ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Monday lamented the Abbas Town killings, as the treasury and opposition legislators alleged the government lacked the political will to combat terrorism. PML-N’s Syed Zafar Ali Shah and JUI-Fazl’s Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri warned that if the ongoing chain of terrorism was not stopped, the people might feel compelled to approach the UN for protection. Neither the interior minister nor the minister of state for interior was present in the House to face the senators’ wrath, anguish and criticism. The senators called for a probe into the fact that the police and Rangers could not reach the crime scene despite passage of so many hours. The JUI-Fazl and MQM senators staged a walkout to protest terrorism. There was a strong call from the senators that all the political parties and other stake-holders should leave everything aside and focus on how to fight terrorism and openly declare that terrorism was not acceptable to them. The House unanimously adopted a bill for the abolition of all discretionary quotas in the public sector housing schemes: The Abolition of the Discretionary Quotas in Housing Scheme Bill, 2012, passed by the National Assembly, was moved by Muhammad Ishaq Dar. Dar’s another bill, The Regulation of Foreign Contribution Bill, 2013, was referred to the committee concerned and it was given two days by Chairman Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari to present a report on the bill. Through this proposed piece of legislation, the leader of the opposition wants that the law to regulate the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution by NGOs, whether registered or not in Pakistan, is strengthened. The bill will also help regulate acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution to any activity detrimental to the national interest and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. Some senators blamed the engagement ceremony of a PPP activist in Karachi for the law-enforcement agencies’ failure to rush to the scene of tragedy. However, Deputy Chairman Sabir Baloch, who is from the PPP and was chairing the proceedings at that time, clarified he himself was present in the ceremony and no senior police official was seen at the function. “They know everything. Who is doing all this, spilling the blood of innocent Shia Muslims? There are banned outfits, which commit killings and then claim responsibility but nothing is done against them,” retorted Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of MQM on a point of order. He asked if any official of police, Rangers and the administration had been suspended or dismissed for criminal negligence and indifference to the heinous crime against humanity.An informal debate was held on the Karachi tragedy, though Muhammad Hamza had filed an adjournment motion that he was told was being processed. PPP’s Mian Raza Rabbani noted that the Karachi killings could not be seen in isolation and said a chain of events was being unleashed in Pakistan having two faces: sectarian and ethnic, but the aim was one — to destabilize Pakistan. He called for setting priorities with regard to national security and foreign policy and pointed out that acts of terror should be seen in the international and particularly regional context after Pakistan handed the control of Gwadar Port over to a Chinese company and went ahead with the gas pipeline project with Iran. The senator said these two developments were courageous and daring and asserted now there should be no contradiction in the statements and all stake-holders should be on one page to crush terrorism. Rabbani said when big acts of terror happened in the US, Britain and some Muslim countries, they decided collectively to take on it and had been successful in doing so to a great deal. Mushahid Hussain Syed of the PML-Q said that Pakistan was a nuclear state with a huge civilian government setup and with a large army but the terrorists were free to hit whoever, whenever they wanted to. “Terrorists attacked the GHQ, naval and air force installations. We are paying a heavy price for an independent and daring foreign policy,” he noted. About the Karachi blasts, he said there was absolutely no response, no expression of will from the government and alleged it was a total failure. He cautioned that Pakistan faced the biggest threat from within and not from India. He called for taking the bull by the horns and regretted that Pakistan could not thrash out an effective anti-terrorism policy. National Party’s Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo lamented that two months back, they had a detailed debate on the law and order and sectarian killings and then there was no one to wind up the debate. He claimed that on the one hand, Karachi faced terrorism and on the other people had started holding Shariah courts and announcing decisions on matters. “There is no need for them to go to courts or police; I can share information where such personal courts are working,” the senator said. The senator shared worrying information with the Senate that a team of Karachi University met him and complained about non-payment of two months salary. He said the Karachi University and the NED University had curtailed their transport operations due to the financial crunch. He sought the chair’s ruling on this. “It is a matter of grave concern that the law-enforcement agencies did not turn up after the terror blasts and it is also said that this was because an engagement ceremony was being held at that time,” said Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah of the PML-F. He billed the Sunday’s blasts an intelligence failure. MQM’s Farogh Nasim proposed the introduction of local policing not in Karachi, but also across the country. He noted that such an arrangement was successfully working in many places like New York and Chicago. He urged the government to also encourage the city police. During the course of proceedings before the break for the Maghrib prayers, media persons, covering the Senate and the National Assembly, walked out from the respective press galleries against the non-implementation of the government decisions on provision of grant and compensation to the martyred journalists.