KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly was informed on Friday that the needy madressah students were not given any financial assistance from the zakat fund due to want of a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the home department and district administration.

While furnishing statement and lawmakers’ written and verbal queries during Question Hour, Parliamentary Secretary for Auqaf, Zakat and Ushr Heer Soho said that the madressahs were not being issued NOC for availing the facility of financial assistance for deserving students as the procedure of obtaining an NOC from the home department and the district administration was complicated.

She informed the lawmakers that the needy students of as many as 22 public-sector universities and poor patients at 26 different public and private hospitals were given financial aid from the zakat fund.

Besides, she said, the Guzara Allowance of Rs5,000 per month was also given to the destitute people, mainly widows and disabled people, and Rs25,000 was disbursed to needy families for marriages of their daughters.

She said that the needy students were given financial aid of Rs36,000 per year.

In reply to a verbal query by Grand Democratic Alliance’s member Arif Mustafa Jatoi, the parliamentary secretary said that inquiries were conducted against two district chairmen of district zakat committees after the department received complaints against them. “One of them has been removed,” she added.

Opposition leader demands FIR against police involved in custodial death of a youth in Tando Allahyar

To another question, Ms Soho said that the project of construction of musafir khana, lavatory blocks and upgrade of graves of Dargah Usman Shah, Mirpurkhas Road, Hyderabad, and Dargah Baba Salahuddin Kotri, Hyderabad, was being undertaken with a cost of Rs38.951 million.

Rape case at Larkana hospital

Women Development Minister Shehla Raza told the house that the DNA samples of the three men accused of assaulting a 25-year-old woman at a Larkana hospital did not match with the sample obtained from the victim.

She was replying to a calling-attention notice given by Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s member Rana Ansar.

The minister said that one of the senior officers of the women development department visited the victim immediately after the registration of the FIR of the case.

She said that the victim woman told the officer that she was raped by hospital staff after her operation as she was still under the influence of anaesthesia. “The victim said that she reported the matter to the doctor who, however, advised her to keep mum about the incident,” she added.

Ms Raza said that the doctor was already released on bail, while the three hospital employees were still in custody.

In reply to a calling-attention notice given by MQM-P’s Rabia Khatoon on an acute water shortage in Korangi, Local Government Parliamentary Secretary Salim Baloch said that the water supply was disrupted in the area in April due to damage to the main pipeline. He said that water supply was restored.

The MQM-P legislator said that the people in Korangi were getting water supply only for half an hour and that too after two or three days.

Bill to regularise teachers passed

The assembly unanimously passed ‘The Sindh Regularisation of Teachers Appointed on Contract Basis (Amendment) Bill, 2021’ for regularising the teachers appointed on contract from 2013 to 2017.

The assembly unanimously passed The Sindh Child Protection Authority (Amendment) Bill, 2021 for “taking preventive and curative measures for multifarious crimes against missing or abducted children”.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla moved the bill after Pir Mujib-ul-Haq presented his report.

The report said that the existing provisions of The Sindh Child Protection Authority Act, 2011 did not cover any preventive or curative measures for the multifarious crimes against children who were missing or abducted. The report also said that the act was unable to curb the menace of abduction, trafficking, rape and killing of children.

“Therefore it is expedient in public interest to have a system of raising alert for missing children before harm comes to them in accordance with the fundamental rights enshrined in Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973,” the report read.

Custodial death

Speaking on a point of order, Leader of the Opposition Haleem Adil Sheikh said that a man, identified as Babar Khanzada, was tortured and killed by police in Tando Allahyar.

“The police took Babar Khanzada into custody and asked his family for a bribe to release him. During the detention he was subjected to torture and killed but the police termed it a suicide,” he added.

The opposition leader demanded that an FIR be lodged and policemen involved in the killing be brought to book.

PPP’s Imdad Pitafi also termed the incident unfortunate and said that a high-level committee was formed to probe the man’s death in police custody.

He also asked why the PTI lawmaker didn’t raise the issue of killings of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) workers and policemen in Punjab during the religious party’s recent sit-in.

He demanded an FIR against the Punjab home minister and the interior minister for the killing of TLP workers and policemen.

The house was later adjourned to Monday.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2021