ISLAMABAD: Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari on Monday asserted that a bill pertaining to enforced disappearances, which was recently passed by the National Assembly (NA), had gone “missing”.
“We had prepared the bill regarding missing persons and it was passed by the relevant standing committee and the National Assembly. However, it went missing after it was sent to the Senate,” the federal minister said while talking to journalists in Islamabad.
However, the minister said there were reports that the bill was now at the Senate Secretariat. Meanwhile, Mazari said her ministry had sought the details from provinces of prisoners who remained in jail as they did not have the means to pay fines imposed.
“Some prisoners are in jail in the country because they haven’t paid fines and we have sought their details from provinces,” she said, adding that the Ministry of Human Rights would pay fines on their behalf.
The bill, Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2021, was passed by the NA on November 8, 2021, and is aimed at making amendments to the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and Code of Criminal Procedure.
While initially there was no provision related to the filing of a false complaint or false information about subjecting a person to enforced disappearance, subsequently a provision was added to the bill to declare it a penal offence punishable by up to five years imprisonment with a fine up to Rs500,000.
The proposed law provides for the insertion of a new section 52B in the PPC for defining an “enforced disappearance”. Enactment of a law for criminalising “enforced disappearance” in Pakistan is a long-standing demand of human rights bodies.
Enforced disappearances, which began several years ago in the backwaters of Balochistan and erstwhile Fata on the pretext of fighting terrorists and insurgents, have extended to major urban centres, including Islamabad, over the years. Some rights activists estimate there still remain over 2,000 unresolved cases with the commission.
