ISLAMABAD: A Senate committee has forwarded recommendations to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) for its comments on misuse of blasphemy law.

The Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights, which met on Tuesday, recommended that the offender who registered a false case (under Section 295C of the Pakistan Penal Code) should be given the same punishment as provided for the offence under this section.

Section 295C provides for death penalty for anyone found guilty of defaming the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

Headed by Nasreen Jalil of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the committee met to consider various reports on preventing misuse of the blasphemy law and suggest the way forward.

Committee recommends the law related to false evidence under Sections 194 and 211 of PPC needs to be strengthened

Among other recommendations in its report, the committee believed that members of district interfaith committees and local influential people should also be involved in the initial stages of investigation. It strongly advocated that the provision of Section 156-A of the PPC (carrying out of investigations by a superintendent of police) be strictly implemented in letter and spirit.

The committee also recommended that the law related to false evidence under Sections 194 and 211 of the PPC needed to be strengthened and strictly implemented.

“The complainant who lodges a complaint under Section 295C should produce two witnesses in support of his accusation,” Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan Peoples Party read out one of the recommendations aloud.

It was observed that these recommendations were based on the reports of the Council of Islamic Ideology as conveyed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

While the committee felt it necessary that procedural amendments and those to prevent the misuse of the law might be done, Mufti Abdul Sattar of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl aked the participants to leave the subject alone.

Mufti Abdul Sattar failed to understand the plea of his counterparts when they tried to explain that the committee was not seeking amendments to the law but only wanted to take measures to prevent its misuse.

Nasreen Jalil told the Mufti that even the CII believed that the law should not be abused. She drew her colleague’s attention to the CII’s annual reports of 2000-01 and 2003-04.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2018