PTI Senator Ejaz Chaudhry did not appear at Tuesday’s Senate session despite appearance orders issued by President Yousaf Raza Gillani a day earlier.
This was not the first production order issued for the senator, who is imprisoned in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail. In March of last year, he was to be presented in the Senate but was unable to attend the session.
In November last year, Chaudhry was among 21 other PTI figures indicted by an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore in cases related to the countrywide riots of May 9, 2023, registered at Racecourse police stations. and Sarwar Road.
“We are very sad as colleagues of a senator of this house who has been imprisoned for the last year and a half in a Lahore jail,” said Senate opposition leader Shibli Faraz.
Opposition lawmakers could be seen carrying signs with photographs of the missing senator during Senate proceedings.
Faraz thanked the speaker for issuing the production order for Chaudhry and added, “Despite that, he is not among us because the Punjab government does not want him to come here and speak.”
The PTI leader said Chaudhry had the legal, constitutional and democratic right to attend the Senate session and termed the Punjab government’s explanation of the security issues obstructing his presentation in the Senate as “regrettable”.
He said that the house belonged to everyone and added that “the letter from our custodian was not given importance.”
He called on his fellow senators to “unite” to protest the “lack of respect shown to parliament.”
