CII, senators oppose public execution of Zainab’s murderer

ISLAMABAD: Some government officials and religious leaders on Wednesday rejected the call for public execution of Imran Ali, the convicted murderer of six-year-old Kasur girl Zainab Amin.

The members of the Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice in its Wednesday's meeting debated if the existing Pakistani laws permit public executions.

The meeting chaired by Senator Javed Abbasi was attended by Law Minister Chaudhry Mehmood Bashir Virk, the law secretary, provincial home secretaries, representatives of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) and the Inspectors General of the Punjab and Balochistan Prisons. Senator Abbasi asked if the parliament needed to introduce an amendment to the Pakistan Penal Code or whether the addition of a rule would suffice.

Senator Rehman Malik reminded the committee that the Supreme Court had forbidden carrying out public hangings. “We cannot violate the Supreme Court order by hanging the convict in public,” he said.

The law ministry told the standing committee that any move not sanctioned by the Constitution must be avoided. The law minister pointed out that a public hanging would be considered a violation of human rights. “Emotions aside, steps in conflict with the Constitution should be avoided,” he advised.

Also opposing the suggestion to carry out the death sentence in public, the CII said the execution must be carried out inside a jail. It, however, suggested a possibility to broadcast the sentence on electronic media. Senators from all the provinces opposed the CII’s suggestion. The IG Prisons, Balochistan, said amending law for the sake of one case would be counter-productive for the society. “We cannot punish the entire society by hanging a person in public,” he insisted.

The standing committee ordered the Law Ministry to submit a report clarifying whether a public execution would violate the Constitution and the Supreme Court order and whether an amendment to the existing law would be required to carry out public hangings.