ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights chairman, on the issue of harassment and assault on Parliamentarians and political workers, reiterated that the matter is taken up in order to ensure that the state organizations should work in line with the constitutional guarantees.

The committee met under the chairmanship of Senator Walid Iqbal to take briefs on the harassment and brutal assault on Parliamentarians and political workers in gross violation of the fundamental freedom guaranteed under the constitution of Pakistan.

The Committee noted that the same agenda was discussed previously in the Senate Committee for Interior and the stance on the matter by the relevant departments is the same, however, the objective behind the matter to be taken up again involved a thorough discussion on the violation of fundamental guaranteed rights purely on humanitarian grounds, abstained from politically-motivated agendas.

The committee was also of the perspective that no individual cases should be discussed and defended on political rationale as this will not fulfil the spirit of the Human Rights Committee, where every human should be treated equally. The Chairman Committee reiterated that the matter is taken up in order to ensure that the state organizations should work in line with the constitutional guarantees.

The matter was discussed at length and all the representatives of relevant departments gave their views on the subject in hand, arising from the discussion Senator Ifranul Haque Siddique narrated his incident of arrest on 26th July 2019 which according to him had no legal status and was one of its kind. The chairman Human Rights Committee ordered to conduct an inquiry into the incident and sought a report.

The committee while sailing through the discussion also reviewed the nature of protest and conduct of the marchers over the years specifically of the year 2014 and during tenures of various governments and gave analysis of each.

National Commission for Human Rights maintained the view that the fundamental freedom guaranteed under the constitution of Pakistan should not infringe upon the right of an individual to freedom of movement and speech, however, it should be necessarily within the parameters of the law. While discussing the police behaviour and conduct, the Inspector General of Police said that the onus is on the public that they should behave with the police the way they want the police to engage with them.

The meeting was attended by senators, Mushahid Hussain Sayed, Tahir Bizinjo, Falak Naz, Seemee Ezdi, Quratulain Marri, Gurdeep Singh, Saleem Mandviwala, and Senator Irfanul Haque Siddiqui.

Secretary Ministry of Humans Rights, Additional IG Punjab, IG Operations, Lahore, IGP ICTP, DG IP, and senior officers of other attached departments were also in attendance.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022