Senate committee asks ministries to send fresh report. PHOTO: FILE
The Pakistan Peoples Party, Muttahida Quami Movement and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl on Tuesday opposed the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Bill, 2013, once again in a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior Affairs and Narcotics. The parties requested further changes to the draft bill.
In January this year the National Assembly cleared the bill as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz enjoys majority in the lower house of parliament. The bill was subsequently tabled in the Senate and referred to the standing committee for further discussion. A majority of parties, including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said they feared law-enforcement agencies would misuse the proposed additional powers granted to them under the amendments.
JUI-F’s Senator Muhammad Talha Mehmood presided over the committee meeting and noted that the government and opposition parties should adopt a middle ground in order to pass the bill and ensure against any manipulation of powers granted under the bill.
Additional Interior Secretary Hamid Ali Khan briefed the committee that under the new amendments, the bill seeks to authorise security agencies to detain civilians legally for 90 days; the existing law, promulgated in 1997, gives agencies 30 days to hold any accused. Additionally, the amendments provide protection through video conferences and the transfer of cases and courts to ‘safer’ places.
However, MQM Senator Col (Retd) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi said that law ‘gives a weapon to security forces to pick up people and keep them for 90 days, to make them confess to crimes they did not commit’.
“This law will be used against the workers of political parties as the police and Rangers are already misusing the existing law,” he claimed. Furthermore, referring to the ongoing peace talks between the government and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Mashhadi said, “It is surprising that you are negotiating with certain elements while enacting callous laws to be used against innocent Pakistanis.”
He added that it should be mandatory to produce any accused person before a magistrate within 24 hours. The senator referred to the recent shooting of a man, Sarfraz Shah, in Karachi by a Rangers official, during an argument between Shah and his wife, asking, “Is this the use of the law?”
Meanwhile, PPP Senator Sardar Ali Khan said, “I don’t think this law is going in the right direction – it will be used in Karachi and it seems this is a Karachi-specific law.”
Senator Talha Mehmood said there were no objections to the law but instead requests to set effective mechanisms in place to check any misuse of the law. State Minister for Interior Affairs Baligh-ur-Rehman said that there are practical difficulties in the existing law and a need to make it more effective. The minister mentioned that under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, a police official can not fire on a suspect unless he is being fired upon. “There is no preemptive mechanism in our existing law,” he added.
The committee asked the law ministry and interior ministry to present a fresh report comparing the proposed amendments, the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) 1860 and the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.
The committee also discussed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2014, regarding strict amendments in the law against electricity theft. The committee noted that the proposed amendments seem to give additional powers to WAPDA officials, who could potentially misuse them. The committee asked for a strict clause ensuring against such misuse. A three-member sub-committee was formed to give recommendations in this regard.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 2nd, 2014.
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