ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN, February 18, 2017 (Hindustan Times): The upper house of Pakistan’s Senate passed the much-awaited Hindu marriage bill on Friday, awaiting the President’s signature to become a law. The bill, which had been approved by the lower house in September 2015, will help Hindu women get documentary proof of their marriage. It will be the first personal law for Pakistani Hindus, applicable in Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Sindh province has already formulated its own Hindu marriage law.
While approving the bill, committee chairperson senator Nasreen Jalil of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement said: “It was unfair — not only against the principles of Islam but also a human rights violation — that we have not been able to formulate a personal family law for the Hindus of Pakistan.”
The bill was approved by the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights on January 2 with an overwhelming majority. The bill has implications for the constitutional guarantee of protection of family as well as protective measures ordered by the Supreme Court for the Hindu minority. But some observers say that the bill in its present form leaves some serious gaps.