ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Thursday deferred a bill seeking to decriminalise attempted suicide, with Chairman Raza Rabbani ruling that a decision was not possible without a definitive view of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII).

The bill moved by Karim Khawaja and already cleared by the Senate Standing Committee on Interior proposes that the survivors of suicide attempts should be imparted treatment and not awarded punishment as they try to commit suicide because of chemical changes in their brain which is nothing but a disease.

Law Minister Zahid Hamid termed it a highly sensitive religious matter and described suicide attempt as an offence and forbidden in Islam.

Chairman of the Senate standing committee Rehman Malik informed the house that according to the CII, there were no clear directions in the religion about the fate of survivors of suicide attempts. According to him, psychiatrists said that attempt to suicide was made under a state of extreme mental depression and the law ministry was yet to give an opinion.

Land reforms

The Senate also discussed the issue of land reforms, with lawmakers belonging to all parties proposing that holders of huge agricultural land should be taxed. They observed that the country was facing food and water scarcity due to the absence of land reforms.

They noted that the issue had been ignored by successive governments. A senator pointed out that a petition on land reforms filed by eminent lawyer Abid Hasan Minto had been pending before the Supreme Court for years.

Senators propose holders of huge agricultural land should be taxed

A suggestion was also given that the Senate standing committee of the whole should take up the matter.

Another senator, without naming PTI leader Jahangir Tareen, said a landlord in Punjab was holding over 28,000 acres of land in the names of different people. The senators observed that the land reforms were a must to put the country on the path to prosperity and development.

Minister of State for Information Marium Aurangzeb informed the Senate that a summary had been moved to the prime minister for placing the land reforms commission under the law ministry. The commission at present is under the control of the information ministry.

The house also discussed the border management with Afghanistan and Iran, with members observing that Pakistan’s policy of achieving strategic depth in Afghanistan and economic blockade of the neighbour to bring it to terms did not work.

Farhatullah Babar of the PPP observed that trade had been used as a lever to pressurise Afghanistan, but noted that the move proved to be counter-productive. He pointed out that dependence of Afghanistan on Pakistan for transit trade was decreasing and India was supplying goods to Afghanistan through Iran.

He said the border management was necessary with Afghanistan, but “we should keep in mind that it has to be with mutual consultation as laid down in the binding agreements and that it should not obstruct trade between the two countries”.

He said that those wanting to use transit trade as a tool to manipulate Afghanistan should not forget that Kabul had chartered new trade routes. Just the other day India shipped its first consignment of wheat to Afghanistan through the Chahbahar port, bypassing Pakistan. A train link between Uzbekistan and Mazar-i-Sharif had already been completed, he said.

He said that emboldened by increasing independence President Ashraf Ghani had already banned Pakistani trucks from entering Afghanistan and was now demanding transit trade as quid pro quo for Pakistan’s trade with Central Asian states.

Speaking on the issue of forcible deportation of Turkish teachers, Mr Babar observed that the “phenomenon of missing persons, the Electronic Crimes Act and brutal attacks on journalists are links of the same chain designed to stifle dissent with state narrative on critical issues”.

He said there was one common thread that linked the three; anyone dissenting with the state was fated to end up as one of these three. The latest victim of this phenomenon was The News reporter Ahmad Noorani, he added.

Those who could not be easily made to disappear were charged under the Electronic Crimes Act and those who could not be charged under it easily were beaten up by invisible elements.

Journalists covering the proceedings staged a walkout from the media gallery as a mark of protest against the recent attack on Ahmad Noorani. Senators Mushahidullah Khan, Taj Haider and Atiq Ahmad Sheikh came to see the protesting journalists and expressed their support for them.

The senators described the attack as a murder attempt, with the government vowing to trace those behind the attack.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2017