Torture, Custodial Death And Custodial Rape (Prevention And Punishment), Bill, 2018 In Interior Ministry For Deliberations

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Feb, 2020 ) :Torture, Custodial Death and Custodial Rape (Prevention and Punishment) Bill, 2018, prepared by Ministry of Human Rights placed before Cabinet Committee for Disposal of Legislative Cases (CCLC ) on February, 6, 2019. After legal vetting, the Bill is in interior Ministry for further deliberations, Secretary Raiba Javeria Agha said here on Sunday.

According to details, the Senate's Standing Committee on Human Rights approved the Custodial Death and Custodial Rape (Prevention and Punishment),2018, Bill, which will now be presented before the upper house of parliament for its consent.

The bill will then be forwarded to the National Assembly (NA) for deliberations. The bill could finally change the culture of impunity by criminalising torture by the police for the first time in this country's history, she added.

The bill's draft was earlier approved by the Cabinet Committee for Disposal of Legislative Cases (CCLC).

Pakistan signed the convention against Torture and other Curel , Inhuman and degrading Treatment of Punishment in 2008 , and thereafter ratified it in 2010.

Javeria Agha said the object and reason of the bill ratification of convention required enabling legislation to reflect the definition and punishment for "torture" .

These legal protections, however,would effective at preventing police abuse as the many recent incidents of torture bear testament, she added.

She said that Senator Sherry Rehman had also tabled her private "Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Bill, 2020 in Senate.

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