PESHAWAR, Nov 11: The NWFP government is set to present, for the third time, an amended version of the Hisba bill in the provincial assembly on Monday.
It will be the revised version of the controversial religious law the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal is going to table in the House at a time when it is engaged in recriminations with the federal government over the death of 83 people in an airstrike on a seminary in the Bajaur Agency on Oct 30 and the killing of 42 army cadets in a suicide bomb attack at Punjab Regiment Centre in Dargai on Nov 8.
Last year, the MMA government had moved the bill on July 11 and got it passed on July 14. MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman himself witnessed the proceedings, while sitting in the visitors’ gallery.
Despite a friendly protest by the otherwise docile opposition, the MMA government succeeded in establishing a victory across the country. But, the then NWFP governor, Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, termed it a parallel criminal law and refused to sign it. He sent the bill draft to Islamabad for federation's opinion on it.
President Gen Pervez Musharraf filed a reference against the Hisba bill in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The court suspended some of the clauses and curtailed the powers being exercised by the provincial ombudsman. After removing controversial clauses of the bill, the NWFP government again tabled it in the House on Oct 31.
Owing to the Oct 8 earthquake, which rocked five districts of the province and brought a complete destruction of property in Shangla and Hazara region, the NWFP government had suspended more deliberations on the issue.
Progressive and secular forces, however, opposed the bill and termed it a resurrection of the mediaeval political system, wherein the kings and Pope played havoc with civil societies. NGOs also organised seminars and termed it as ‘non-issue’ to sideline the real problems of the people.
At that time Israrullah Khan Gandapur of the Pakistan People’s Party (Sherpao), Pir Mohammad Khan and Ikramullah Shahid of the MMA proposed 69 amendments into the 29 Articles of the Hisba law.
The government has decided to present the bill along with the amendments proposed by the lawmakers. They were of the view that the MMA wanted to introduce a private force to harass political opponents in the name of religion.
Talking to Dawn, a former deputy speaker and Awami National Party central vice-president Haji Mohammad Adeel said that the MMA wanted to legalise its authoritarian system in the guise of Hisba bill.
He said his party had opposed the law in the NWFP Assembly and at all other forums and considered it anti-democratic move on the part of the MMA.
