ISLAMABAD: Holding the federal and Punjab governments directly responsible for the Murree tragedy, the opposition parties in the National Assembly on Monday rejected the inquiry committee formed by Chief Minister Usman Buzdar and called for constituting a judicial commission to fix responsibility, besides asking Prime Minister Imran Khan to step down over his alleged failure to protect the lives of innocent people at a distance merely two-hour drive from the capital.
The lower house of parliament on the opening day of its new session again saw the members from both sides indulging in a blame game over the Murree incident as Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, while responding to the opposition’s criticism, alleged that the previous rulers did nothing for promotion of tourism and their focus remained on building “palaces” for themselves.When Leader of the Opposition and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in their hard-hitting speeches demanded formation of a judicial commission, lone Awami National Party (ANP) MNA Amir Haider Hoti and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) MNA Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali asked the speaker to form a bipartisan parliamentary committee comprising members from both houses of parliament to investigate the matter. It was on the opposition’s demand that Speaker Asad Qaiser suspended the whole agenda, which also included a debate on the controversial Finance (Supplementary) Bill 2021, generally known as mini-budget, in order to allow the members to have a debate on the last week’s tragic incident in which 23 people, including women and children, lost their lives in their stranded cars during heavy snowfall in and around the picturesque and famous hill station of Murree. …
Source: dawn.com
