Islamabad (January 24, 2018): Bill to amend the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to punish criminals charged with abduction and rape of children under the age of 14 with public execution has been approved by the Senate Standing Committee on interior.
The Committee headed by Senator Rehman Malik proposed amendment to the existing punishments to include the words “by hanging publicly” after the word “death” after widespread calls for publicly hanging the culprit.
Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior Rehman Malik requested that the Senate take up a bill seeking public hanging of those found guilty of kidnapping or raping children under the age of 14.
He said that the killer must be given exemplary punishment to deter future commission of such heinous crimes.
The amendments to the existing legislation, which have been approved by the Senate committee, seek changes to the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in relation to punishments for the offence of the kidnapping of children, Malik said in a letter to the Senate Secretariat.
The bill proposed by the committee, entitled the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2018, seeks to amend the Pakistan Penal Code Act 1860’s Section 364-A (kidnapping or abducting a person under the age of 14) so that the punishment for the crime is a public execution.
Section 364-A currently reads: “Whoever kidnaps or abducts any person under the [age of fourteen] in order that such person may be murdered or subjected to grievous hurt… or to the lust of any person [sic] shall be punished with death.”
The amendment seeks to add the phrase, “by hanging publicly”, after the word “death” in the current legislation, the letter said.
The bill seeks the same amendment to the CrPC, 1898, Schedule II, Column 1 against Section 364-A.
Malik in the letter requested the House take up the bill before the current Senate session ends.
He said that Zainab’s killer should be made an example of by executing him publicly.
The committee’s request for amendments to the PPC and CrPC come a day after the arrest of a suspected serial rapist and murderer in Kasur was announced by the Punjab government, concluding a two-week-long manhunt launched after the rape and murder of six-year-old Zainab Amin sparked outrage across the country.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, while announcing the arrest at a press conference last night, had seconded the demand for a public hanging of the culprit after conviction in court, and stressed that this is what Zainab’s family, he himself, and the entire nation wants.
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