11 private member bills including bills to curb cannibalism in the country and protect journalists and were introduced in the National Assembly yesterday – a record in legislative business of the current parliamentary year.
It was a private members day, and a bulk of legislative business was taken up, with private legislative bills being introduced by members.
Bills were later referred to the respective standing committees concerned for further discussion by the NA speaker.
Prominent among these amendment bills include proposal for changes in the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1998 (Act V of 1898) (The Criminal law (Amendment) Bill, 2014.
The bill was introduced by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) lawmakers SA Iqbal Qadri, Abdul Rashid Godel, Sufyan Yusuf, Sajid Ahmed and Iqbal Mohamamd Ali.
The amendment bill aims to curb cannibalism, and introduce punishment for those who unearth corpses or any body part, without permission from a competent authority.
The proposed law suggests imprisonment up to seven years, along with imposition of a fine.
Section 297-B states that whoever exhumes corpse or any part of corpse with intent to cook, eat, sell or to use for magic purposes, among others, shall be imprisoned, either for a specified term, which shall not be less than ten years or for life. The convict shall also be liable to pay a fine.
Two other similar amendment bills were also introduced and the NA speaker suggested merging them into a single bill.
All these bills were presented after incidents of cannibalism in Punjab. Culprits were arrested in 2011 for digging up human corpses and later eating them; however were later released due to absence of any laws to punish them.
