Hindu MPA-elect in Pak fails to take oath for second time
Peshawar, Apr 16 : A Hindu Member of the Provincial Assembly-elect, who is facing trial in the murder case of a Sikh lawmaker, was today prevented from taking oath for the second time by members of his own party in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in Pakistan.
Baldev Kumar of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was invited by the chair to take oath. However, lawmakers from his party immediately stood up and pointed towards lack of quorum.
The assembly session with Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MPA Mehmud Jan in the chair had to be prorogued within seven minutes of proceedings after quorum was deliberately pointed out by the ruling party lawmaker Fazal Elahi Khan.
Only 10 MPAs were in the house when the quorum was pointed out as against 31 required for the session to continue. The house bells were kept ringing for three times to complete the quorum but in vain.
Speaker Asad Qaiser had earlier issued the production order of Kumar in the assembly session on the directives of Peshawar High Court.
On February 26, Kumar was stopped by the treasury and opposition members in the assembly from taking oath as there was total rumpus inside the house when he was spotted by the MPAs in the assembly hall.
Even, some of the members threw shoes at Kumar which landed close to him while some other members of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf threw copies of the assembly agenda towards him to express their anger for allegedly killing their colleague Sardar Soran Singh.
Singh, a Sikh lawmaker from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and the special assistant to the chief minister, was shot dead in April 2016 in Buner district. He was elected to the provincial assembly on a minority seat.
Kumar is an accused in Singh’s murder case and is facing a trial by an anti-terrorism court in Peshawar.
The accused was on the second spot on the priority list of the ruling party for the minority reserved seats.
