ISLAMABAD: Jamshed Dasti, a member of National Assembly (MNA) from southern Punjab, filed a petition on Monday in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against the Protection of Pakistan Act (PPA) 2014. Dasti, in his petition, claims that the Act can be used as a tool of suppression, victimisation and alienation of Pakistani citizens by the ruling elite.

IHC Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi will hear the petition on Tuesday.

In the petition, filed through his counsel Advocate Saeed Khurshid, Dasti stated that the Act can be used for political and ideological victimisation of the government’s opponents.

The police culture in Pakistan generally, and in south Punjab particularly, is not reliable at all, the MNA claimed, as according to him the police force has been witnessed using excessive authority in 90 per cent of the cases.

The MNA claimed the Act labels all arrested Pakistanis as enemy aliens until proven otherwise

The petition alleges, that through the said legislation, the politicised police have been made an absolute authority, which indirectly means that ‘Gullu Butt’ characters of the ruling party can wreak havoc all over the country with life, liberty, property and honour of innocent people, the same way it was done in the Lahore Model Town incident.

It said that detention under the Act authorises detention in secret internment camps, while any Pakistani citizen can be treated as an enemy alien once he or she is rightly, or even wrongly, booked under any of the scheduled offences.

The petition said that the prosecutors have been made an absolute authority for transferring cases from one special court to another, thus undermining the authority of the judiciary.

Any police officer of grade-15 is authorised to shoot any Pakistani citizen at sight, whenever he or she feels reasonable apprehension of commission of any schedule offence, Dasti’s petition said.

It goes on to say that the unchecked power to enter and search houses has been allowed within this legislation, meanwhile, any arrested person can be placed in secret internment camps without disclosing his or her identity, and without providing them the right to engage a legal practitioner or a lawyer of their choice to help prove their innocence.

Expressing reservations over declaring a person as the enemy, the petition says that the person arrested under this law would be presumed an enemy alien until he or she has proved otherwise.

The enemy alien, the petition added, means a citizen of another country, which is at war with the native country.

The lawmakers, it said, have failed to define how Pakistani citizens will become enemy aliens, even if they are arrested for the alleged breach of this law.

The schedule of section 2 of the said Act is so extensive, the petition claimed, that everyone, even Dasti himself, who has anti-government political ideology or opinion can be safely booked under this law and can easily be labelled as enemy alien.

The petition said the Act is a superfluous legislation and it will merely cost extra billions of rupees to the national exchequer, as the subject dealt within this Act are already a part of the previous legislations, namely the Pakistan Penal Code 1860, the Prevention of Anti-National Activities Act 1974, the Security of Pakistan Act 1952, Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 and the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1960.

The petition requested the court to declare the said Act against the fundamental rights of the citizens, as enshrined in the Constitution, and also to term the Act as a ‘bad law’.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2014