PTI Senator Ejaz Chaudhry failed to appear in Tuesday’s Senate session despite production orders issued by Chairman Yousaf Raza Gillani a day earlier.
This was not the first production order issued for the senator, who is imprisoned at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail. In March last year, he was due to be produced in the Senate but was unable to attend the session.
In November of last year, Chaudhry was among 21 other PTI figures formally indicted by a Lahore Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in cases related to the countrywide riots on May 9, 2023, registered at the Racecourse and Sarwar Road police stations.
“We are greatly saddened as colleagues of a senator of this house who has been incarcerated for the last 1.5 years in a Lahore jail,” Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Shibli Faraz said.
Opposition lawmakers could be seen carrying placards with pictures of the missing senator during the senate proceedings.
Faraz thanked the speaker for issuing the production order for Chaudhry, adding, “Despite that, he is not among us because the government of Punjab does not want him to come here and talk.”
The PTI leader said that it was Chaudhry’s legal, constitutional, and democratic right to attend the Senate session, terming the Punjab government’s explanation of security issues obstructing his production in the Senate as “regrettable”.
He said that the house belonged to everyone, adding that “our custodian’s letter was not given importance.”
He called upon his fellow senators to “stand as one” to protest the “lack of respect shown to the parliament.”
Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar acknowledged that the authorities were duty-bound to implement the production orders for Chaudry.
