LAHORE: Jamaat Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq talked to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari on phone Wednesday and asked him to take back bill against forced religion conversion.
Siraj said that Sindh assembly went against Shariah and constitution by passing this bill. He said that 1973 constitution was a gift by Bhutto to the nation and everyone accepted it but PPP’s provincial government was making it controversial. He said that bill should be taken back immediately.
Tthe Sindh Assembly last Thursday had unanimously passed into law a private bill — The Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities) Bill, 2015, — making forced religious conversion a punishable criminal act.
The bill prescribes a sentence from five years to life imprisonment for the person who forcibly converts another person, with a fine to be paid to the victim. Also, anyone who performs or facilitates in any manner a marriage of the victims of forced conversion will be liable to imprisonment of three years, with a fine to be paid to the victim. The bill forbids minors from changing their religion.
