ISLAMABAD:
Federal Minister for Law and Justice Azam Nazeer Tarar assured that the issue of missing persons in Balochistan would be dealt with in accordance with the legal framework and relevant laws.
Speaking in the Senate on Wednesday in response to Senator Kamran Murtaza, Tarar announced that the government had recently established a commission to resolve this critical issue.
He stressed that while maintaining law and order was primarily the responsibility of the provincial government, concerns raised would be communicated to the Minister of Interior for prompt action.
The government, he assured, remains fully committed to effectively resolving this human rights issue.
During the session, in response to a question from Haji Hidayat, Tarar addressed the issue of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).
He revealed that in the last five years, a sum of over Rs 14 crore had been embezzled from the scheme, but nearly Rs seven crore had already been recovered. He, however, downplayed the extent of the financial gap, explaining that “in the distribution of 12 or 14 hundred billion rupees, a loss of Rs140 million is not such a big problem.”
He added: “There has been some negligence and slowness in this matter, but compared to such a large amount, the discrepancy of Rs140 million is minimal.”
The session continued with Tarar emphasizing that government institutions should not engage in commercial activities, noting that state-owned enterprises incurring losses were a burden on the national treasury.
Unrest in KP
Later, Senator Aimal Wali Khan took up the topic of the ongoing unrest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, accusing the state of intentionally exacerbating the situation.
He recalled Pakistan’s past support for the Taliban under the rule of former military leaders, attributing much of the current unrest to those historic decisions.
Internet disruptions
The House later also echoed concerns about repeated internet outages.
In response to questions from Senator Muhammad Aslam Abro on the problem, the ministry blamed technical problems.
However, the lawmaker lamented that even though the world has reached the Moon, Pakistan has still failed to resolve the problem within a year.
State Minister Shaza Fatima responded that the PTA had doubled the frequency of exports into the country over the past two years and reported a 33 percent increase in IT exports over the past five months.
PIA
Senator Zeeshan Khanzada sought clarification on the status of the new recruitments while pointing out that no one was willing to take over PIA due to excessive number of employees.
