ISLAMABAD, May 15: The government on Tuesday chose an easy way out of parliamentary protests against the weekend killings in Karachi by proroguing the National Assembly and having the Senate put off until Thursday amid uproars, provoking opposition charges it had lost the nerve to face criticism and the right to rule.

Opposition slogan-chanting, mainly directed at President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Sindh-based government ally Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), had brought both the houses to a standstill before the ruling coalition moves.

The National Assembly sitting in the morning lasted only 15 minutes of angry exchanges and opposition cries of “murderers”, before a presidential order prorogued the 23-day session without a scheduled debate on the Karachi happenings of Saturday linked to an aborted visit there by suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry to address a lawyers’ convention.

The Senate, which began its present session on May 9, met for just 10 minutes in the evening, marked by a hard-hitting speech by opposition leader Raza Rabbani mainly blaming President Musharraf and his policies and slogan-chanting he led before Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro adjourned the house until 5pm on Thursday.

Mr Rabbani described shoot-on-sight orders given to Rangers in Karachi as unjustified and contrary to law and said even Tuesday’s deadly bomb blast in Peshawar city was a consequence of the government’s “wrong policies” as were the violence in Balochistan and tribal areas.

Both the prorogation of the National Assembly and the adjournment of the Senate meant some respite for the government from some of the severest criticism it has to face over Karachi’s massacre, particularly when a three-day Islamic conference of foreign ministers began in Islamabad.All opposition members stood up from their seats to shout slogans at the start of the proceedings while Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan repeated his assurance of Monday to encourage a frank debate to pinpoint the guilty and so that safeguards for the future could be taken.

The slogan-chanting stopped briefly to allow a speech by Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) deputy parliamentary leader Liaquat Baluch, who said President Musharraf, the MQM and London-based MQM leader Altaf Hussain were responsible to “bathe Karachi in blood” under a planned move and called for MQM’s removal from the government.

Some MQM members present in the house also stood up to challenge opposition slogans but found themselves drowned out, with no verbal support from other ruling coalition members.

However, an apparently exasperated Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had a word of encouragement for the MQM when he intervened in the opposition slogan-chanting to say that those with a guilty conscience would call others guilty and advised the chair to better prorogue the house if the opposition continued its stance.

PML member Zaheer Abbas Khokhar, who was chairing the sitting in the absence of Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain, immediately read out the prorogation order that he already had with him.

Two PPP women members --- Naheed Khan and Fauzia Wahab ---- rushed to the treasury benches shouting anti-MQM slogans before they were moved away by their party colleagues.

Opposition leader in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman told reporters later that the government had no courage to face opposition criticism and betrayed defeatism.

“It has lost the ability to govern,” he said while objecting to the prorogation of the lower house and added: “The rulers are incapable to run the government.”

Other spokespersons of opposition parties said their parliamentary groups were consulting among themselves to requisition a fresh session of the National Assembly to discuss the Karachi killings, which they blamed on the MQM and what they called the backing from President Musharraf and the federal government.

They said the opposition parties had planned to speak in the debate after some slogan-chanting but the government had planned to ignore the opposition adjournment motions.

PPP information secretary and MNA Sherry Rehman accused the MQM and the federal government of Karachi “barbarism” for which she demanded a high-level judicial probe.

Another PPP member, Nabeel Gabol from Karachi, accused the paramilitary Rangers for shooting dead three innocent people in his constituency and said a civil war had begun in the city “leaving no way for us but to defend ourselves”.

PML-N member Saad Rafiq said the Karachi massacre would prove to be “Gen Musharraf’s last conspiracy” while his party colleague Khwaja Mohammad Asif said he thought the opposition should resign from the assemblies where “people with blood on their hands” were also sitting.

DEFECTION: At the start of the Senate sitting, Balochistan National Party (Awami) Senator Israrullah Zheri announced his dissociation from the ruling coalition and asked the chairman to allot him a seat on independent benches.