MQM announces to oppose NRO

Lahore, Pakistan:- Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Government gets yet another blow as MQM has announced to oppose National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) in the parliament.

MQM Chief Altaf Hussain has suggested President Asif Ali Zardari to face courts instead of brining NRO to the parliament. Hussain suggested that President Zardari should resign in the national interest instead of making NRO a law.

In his message for President Zardari through Minister of State Baba Awan, Hussain conveyed that MQM wouldn’t support NRO in the parliament. “NRO shouldn’t be made a law and PPP shouldn’t bring it in the parliament,” Hussain said in his message for Zardari.

Senior analyst Haroon Rashid said that NRO had no future. “NRO is nowhere. Government is already weak and it shouldn’t increase its problems by brining NRO into the parliament,” Haroon opined.

NRO was issued by the former president of Pakistan General (R) Pervez Musharraf on October 5, 2007. It granted amnesty to politicians, political workers and bureaucrats who were accused of corruption, embezzlement, money-laundering, murder and terrorism between 1st January 1986 and October 12th 1999, the time between two Martial Laws.

The NRO states: “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in sub-section(1), the Federal Government or a Provincial Government may, before the judgment is pronounced by a trial court, withdraw from the prosecution of any person including an absconding accused who is found to be falsely involved for political reasons or through political victimization in any case initiated between 1st day of January, 1986 to 12th day of October, 1999 and upon such withdrawal clause (a) and clause (b) of sub-section (1) shall apply.”

The current Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, suspended this ordinance on October 12, 2007. But he was soon dismissed after Musharraf abrogated the constitution on November 3, 2007. The new Chief Justice, Abdul Hameed Dogar revived the NRO on February 27, 2008.