that PTM leaders had in a recent speech abused and used “expletives” against the parliament and parliamentarians.
He demanded of the PTM leaders in the house to apologise for the alleged speech because the issues of tribal areas could be discussed. He alleged that the PTM leaders had also opposed the fencing of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which he said was crucial to stop the flow of terrorists from Afghanistan into the country.
The minister questioned why Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who had taken to Twitter to express concern over Pashteen’s arrest, and the Afghan parliament “start issuing statements in favour” of the PTM whenever an incident takes place in Pakistan.
Saeed alleged that Dawar had acknowledged Afghanistan’s support for the PTM and questioned why “action is not being taken against him”.
He said the PTI government had carried out several projects for the welfare and development of the tribal areas and called upon the PTM leaders to “play your part in this journey of progress”.
Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri adjourned the NA session until 10:30am on Friday.
