ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: The opposition was divided in two camps as the National Assembly received an amended version of a women’s rights bill on Monday amid noisy protests that are planned to continue until the passage of the controversial law set for later this week.

Slogan-chanting members of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance of six Islamic parties and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) stormed out of the house in protest as the chair amended the day’s agenda to allow the presentation of a special select committee’s report on the bill seeking to protect women from the misuse of two controversial Islamic Hudood laws enforced in 1979 by the then military ruler Gen Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.

But law-makers of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), some of whose proposed amendments were incorporated in the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, did not join the walkout and remained seated in what seemed to be a tacit approval of the new draft despite a dissenting note of the party calling for a total repeal of the Hudood ordinances.

Although the MMA regretted the PPP’s stance, it made it clear on Monday’s division did not mean the end of the combined opposition forged to campaign against President Pervez Musharraf’s government.

While some PML-N members returned to the house after a brief walkout and attended what turned out to be debate on the killing of Baloch leader Akbar Bugti, those of the MMA came back much later chanting slogans against the bill and the president, and then went to the dais and returned copies of the document to the assembly secretary.

But the protesters did not tear up the bill as they had done on Aug 21 when the original draft was introduced and referred to the select committee, which originally had members from all parliamentary groups but was later boycotted by the MMA and the PML-N.

Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain said he would allow a debate on the amended draft after a two-day gap on Thursday, when the house is likely to pass the bill, which seeks to amend the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance and the Offence of Qazf (false allegation of zina) (Enforcement of Hadd) Ordinance of 1979 as well as the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act.

“American bill is unacceptable, bill cancelling Hudood of Allah is unacceptable, whoever is friend of America is a traitor of the country,” MMA members chanted during their second protest and walkout before the speaker adjourned the house until 10am on Tuesday.

One major relief envisaged by the bill is to spare a woman on automatic prosecution on the basis of assumed confession if she is unable to prove her charge of zina-bil-jabr, or rape, against a man by producing four witnesses of the crime.

To check abuse of the Zina and Qazf ordinances often aimed at settling vendettas and deny women basic human rights and fundamental freedom, the new bill seeks to amend the CrPC to provide that only a sessions court may take cognizance of such a case after receiving a complaint.

The offence has been made bailable so that the accused do not languish in jail during trial. The police will have no authority to arrest any one in such cases without a sessions court directive, which can be issued only to compel attendance in court or in the event of a conviction.

A new offence has also been added in the PPC to ban publicising the identity of a woman or her family member in a case of zina or rape.

A note circulated by a PPP member on the select committee, Ms Sherry Rehman, said an amendment proposed by her party had been accepted to provide a rape victim an option to speak to the press as had become necessary in the famous Mukhtaran Mai case.

Another PPP-proposed change, according to the note, will ensure that a woman will get hadd for zina only when she confesses and not when the sessions court assumes she has confessed.

BUGTI DEBATE: A ruling coalition parliamentary secretary gave a new twist to the debate about how Mr Bugti was killed in an Aug 26 military operation, saying somebody accompanying the dissident Baloch leader had set off some explosive as an act of revenge that killed Mr Bugti and five army officers who had gone in to negotiate with him.

“Revenge was taken from Mr Bugti for his bravery and stubbornness,” parliamentary secretary for the defence ministry, Tanvir Hussain Syed, said in response to speeches made by opposition as well as ruling coalition members on points of order.

“When five army officers went to meet him and bring him out honourably, somebody already inside the cave caused the explosion,” he said.

PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf and Mohammad Farooq Azam of the Pakistan Muslim League called for caution in making speeches about Mr Bugti’s killing so as not to inflame sentiments of Baloch people.