{"id":36865,"date":"2026-01-20T12:04:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:04:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=36865"},"modified":"2026-01-20T12:04:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:04:43","slug":"gul-plaza-tragedy-triggers-governance-debate-in-national-assembly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=36865","title":{"rendered":"Gul Plaza tragedy triggers governance debate in National Assembly"},"content":{"rendered":"
The fire in Karachi\u2019s Gul Plaza dominated debate in the National Assembly on Tuesday, with MQM-P leader Farooq Sattar describing the blaze as a \u201cnational tragedy\u201d and accusing the Sindh government and city authorities of negligence and a delayed response.<\/p>\n

He said Karachi\u2019s residents had the right to question both the provincial and federal governments over where the city stood in their list of priorities.<\/p>\n

The fire that broke out late on Saturday night at Gul Plaza has killed at least 28 people, while dozens still remain unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

Tempers flared in the House as MQM-P members tore up agenda papers and demanded that routine business be suspended to focus solely on the Karachi tragedy. Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar later moved a motion to defer the remaining agenda, which was approved by Deputy Speaker\u00a0Ghulam Mustafa Shah.<\/p>\n

Sattar said decades of neglect had left Karachi critically short of firefighting resources, arguing that the city was undercounted, underrepresented and underfunded. Paying tribute to firefighter Furqan Ali, who died while battling the blaze, he said accountability was unavoidable and that those responsible must seek forgiveness from the public. He renewed calls for stronger local governments, saying a city the size of Karachi could not be run by a chief minister alone.<\/p>\n

PPP leader Shehla Raza rejected MQM-P\u2019s criticism, saying it was not necessary for ministers to immediately visit incident sites and that the priority should be effective emergency management. She outlined the official response to the fire, acknowledging delays caused by traffic congestion, and insisted that Sindh had a functioning local government system.<\/p>\n

Later, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif echoed calls for empowered local governments, saying it was \u201chumanly impossible\u201d to manage Karachi under the current administrative structure.<\/p>\n

Read: Gul Plaza fire toll rises to 28 as DNA testing begins to identify victims<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not blaming individuals, I am blaming the system,\u201d he said, arguing that the concentration of authority in provincial capitals had weakened governance.<\/p>\n

He said the spirit of the 18th Amendment had yet to be realised, as power had not been meaningfully devolved to the grassroots level. True public empowerment, he said, required a strong and autonomous local government system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is no empowered local government, there will be no effective fire brigade, no timely emergency response and no accountability at the neighbourhood level,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Calling the Gul Plaza fire a wake-up call, Asif urged parliament to reflect seriously and pursue constitutional reforms to strengthen local governments.<\/p>\n

MQM-P lawmaker Wasim Hussain, responding to remarks by PPP\u2019s Abdul Qadir Patel, accused political rivals of past complicity in Karachi\u2019s problems, including developments linked to Gul Plaza. Patel rejected the allegations, saying the Sindh government was committed to stabilising the city and supporting those affected by the fire.<\/p>\n

The debate had opened with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf lawmaker Shehryar Afridi congratulating Mahmood Khan Achakzai on becoming opposition leader, calling it an honour for Balochistan and the country. He questioned coordination between provincial and federal disaster authorities in the wake of the Karachi fire, while criticising the use of the term \u201cinternally displaced persons\u201d for people affected by military operations in the merged districts, saying forced displacement undermined human dignity.<\/p>\n

Read more: MWM chief Raja Nasir Abbas appointed Senate opposition leader<\/p>\n

Afridi alleged that tribal areas had been used to draw funds without the delivery of basic services and called for broader jirga consultations to take all stakeholders into confidence.<\/p>\n

The House also saw heated exchanges over security operations in Khyber and Waziristan, with PTI and JUI-F lawmakers protesting against displacement during harsh winter conditions. PTI\u2019s Iqbal Afridi warned that a failure to provide relief could spark protests, while former speaker Asad Qaiser accused the federal government of withholding funds owed to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa under the NFC Award.<\/p>\n

Several bills, including a proposed constitutional amendment and institutional legislation, were referred to standing committees before the session was adjourned until 11am on Wednesday.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fire in Karachi\u2019s Gul Plaza dominated debate in the National Assembly on Tuesday, with MQM-P leader Farooq Sattar describing the blaze as a \u201cnational tragedy\u201d and accusing the Sindh government and city authorities of negligence and a delayed response. He said Karachi\u2019s residents had the right to question both the provincial and federal governments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}