Zainab murder: Rabbani directs Senate panels to visit Kasur

ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani on Monday directed the House Standing Committee on Interior and the Functional Committee on Human Rights to jointly visit Kasur with regard to incident of rape-murder of Zainab and report back to the House by Friday. He gave this direction during a brief discussion in the House, when met for the opening day of the 272nd session. The committees will apprise the Senate of the headway made so far in probing the gory act and on ground situation.

Rabbani also expressed deep concern over the non-constitution of the Commission on Rights of Children and asked for its constitution by January 26. He asked Leader of the House and the law minister to help execute the needful.

Senate chairman wondered why so far the beast in Kasur rape-murder case had not been apprehended and on this Senator Abdul Rehman Malik of PPP, who heads the House Committee on Interior, rose to share some startling facts with the senators.

Citing the briefing given by additional inspector general of police Punjab to the committee, he said that one individual was involved in rape of eight children, as suggested by the DNA tests. He added that it might take them from 15 days to a month to arrest the culprit.

One Mudassar, involved in rape of another girl Fatima, was killed in a police encounter, whereas the one who raped and murdered Zainab was alive and yet to be apprehended. Senator Malik pointed out that within the radius of three kilometres and in jurisdiction of three police stations, these rape cases had happened.

He said that the committee’s sub-panel had suggested hanging to death publicly of anyone, involved in rape of children. Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed, who heads the House Committee on defence, presented the report on a point of public importance, raised by Senator Farhatullah Babar of PPP about the appointment of ex-cadre officer as head of the Military Land and Cantonment Services Department (ML and CSD) due to which the regular cadre officer of the service group never got an opportunity to head the department.

The report said that Babar had contended that, among other things, noted that the post of head of the ML and CSD was a cadre post and under the rules, appointment to it, could be only from amongst the officers of the cadre and not from outside. He added the post had always been held by civilian officers until General Pervez Musharraf, soon after take-over in 1999, appointed a serving military officer to it, against the law and the rules.

He continued since then eight or nine serving military officers had taken turns one after the other in violation of the rules and this had caused utter disappointment and frustration among civilian officers of the cadre.

Babar said that the appointments were wrong, as the land belongs to the federal government and the Military Lands Department is the custodian of the interests of the land owner and that it was the responsibility of the department to ensure that the land was used by the user for the purpose for which it had been given to it. He continued that a serving military officer represents the military and hence the interests of the land used. By appointing him as the post of custodian of the interests of land owner was a serious conflict of interest.

He noted in 2008, all irregularities committed in the use of land by the military in the past decades were got condoned through a waiver by then caretaker premier. It could be argued that it was made possible because the interests of land owner (namely the federal government) lay in the hands of the land user (military).

Babar also pointed out that the Supreme Court in June 2013 ruled that non-civil servants could not be appointed on deputation to any cadre of government while declaring appointments to cadre posts without the competitive process by the FPSC as illegal. He noted that the director general was a BS-21 civilian cadre post and appointments to it are made by the FPSC through SCC exams and appointment of a serving military officer was a violation of the court orders.

He recalled a committee was formed by then prime minister, which strongly opposed any move to place the department under the charge of serving officers of the military/armed forces. And, he added in 2013, the prime minister had ordered that in future the post of director general of the department would stand reverted to the civilian cadre.

The senator referred to the excerpts from the verbatim of defence production minister Rana Tanveer Hussain in the Senate on May 20, 2014 stating that the post would be filled by civilian officers of the cadre after expiry of the term of the then incumbent director general.

He said that after continuing with the illegality for over a decade, an amendment to rules was made in October 2014 to give a façade of legality to such appointments. “It seems full facts were not brought to the attention of the prime minister while seeking approval to the change in the rules. He asked the additional secretary establishment whether the summary submitted to the PM contained full facts and circumstances.

Other senators, including Syed Tahir Mashhadi, Abdul Qayyum, Ilyas Ahmad Bilour and Ms Sehar Kamran also spoke on the issue. The report said and that they expressed surprise that the prime minister was not appropriately informed of the circumstances and the consequences of such decision.

“No intra-divisional or intra-ministerial consultation was done that should have taken place as a matter of procedure in accordance with the rules of procedures of the federal government and the decision of the apex court also seems to have been violated,” they said and desired to see the original summary, which was moved by the Ministry of Defence, directly to the prime minister in 2014.

The additional secretary of the Establishment Division told the committee that all such summaries fell under the category of ‘confidential documents’. However, the committee chairman gave ruling and asked the Establishment Division and the ministry to share the summary with all members of the committee within a week.

Later, the treasury benches had to face embarrassment, as their bid to oppose PTI Senator Muhammad Azam Swati’s bill to repeal the Federal Investigation Agency Act, 1974 was defeated by 26 votes to 22, when after voice vote, Rabbani went for headcount.

Swati wanted leave to introduce the bill, but the government opposed him. However, after voting, the senator was allowed to introduce the bill, which was then referred to the committee concerned for deliberations and report.

PTI senator said that the aim of the bill was to do away with FIA to make way for the establishment of the Federal Investigation Commission as a free and independent body sans the government supervision. Ahsan Iqbal said that the media should not create an impression that cases of child abuse were rampant in the society.

"All of us have a duty to protect children," the minister said. He maintained that the notion that all children in Pakistan were not safe was untrue.

“It is not true that all children in the country are unsafe,” the interior minister said. “The media should not create an impression that [child] abuse cases are common in the society”. He contended that such unfortunate incidents happened in other societies as well. The minister was of the view that everyone should have a strong resolve to bring an end to criminal activities.

The House offered fateha for the departed souls of Munnu Bhai, veteran politician Asghar Khan, Qazi Abdul Majeed, Zainab, Asma, spouse of Senator Saleem Mandviwala, Dr Muhammad Saqib, Naqeeb Mehsud and others killed at the hands of police and others who lost lives in Quetta and elsewhere in recent days.