ISLAMABAD: Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a government ally, took a neutral stance in the National Assembly’s budget debate on Thursday, but claimed victory for his party’s apparent about-turn on a key law against terrorism carried out in the name of Islam.

Both houses of parliament had passed an amendment to the Constitution and anther in the Pakistan Army Act in early January to provide, for a period of two years, for speedy military court trials of civilian suspects of terrorism.

The Maulana’s Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam- J (JUI-F), which has two ministers in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s cabinet, did not oppose the measures during the parliamentary debate nor at an All-Party Conference convened by the prime minister earlier to decide on such a course in the wake of a deadly Dec 16 terrorist bomb-and-gun assault on an army public school in Peshawar which left over 140 schoolchildren and staff members dead.

It was later that the JUI-F chief said his party had actually abstained in the parliament vote on the ground that expressions used in both the Constitution (Twenty-first) Amendment and the Pakistan Army (Amendment) Act, 2015 about terrorist or armed groups “using the name of religion or a sect” could possibly be used to target madressah-educated youth while sparing non-religious militants from similar trials by military courts.

In his National Assembly speech on Thursday, when the government received more brickbats than bouquets on its third budget, the JUI-F chief said he was thankful to Pakistan People’s Party for agreeing to remove references to religion in defining acts of terrorism or insurrection.

There was no immediate reaction to the Maulana’s claim at the end of his speech, before the house broke for Friday prayers.

If true, that would mean a new constitution amendment bill, which must be approved by two-thirds majority in both the 342-seat National Assembly and the 104-seat Senate, and another to further amend the Army Act, and possibly more public controversy as had happened earlier this year. The Maulana’s was the second major speech in the house on the fourth day of the debate before a two-day weekend, after one by Qaumi Watan Party chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who spoke of peculiar problems of his terrorism-afflicted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, such as revival of industrial units shut down due to violence and low per capita income of the population there, and demanded a share for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) from the National Finance Commission (NFC) awards.

But a back-bencher of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N, Rana Mohammad Hayat, turned out as the darling of the house for the day with his spirited advocacy of farmers’cause, like demands for a Rs200 billion subsidy for agriculture, nearly halving fertiliser prices and abolishing the general sales tax on pesticides, drew repeated applause from land-owning lawmakers from both sides of house.

Maulana Fazl, who is also the chairman of the National Assembly’s special committee on Kashmir, asked the government to take the present Indian government’s “aggressive style” seriously and cautiously, “fulfil its obligations of friendship” to Saudi Arabia vis-à-vis the ongoing war in Yemen and play its due role for peace there.

He spoke of what he called miserable living conditions of Kashmiri refugees who crossed into Azad Kashmir following clashes along the Line of Control in 1990s, and also demanded that internally displaced persons from North Waziristan be allowed to return to their homes if the military operation had restored peace there.

The Maulana didn’t have much to say about the budget except urging the government to take into account suggestions coming from all sides during the debate to make it a consensus budget.

Mr Sherpao regretted that budget proposals were not discussed beforehand in the house finance committee and a new NFC award was also unlikely to be announced by the due date of June 30.

While calling for the removal what he described as some remaining reservations about the route of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, he called an Indian government objection to the corridor — over part of it passing though the Pakistan-administered part of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir – a conspiracy against Pakistan and Pakhtuns.

Published in Dawn June 13th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play