ISLAMABAD: A legislative body of the National Assembly on Thursday passed a bill seeking strict punishment for people involved in cannibalism and exhumation of corpses or to cook, eat or sell any organ or part of a corpse or use it for magic or any other purpose. The Sub-Committee of National Standing Committee on Interior held a meeting in Parliament House with Naeema Kishwar in the chair. The committee unanimously approved “The Criminal Law (amendment) bill 2017”, which seeks rigorous punishment for people found involved in cannibalism. The bill was seeking amendment in Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 (XLV of 1860) and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1998 (V of 1898). It also seeks insertion of three sections in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), 1860 after Section 297 namely 297A, 297B and 297C. MNA SA Iqbal Qadri, Aliya Kamran and Nikhat Shakeel Khan moved the bill. The Section 297-A says, “Whoever without due permission from competent authority exhumes a corpse or any part of a corpse shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may be extended to seven years and shall also be liable to fine which shall not be less than three hundred thousand rupees.” The Section 297-B says, “Whoever ingests or consumes or attempts to ingest or consume the blood or flesh of a human being or flesh of corpse shall be published with rigorous imprisonment for at term which may extend to 14 years and which shall not be less than ten years and with fine which shall not be less than five hundreds thousand rupees.” The Section 297C says, “Whoever exhumes corpse or any part of corpse with intent to cook, eat or to sell it or to use for magic any organ or removes hair of female corpse, cooks any part of these corps or eats or sells any organ of these corpse shall be punished with imprisonment for life or with imprisonment of either description for a term which shall not be less than 10 years and shall also be liable to fine which shall not be less than five hundred thousand rupees.” According to objects and reasons of bill an act to exhume corpse or to cook, eat or sell any organ or part of corpse or use it for magic or any purpose is not only indignity to corpse but also insults and damage feelings of heir of the corpse. Likewise, digging out a corpse or an organ or part of a corpse with intent to use it for witchcraft and wizardry and ingestion of human flesh or of corpse is disrespectful to human dignity as well as forbidden in religion. Since there is no provision of law for such gruesome crimes and existing punishment provided in Section 297 of PPC is not sufficient and required to be enhanced. However, an Interior Ministry official had opposed the bill on the grounds that the ministry has no data on the issue and only two or four cases have so far been reported; therefore, it is not necessary to do legislation over it. He had said that cannibalism is very dangerous act but exhumation of body; cooking and eating parts of body don’t fall under the domain of cannibalism. The committee also discussed The Criminal Laws (amendment) act 2016 moved by MNA Musarat Ahmad Zeb, seeking increase in punishment of child pornography and sexual abuse of minors. Zeb said the existing punishment in the PPC for this heinous crime is very small therefore it should be enhanced up to death or imprisonment for life. “In other countries there is a death punishment for child pornography but unfortunately we have taken it very lightly which is one of the main reasons behind growing cases of child pornography in the country,” Zeb said. Committee members Javed Ali and Salman Baloch supported the bill and decided to discuss it in the next full committee meeting as well as directed the Law Ministry to submit its input in this regard. Mirza Ali Mehsud, joint interior secretary, said the ministry supported the bill but the punishment proposed in the bill should be reduced to a “reasonable level”.