Senate passes Zainab Alert Bill with amendments

             
   
By Iftikhar A. Khan | 3/5/2020 12:00:00 AM

ISLAMABAD: The Senate on Wednesday passed with amendments the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery
Bill, 2019, aimed at deterring violence against children, more than two years after abduction, rape and murder
of nineyear-old girl Zainab Ansari by a serial killer.

The bill already approvedby the National Assembly in January will go bacl( to it and will become law if passed
by the lower house of parliament with amendments, following an assent by the president.

The bill was moved in the Senate by Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Azam Swati on behalf of Minister for
Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari.

The ambit of the bill, which was earlier limited to Islamabad, has now been increased to cover the entire
country. Under another amendment, station house officers (SHOs) will be bound to register first information
reports (FIRs) within two hours after receiving a complaint about a missing or abducted child. The SHOs
found to have failed to do so will face up to two-year imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs100,000, besides
losing job.

PPP Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, who heads the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights,
informed the House that the committee had held seven to eight meetings to discuss the Zainab Alert bill and
made some amendments to it. He said that under the existing laws, police often refused to register an FIR when
a child was reported missing by their parents. This leads to the wastage of crucial initial time after the child`s
disappearance.

According to the bill, which Mr Khokhar said now covered all crimes against children, special courts would be
bound to decide child sexual abuse cases within three months.

As per the draf t presented in the NA, the maximum punishmentunder the bill for child abuse and killing is
life-imprisonment with a fine of Rs1 million, as the proposal for death penalty was rejected by an NA
committee. The minimum sentence will be 10 years.

A helpline will be set up to report missing children while the government will establish the Zainab Alert,
Response and Recovery Agency (ZARRA) to issue an alert for a missing child.

The agency will be headed by a director general who will be appointed by the prime minister af ter public
advertisement, according to a copy of the bill.

ZARRA will coordinate with the relevant federal and provincial authorities and law enforcement agencies and
maintain an online database of all children reported missing or abducted with their current status. Police will
inform ZARRA about an incident of a child missing or abducted within two hours of receiving such a report
and if the agency directly receives suchinformation, it will inform the relevant police station immediately.

Zainab had gone to a religious tuition centre near her house in the Road Kot area on Jan 4, 2018, from where
she is believed to have been abducted. An FIR about her disappearance had been registered on Jan 5 on the
complaint of her paternal uncle. Murder charges were added to the FIR on Jan 9 after the victim`s body was
recovered.

Police had confirmed on Jan 13, 2018 that the results of DNA testing of samples collected from the crime
scene pointed towards the involvement of one culprit in at least seven similar cases in the district. Imran Ali,
who was convicted of rape and murder of Zainab was sent to the gallows in Lahore`s Kot Lakhpat jail in
October 2018.

`Pakistan was only a facilitator of US-Taliban talks` Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi informed
theSenate on Wednesday that Pakistan was not a guarantor of the `peace agreement` between the United States
and Taliban. He said Pakistan was not a guarantor as it just played and would continue to play the role of a
facilitator.

Briefing the House on the peace agreement signed in Doha on Feb 29,he saidPakistan couldnottake
responsibility for peace in Afghanistan. `This is a shared responsibility, and all (stakeholders) will have to play
their role.

He said the path to peace in Afghanistan was complicated as many internal and external actors were involved
in it. He, however, said a peaceful and stable Afghanistan was in the interest of Pakistan.

Mr Qureshi said Pakistan always wanted responsible withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan. Pakistan
wanted a secured and regulated border with Afghanistan, he said, adding thatPakistan did not want to see a
security zone for India in Afghanistan.

He said Pakistan did not want an ISIS (militant Islamic State group) footprint to grow in Afghanistan as it
would not be in the interest of the region. He said certain elements within Afghanistan had negative perception
about Pakistan and Islamabad wanted to enhance engagement to end this.

Mr Qureshi said Pakistan was ready to play the role of a facilitator to mend fences between the United States
and Iran.

Earlier, Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri informed the House that the affidavit about finality of
Prophethood of Muhammad (peace be upon him) was still there in the Haj application form. He said the form
had just been divided into two parts and the original form, which reached the ministry, had an affidavit in it.