PTI MNA Iqbal Afridi objected to the woman’s attire during the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee. Following this panel’s chairman Muhammad Idress apologized for the matter.
He objected to the dressing of a high official of the K Electric who attended the meeting of the committee at the Parliament House. Iqbal Afridi said that he raised the issue after the official had briefed the panel and left the meeting room.
The agenda of the meeting was the “comprehensive report/implementation status” of previous recommendations about issues raised by MNAs Afridi and Syed Rafiullah “regarding the disconnection overbilling and unannounced load-shedding of electricity in Karachi and erstwhile Fata”.
Afridi is not a member of the standing committee but was attending the meeting who had raised the matter of load shedding. While talking to the panel, he terms the attire of the KE official as objectionable, adding that, she should not have worn that dress for the meeting.
The PTI lawmaker also said that “standard operating procedures (SOPs) should be devised for women’s clothing”. When countered for his remarks. He asserted that venue was the NA’s standing committee which is attended by several people.
“If people come [to gatherings] in such a manner in a respectable society, what will children say?” he asked, adding that the public “learned” from watching them.
“There should not be such democracy here that ruins a society,” Afridi insisted. He went on to claim that the “manner in which the other woman came risks ruining the system or the society”. “In my opinion, such people showing up in society is not right.”
Later on, Muhammad Idress apologized for the incident. He said that no one has the right to object to woman’s dressing as it is an individual choice.
Read more: COAS Asim Munir honors Olympian Arshad Nadeem
He said that it was “inappropriate” to object to it, adding: “What he did would have happened under some misunderstanding.
“It does not happen on our forum that someone disrespects or says something like this […] Even if it did happen, then I apologise,” the committee chief said.