Daily Times

LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly on Tuesday echoed with the issue of Khatam-e-Nabuwat and controversial remarks by Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, who contradicted the statement to prove his innocence. On a point of order, a treasury member and religious cleric Maulana Ilyas Chinioti demanded his party’s leadership that it should declare the culprits involved in the issue of removing oath about Khatam-e-Nabuwat for parliamentarians and also punish them. He said that the Punjab law minister also informed him on a telephonic call that his statement was misinterpreted. Chinioti said that Qadianis never accepted the Pakistani constitution and laws so they should not be allowed to join the Pakistan Army, while the government should maintain a column of religion in the Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) forms for them. Chinioti also informed the House that the Nawaz League’s probe committee for investigation into the matter had compiled its report and filed the same to party president Nawaz Sharif. Following the speech of Ilyas Chinioti, Dr Waseem of Jamaat-e-Islami also stood on his seat and demanded the government that it should expose the names of the culprits who were involved in the constitutional amendment to the oath regarding Khatam-e-Nabuwat, while the opposition leader demanded the government that the probe committee’s report must be made public. He also urged the law minister to avoid speaking on sensitive religious matters, as it was not his domain. Later, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said that he totally agreed with the opinions of Maulana Chinioti, opposition leader and Dr Waseem on the matter and had a firm belief that no one could change it. He said that they could not give religious freedom to Qadianis. He also assured the House that his party’s government would accept the probe committee’s decision.

Published in Daily Times, October 18^th 2017.