ISLAMABAD: Friend and foe alike flayed the government in the Senate on Tuesday for not taking any action against militants, despite continued attacks on security personnel.

Senator Raza Rabbani of the Pakistan People’s Party lashed out at the government’s reported response to recent attacks on police in Charsadda and Peshawar. He said a government representative had claimed that no official action could be taken since no-one had taken responsibility for the attacks.

“The government is looking for a black cat in a dark room,” Mr Rabbani said on the Senate floor, adding that the government did not appear to be serious in the national security policy that it had announced in February amid great fanfare.

Talking to Dawn after the session, Mr Rabbani maintained that, “This shows incompetence on the part of the government that they have to wait for claims from non-state actors rather than being able to investigate the facts themselves”.

Speaking during Zero Hour – a session of the house where senators are at liberty to discuss points of interest irrespective of the day’s agenda – Afrasiab Khattak of the Awami National Party said, “On one hand, there is a ‘dialogue circus’ and on the other hand, our security personnel are being targeted”.

“What kind of talks are these where militants have a free hand to attack law enforcers,” Mr Khattak asked, reminding the government of its promise to take action against militants if they carried out any further attacks on Pakistani soil.

Mohammad Hamza, a senior member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N, joined the opposition in questioning the government’s logic of continuing talks with the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) despite there being no let-up in attacks on police personnel.

The PML-N senator also expressed concerns over the government’s failure to recover the kidnapped sons of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, despite knowing where they were being held in the country’s tribal areas.

ANP’s Haji Adeel said it wasn’t just security personnel who were being killed. “My party’s leaders and workers were also being killed and kidnapped in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” he said.

Opposition members then staged a walkout to express solidarity with the ANP.

Pakistan Muslim League-Q President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain urged the government to come to the defence of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) following the spate of allegations levelled against it over the attack on senior journalist Hamid Mir. He said the ISI was not a military institution and fell under civilian control.

Earlier, during question hour, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told the house that the government did not plan to abandon the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline. Responding to a question raised by former finance minister Saleem Mandviwalla, he said that Pakistan was unable to undertake construction due to international sanctions on Iran.

“There is no proposal to abandon the project. The commercial agreement has a defined procedure for different eventualities, including negotiations between parties, arbitration, penalties, termination, Force Majeure, etc,” he added.

Later, the Senate unanimously passed the Surveying and Mapping Bill 2014 to provide for the constitution and regulation of the Survey of Pakistan. The bill, moved by Minister for Science and Technology Zahid Hamid, had already been passed by the National Assembly on March 31.