#Pakistan - The Assembly cannot tell anyone what his/her sect would be.

Parliamentary Leader Pakistan Peoples Party Punjab Syed Hassan Murtaza while expressing reservations in the Punjab Assembly on the Protection of Islam Bill (Punjab Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam Bill 2020) has said that the Assembly cannot tell anyone what his/her sect would be. Describing his dissociation from the bill, he said, “My name was also included in the committee. Although I do not know what the bill was and when and how it was passed, I have never been attended the meeting of the committee and I have never been involved in the whole legislative process, nor was I informed of any kind of the meetings, We were kept in the dark about this bill and without our knowledge, this controversial bill was passed, he added.

Demanding the withdrawal of the bill, he said, “We believe in ‘Khatam-un-Nabiyeen’ (The Last Prophet), we greatly respect all the companions, but we cannot give anyone the right to interpret my or anyone else’s creed, sect.” Let the people live according to their faith, sect, creed. He asked whether the politicians, parliamentarians have solved the basic issues, problems of the citizens, like employment, health and education, have they eliminated the exploiting classes from the society? So, now they are correcting and interpreting peoples’ sects and cults? He said that textbooks should not contain hateful and malicious material that would offend anyone, insult anyone, and hurt the beliefs, feelings, and sentiments of any sect, jurisprudence. But the officer of the Directorate General Public Relations cannot be given the authority to tell the nation what education to get. The matter of the nation’s education cannot be left to the discretion of a government official, he noted. He maintained that the duty of politicians is to provide relief to the citizens and to legislate in this regard. It is not our job to interpret any creed or sect; rather, such issues belong to the religious institutions, the Ulema Board, the Islamic Ideological Council, in which all schools of thought are represented, he concluded.