Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Taking notices of abduction, rape and murder cases of minor children, a legislative body on Monday proposed amendment to Section 364A of PPC for increasing the punishment to ‘hanging to death publicly’.

These recommendations were made during the meeting of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior, with Senator Rehman Malik in the chair. The committee also passed a resolution against abduction, rape and murder cases of minor children across the country. The resolution with proposed amendment to Section 364A of PPC for increasing the punishment to ‘hanging to death publicly’ was sent to the House.

In a statement of object and reasons, Senator Rehman Malik said fear of punishment could prevent others from committing similar crime. “It was expedient to amend the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) to make offender dreadful for other offenders,” he stressed.

Members of the committee said that it was heartening to know that law enforcement agencies had not been able to arrest child abusers. “We as a nation are failing to hear the cries of our daughters being tortured, raped and murdered,” said chairman of the committee. Therefore, he said there was a stringent need to deliberate and frame the law.

The committee asked the NACTA to add the feature to their upcoming apps for reporting to crime through picture / video footage.” The committee condemned the abductions, rapes and murders of innocent minors – Zainab and Asma.

The meeting was attended among others by Senator Col (r) Tahir Mashhadi, Senator Javed Abbasi, Senator Sardar Fateh Hassani, Senator Shahi Syed and Senator Dr Jehanzeb Jamaldini as members, and special secretary interior, National Coordinator NACTA Ihsan Ghani, Punjab Police Additional IG Abu Bakr Khuda Baksh, Mardan RPO Muhammad Alam Shinwari and officials from the Law Ministry.

The meeting was also attending by Advocate Anees Jillani, Barrister Benazir Jatoi and Valerie Khan as representatives of civil society and children rights activists.

The committee expressed sympathies with the victim families of both the minor girls. The committee recommended the government to immediately announce the national commission on children rights to address the issue of child abuse at all level and to adopt strong measures to create deterrent to stop this heinous crime.

The committee asked all inspectors general (IGs) to set up a special cell / research wing under their own command at all police headquarters for rapid response to the complaints of child abuse. The committee was of the view that such ruthless criminals deserve no mercy so they must be punished severely and publicly that no one in future could dare to commit such heinous crime.

Barrister Benazir Jatoi said that the country required a separate and parallel civil system that put an obligation on the state to protect children beyond criminal proceedings that includes prevention, education and awareness. Anees Jillani and Valerie Khan also briefed the committee and said such criminals should be punished stringently.

DIG Investigation Abu Bakar Khudabukhsh briefed the committee on Zainab Murder case. He informed the committee that DNA of 696 suspects had been obtained since November 2017 and 692 people had been investigated in cases related to child rape and murder. He told the committee that the results of those DNA tests still remained elusive. He said that 11 similar incidents had happened from 2015 till the time of briefing. Based on those investigations, he claimed that the culprit in six incidents was the same person and the ages of those girls were between 5 and 10 years.

He, however, failed to give any assurances as to the capture of the culprits, saying it could take days or even months. He said that police were doing all in their capacity to apprehend the culprits at the earliest. Zainab’s mother, becoming the voice of all the affected mothers, demanded that the culprits be arrested as soon as possible and brought to mothers’ court. She held police responsible for failing to curb the murders.

Both father and mother of Zainab briefed the meeting about the incident and also told the committee that they were not satisfied with the investigation. They appealed to the committee to bring the killer of their daughter to justice. They demanded door-to-door search and use of sniffer dogs and other technology to find the culprit.

Rehman Malik formed a special sub-committee to be headed by Senator Shahi Syed to submit the in-depth report on the incident of Zainab, Asma and all the cases of same nature across the country. The chairman directed Punjab Police to provide security to the family of Zainab and directed RPO Mardan to provide security to the family of Asma.

RPO Mardan Muhammad Alam Shinwari briefed the committee on the murder of Asma in Mardan but the committee rejected the medical report presented by RPO and directed him to present a clear medical report in the next meeting. The committee expressed annoyance over the delay in investigation in both the cases and said the whole nation was waiting for the stringent punishment of culprits in both cases. RPO Mardan said that he was not sure either the victim child was raped or not as samples were sent to Punjab forensic laboratory, Lahore.

The committee asked the government of KP and Punjab to financially support the victim families of Zainab and Asma.

Published in Daily Times, January 23^rd 2018.