Senate’s rights panel members to visit Kasur

ISLAMABAD: The Senate’s committee on human rights while condemning the Kasur child abuse scandal on Monday decided to visit the area to get the first hand information about it.
About allegations and complaints of extra-judicial and custodial killings, the committee laid emphasis on evolution of the best possible mechanism. It was noted with satisfaction that incidents of target killing and extortion have significantly decreased due to the ongoing Karachi operation.
The chairperson of the committee is Ms. Nasreen Jalil of Muttahida Qaumi Movement who was not available, as her party legislators have tendered resignations.
The committee also decided to get briefing in the next meeting from the inspector generals of the Frontier Corps belonging to Sindh and Balochistan and the chief secretary of Sindh on the negative impression being spread about the law-enforcement agencies.
The panel, which met under Nisar Muhammad of the ruling PML-N here at the Parliament House, emphasised that the law-enforcement agencies should function within their constitutional and legal ambit.
On this occasion, Senator Farhatullah Babar of PPP contended that all the security agencies should be brought under the umbrella of Parliament so that their performance could be scrutinised.
The committee members were astonished to know that a summary regarding child rights and their protection had been sent to the Prime Minister, but the matter had got stuck up between the ministry of law and justice and the capital administration and development division.
The committee proposed that till the matter is decided the summary must be implemented in the federal capital and afterwards by the federating units.
Senator Nisar Muhammad pointed out that the matter regarding the responsibilities and duties of the state after the 18th amendment should be handled in a more positive manner. He contended that matters must be taken up as per their sensitivity and nature and resolved.
The Balochistan National Party Senator Dr. Jehan Zeb Jamaldeni appreciated the positive results being achieved through the ongoing operations in Balochistan and Karachi but insisted that steps taken outside the ambit of the Constitution and the law resulted in violation of the Constitution and human rights.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Senator Samina Abid noted that there had been a marked plunge in acts of target-killings and extortions in the wake of the operation in Karachi.
During the meeting, the police informed the panel that the killer of his own wife before her parents had been gunned down in a police encounter in Naseerabad. Among others, those who attended the meeting included PPP’s Karim Khawaja, JUI’s Mufti Abdul Sattar and regional police officer Sahibzada Shahzad Sultan.
Meanwhile, parents of the children martyred in the Army Public School attack in Peshawar on December 16 last year made their way to the Parliament House Monday and called on Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani. Chairman Senate said their sacrifices would not go waste and the ongoing war against terrorism would be won.
Rabbani prayed for forbearance of parents and siblings of the martyred children. President APS Shuhada Forum, Abid Raza Bangash, who led the delegation, informed chairman Senate about the ordeal parents and their surviving children were undergoing after the gruesome attack.
The delegation also presented a petition to the chairman Senate’s standing committee on defence, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, which is expected to be taken up shortly.