ISLAMABAD, March 11: The National Assembly acted rather belatedly on Monday to demand a new law to prevent attacks on religious minorities as the Punjab government faced severe criticism in both houses of parliament for Saturday’s burning of a Christian colony in Lahore over an unproven allegation of blasphemy against a resident.
The demand, in a resolution unanimously passed by the lower house and couched in cautious words – with a proviso of “if so desired” – apparently to placate possible religious objectors, was made to a government that is left with just five days to exhaust its five-year term with hardly any time to make such a move.
Similar suggestions in the past to prevent the “misuse” of the blasphemy law, often used against members of non-Muslim minorities, were seen as causes of the assassinations of a former Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, in January 2011 and of a federal minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, two months later.Demands for reviewing that controversial law were made in speeches in both houses on Monday during debates on the mob arson in Lahore’s Badami Bagh area, in which an estimated more than 175 houses of Christians were torched, while one of the five demands made in the National Assembly resolution was to “carry out necessary legislation, if so desired, to prevent such unfortunate incidents in future”.
The resolution, moved by Minister of State for National Harmony Akram Masih Gill, also called upon the government to immediately form a commission to probe into the causes of the incident impartially, fix responsibility for the happening, proceed against and bring to justice those responsible and “specifically named” in the first information report registered with police in “shortest time” and disburse grants or compensation immediately to the affected people.
The National Assembly suspended other business on the day’s agenda, including some key legislation, on demands to discuss the Lahore incident, which the resolution a “national disaster”, amid indications that the present last session of the house, which began on February 18, might be extended from the previously scheduled cut-off date of March 12.
The discussion began with the most hard-hitting speech of the day from the only Christian lawmaker of the opposition Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, Asiya Nasir from Balochistan, who described minorities living in Punjab as unsafe, accused the province of “exporting terrorism” and said “no self-respecting Christian will vote for PML-N” in the next elections.
A ranking PML-N lawmaker, Khawaja Saad Rafiq from Lahore, seemed seeking to assuage tempers as he acknowledged that the Lahore police “did not demonstrate the responsibility we expected of them”, asking why they “could did not correctly calculate the danger”.
But he said the provincial government had moved promptly in launching a crackdown against instigators of violence like those who made announcements from mosques to assemble the rioters, ordering a judicial inquiry, announcing compensation and ordering an immediate start of repair of damaged property.
SENATE ANGER: In the Senate too, during a debate on an adjournment motion moved by independent senator Mohsin Leghari and MQM’s Tahir Hussain Mashhadi, most speakers from different parties pointed fingers at Punjab authorities, with PML-N’s Senator M. Hamza defending his party’s government for taking “timely action”.
While Mr Mashhadi accused police of being silent spectators when mobs came to attack the colony, Mr Leghari wondered why a mob was allowed to come after the police had the colony vacated by its residents.
Earlier, the Senate observed a minute’s silence to pay homage to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who died of cancer last week.