Pakistan’s National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq on Tuesday suspended five security officials for four months, days after PTI lawmakers were arrested from inside the Parliament House.
Just after 3 am on Tuesday, plainclothesmen had stormed the Parliament House — disconnecting the power supply and barging into the building’s Services Branch to whisk away at least 11 PTI legislators.
In light of the subsequent outcry by the PTI in the NA, Sadiq had ordered an immediate and complete investigation into the arrests from parliament.
According to an “office order” issued by the NA secretariat today, Sergeant-at-Arms (BPS-20) Muhammad Ishfaq Ashraf was suspended “with immediate effect for 120 days”.
“During the period of his suspension, he will be entitled to draw pay and allowances as admissible under the applicable rules,” the order read.
While not specifying the reason for the move, it said the action was taken under rule 5(1) (suspension and leave) of the Civil Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 2020.
Under the said rule, the appointing authority “may place any civil servant under suspension or send him on leave, against whom proceedings are proposed to be initiated for an initial period” of 120 days at one time.
In a separate notice, the suspension orders for Security Assistant Waqas Ahmed (grade-14 official) as well as three junior security assistants (grade-9 officials) — namely Obaidullah, Muhammad Waheed Safdar and Muhammad Haroon — were issued.
The four officials were also placed under suspension for 120 days and “entitled to draw pay and allowances as admissible under the applicable rules”.
On Tuesday, declaring that he would lodge a first information report (FIR), if need be, the NA speaker had sought footage from all entry gates of the Parliament House for evidence-based action.
Sadiq also held deliberations with parliamentary leaders and members of the lower house, with Ali Muhammad Khan and Shandana Gulzar of the PTI and PML-N’s Rana Sanaullah among those present during the meeting.
During the meeting, he said there would be no compromise on the dignity and prestige of parliament. It was decided to formulate some rules of the game to avoid the recurrence of such incidents in the future.
Later, the speaker also summoned Islamabad’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi to his chamber to get details of the arrests and ordered him to produce the detained MNAs in parliament.
