ISLAMABAD: The opposition on Friday managed to prevent the government from pushing its controversial new anti-terror law through the Senate. However, the bill has now landed in the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, which is dominated by members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

When the bill was moved on Friday by Minister for Science and Technology Zahid Hamid, opposition members including Pakistan Peoples Party’s Raza Rabbani, Awami National Party’s Haji Adeel and Pakistan Muslim League’s Kamil Ali Agha were quite vocal in their opposition to the bill, in its current shape.

Shouting “Black Law! Black Law!”, opposition members managed to block the passage of the bill, which was passed by the National Assembly on April 7.

The bill began life as the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, which was promulgated on October 20, 2013. Following its lapse, a draft bill was tabled in the lower house on January 27 this year.

Opposition parties have been unanimous in their opposition to two of the most worrying provisions in the proposed law. The first provides for individuals to be detained for up to 90 days at an undisclosed location. The second allows law enforcers to shoot suspicious individuals on sight. Both are seen as attempts to give retrospective legal cover to enforced disappearances and extra judicial killings.

On Friday, senators called for the constitution of a special committee, with representation from all major parliamentary parties, which would review the bill. But despite their best efforts, they could not prevent the bill from going to the Senate Standing Committee on Interior.

Raza Rabbani told Dawn the bill had been bulldozed through the National Assembly, adding that in blatant disregard for individuals’ fundamental rights, the bill give unprecedented powers to law enforcers.

Kamil Ali Agha, acknowledging the need for anti-terrorism legislation, maintained that certain controversial provisions of the bill must be reviewed. The sentiment was echoed by ANP senators Zahid Khan and Haji Adeel, the MQM’s Tahir Mashhadi and Abdul Rauf Lala of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party.

The PPP’s Farhatullah Babar, talking to Dawn after the Senate session, said that all parties agreed that effective anti-terrorism legislation should be enacted, but the proposed law was not acceptable in its current shape.

He said the Senate chairman had asked all members of the upper house – who wished to move amendments – to attend the standing committee meeting which will now take up the bill. “A lot of amendments are going to come from different political parties”, he added.

The PPP spokesperson said that the bill needed to be purged of stipulations such as those that that gave security agencies permission to shoot suspicious individuals on sight, legitimised enforced disappearances with retrospective effect or made confessions obtained by police admissible as evidence.

Separately, opposition members staged a walkout from the house to protest the withdrawal of a subsidy on wheat flour, provided to the people of Skardu.

Debate around foreign policy issues was dominated by the elections in India and Afghanistan and their impact on Pakistan’s relations with it’s immediate neighbours.

Farhatullah Babar emphasized the need to reclaim the ground lost by civilians to the security establishment over past decades with regards to foreign policy formulation

He asked the government to sever any alleged links it may have with insurgents inside Afghanistan.