LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly enacted a law here on Tuesday that stipulates that no material related to Islam can be published as part of textbooks unless it is approved by the Muttahida Ulema Board Punjab.

The Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (Amendment) Bill 2020 that was unanimously passed was tabled by MPA Khadija Umar of the ruling party’s ally, PML-Q.

Islamic content of history, Urdu literature and other subjects will not be published in textbooks until the Muttahida Ulema Board Punjab approves, according to the bill, and the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board will be bound to present any such content to the ulema board for approval.

Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi congratulated the House on the passage of the bill, saying the law protected Khatm-i-Nabuwwat and shut the doors to evil being spread with reference to Islam through books.

“We want to protect future generations from the evil. This country has been built in the name of Islam and shall never allow desecration of the religion.”

Education Minister Murad Raas said the issue of banned books had cropped up with the textbook board twice earlier and cases were registered against those responsible for publishing blasphemous material. He claimed that 30 committees in his department were working to scrutinise all the textbooks.

The public, he said, could lodge complaints through WhatsApp, website and landline numbers.

He said his department did not encompass reference books, which was under the purview of the law and home departments.

The chair responded that a complete study had been undertaken before going for the lawmaking, as there were daily conspiracies against sacred personalities of Islam and the law would curb these incidents in future.

FOOD: Dissatisfied with the answers provided by the parliamentary secretary for food in the absence of the minister, the speaker pended all the queries for another day, admonishing Rai Zahoor and officials of the department for not coming prepared to answer the questions.

He was also angry at Minister Abdul Aleem Khan for skipping the proceedings over the excuse of engagements in Islamabad despite knowing well in time that written questions about his department would be taken up on Tuesday.

He said the questions would be again taken up after the minister and department officials came properly prepared to the House.

WALKOUT: The PML-N staged a token walkout to mark one year of imprisonment of Hamza Shahbaz in various accountability cases.

PML-N MPA Rana Mashhood lamented that not a single reference could be finalised by the National Accountability Bureau despite keeping Hamza behind bars and interrogating him for a year.

The walkout, he said, was a token protest against, what he said, political revenge.

Law Minister Raja Basharat defended the government over Hamza’s imprisonment, saying the opposition leader in the assembly was sent to jail on court orders, not an executive order.

He said former premier Nawaz Sharif had gone abroad for treatment, which has not yet started despite a lapse of over six months, and when the PML-N supremo was declared a fugitive, the opposition resorted to sloganeering.

The speaker also remarked that the government had nothing to do with the Hamza Shahbaz case.

Meanwhile, the chair reprimanded the legislators not wearing face masks during the proceedings. Directing the MPAs to strictly follow the coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs), Mr Elahi said the virus won’t differentiate between treasury and opposition members and those not abiding by the SOPs should not come to the House.

The House also offered fateha for the departed soul of Chaudhry Bilawal Asghar and the mother of provincial minister Raja Rashid Hafeez.

It also passed resolutions for the installation of filtration plants in PP-185 for supply of purified drinking water, mental and physical protection of pregnant women, construction of Diamer Bhasha Dam, and building a mausoleum for Hazrat Fatima in Jannatul Baqi.

Another resolution was presented by Ramesh Singh Arora condemning India for the 1984 attack on the Akal Takht, the holiest site for Sikhs, and demanded that all those involved in the heinous crime be punished and the barbarism declared a national crime. Later, the proceedings were adjourned till 2pm on Friday (June 12) -- after an unusual two-day break.

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2020