ISLAMABAD, Feb 22: The Senate on Thursday took a serious notice of the gruesome murder of Punjab Minister for Social Welfare Zille Huma and passed a unanimous resolution condemning the gory act by a religious fanatic.

The resolution was moved by Mr Anwar Bhinder of the Treasury benches.

The house also offered fateha for the late woman minister, sympathised with the bereaved family and urged the government to ensure that the criminal was given exemplary punishment.

The house noted that it was one of the worst examples of extremism, which was not allowed by any religion, particularly Islam which is a religion of peace.

Chaudhry Anwar Bhinder said that the incident was condemnable and the government should take serious notice of it.

Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, rising on a point of order, claimed that it was part of a conspiracy against religious scholars to call the murderer a Maulvi who, he asserted, was a commoner and semi-literate fanatic.

He said the title or designation of a Maulvi was given only to those scholars of Islam who had passed through a process of studying in seminaries.

“No religious scholar could even think of taking law into his hands and of killing a person as has been done by Muhammad Sarwar,” he said.

Prof Ibrahim and Dr Kausar Firdaus and some other Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal lawmakers also condemned the murder and said that Sarwar should not be called a Maulvi.

Presiding officer Senator Naeem Hussain Chattha said the statement of Sarwar that under Islam a woman could not become the president, the prime minister or a minister was indicative of the fact that he was a literate man and a religious fanatic.

Senator Abdur Rahim Mandokhel, parliamentary leader of the Pakhtoonkhawa Milli Awami Party, described the incident as a serious case of madness by a fanatic and said that the parliament should take a serious notice of it.

Ms Gulshan Saeed of the Pakistan Muslim League said that the Chief Justice of Pakistan should take suo motu action to ensure exemplary punishment for the culprit.

“How was a man who had already killed six women allowed to move freely,” she asked.

Ms Kusloom Parveen of the PML said the government should take notice of the incident and a female relative of Sarwar should also be killed in the same manner to avenge the death of Ms Zille Huma.

Mr Jamal Leghari said that the ministry of interior should come up with a policy statement on the incident and provide security guards to all lawmakers.