ISLAMABAD, Sept 11: The government on Monday succumbed to the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s pressure for renegotiating the controversial Women’s Rights bill apparently because of the alliance’s threat to quit assemblies and provincial governments if the bill was passed without its consent.

With a team of government-appointed ulema rejecting a number of clauses, the bill — which had been finalised by the National Assembly’s select committee — became ineffective and in effect stood withdrawn, and now a redrafted bill would be tabled in parliament.

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman announced that his alliance had succeeded in making the government realise that it was wrong in bringing the bill to parliament without a consensus.

He urged the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) not to make it an issue of ego and recalled that the 1973 Constitution, given by the founder of the PPP, the late Z.A. Bhutto, clearly mentioned that no legislation could be made in violation of the injunctions of Holy Quran.

However, PPP leaders expressed reservations over the development and said they would offer their reaction after details of the redrafted bill were announced.

Raja Parvaiz Ashraf, Sherry Rehman and Shah Mahmood Qureshi of the PPP said at a news conference the government-MMA agreement had made it clear that the government was not serious in protection of women’s rights and it was only interested in a public relations exercise.

They said the PPP would support the redrafted bill only if it found it in accordance with the objectives for which it had been drafted and tabled in the house.

Earlier, the government sent a helicopter to Nathiagali, the MMA-led Frontier government’s summer capital, to fly Maulana Fazl and NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani to Islamabad.

Maulana Fazl and Mr Durrani held a meeting with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Parvaiz Elahi and some ‘non-civilian officials’ at the Punjab House.

Later, an MMA team comprising Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Liaquat Baloch, Maulana Asadullah Bhutto, Maulana Abdul Malik, Maulana Naseeb Ali Shah and Allama Jalil Naqvi held another meeting with the government negotiating team.

From the government’s side, the meeting was attended also by Wasi Zafar, Shahid Akram Bhinder and the law secretary as well as some members of the ulema team, including Mufti Taqi Usmani, Mufti Munibur Rahman, Dr Sarfaraz Naeemi, Hanif Jallandhri and Maulana Hasan Jan.

According to insiders, the meeting discussed the draft bill clause by clause and felt that it needed a ‘thorough revision’. The sources said the meeting agreed that four clauses needed to be changed.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, head of the MMA’s negotiating team, announced after the meeting: “We will decide to support or oppose the bill after ascertaining if the alliance’s reservations have been addressed.”

He said one thing was clear that the draft bill carried a number of un-Islamic clauses which the government had agreed to annul.

“We are in no hurry to get the redrafted bill passed and will ask the government to take all the parties, including PPP Parliamentarians, on board before its re-introduction in parliament,” he said.

Mr Liaquat Baloch said: “We have made it clear to the government that the best solution to such issues will only be found when all laws are referred to the reconstituted Council of Islamic Ideology for bringing them in conformity with Islam.”

Meanwhile, a statement signed by the ulema’s team said that as a result of detailed discussions several issues had, in principle, been agreed upon.

Chaudhry Shujaat asked ulema to guide the government on disputed issues as an impression was being created that certain clauses were included in the bill in violation of Quran and Sunnah. He said the government did not want to do anything that was in violation of Hudood, Shariah and Quran and Sunnah.

One of the three amendments proposed in the agreement said that the crime of zina-bil-jabr (rape), which the bill had taken out of the 1979 ordinance and incorporated in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), be made subject to the Islamic Hadd punishment for Zina (adultery) — stoning to death — if it fulfilled the requirements of such a Hadd.

It also proposed insertion of a new section in the PPC — in place of “zina liable to ta’zir” in the old Hudood ordinance — with the text: “A man and a woman are said to commit lewdness if they wilfully have sexual intercourse with one another and shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to five years and shall also be liable to fine.”

The agreement also proposed replacement of section 3 of the 1979 ordinance with a new one, saying: “In the interpretation and application of this ordinance the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the holy Quran and Sunnah shall have effect notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force.”

The original section 3, which the bill had sought to be deleted, said: “The provisions of this ordinance shall have effect notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force.”

The ulema attending the meeting said a broad understanding had been reached on protection of women rights in line with the Quran and Sunnah and nothing repugnant to Quran and Sunnah was left in the bill.