ISLAMABAD  - National Assembly's Standing Committee on Interior has approved Anti Terrorism Amendment Bill 2013. The session of the committee headed by Chairman Abdul Qadir Patail approved the Anti Terrorism Bill 3013 with some amendments.
According to the bill, a person who commits abduction for ransom and hijacking would get ten years rigorous imprisonment. The investigation officer would be police inspector rather than a Sub Inspector. One clause of the new bill says that "if any or all office-bearers of a proscribed organisation form a new organisation under a different name, upon suspicion about their involvement in similar activities, the said organisation shall also be deemed to be a proscribed organisation and the government may issue a formal notification of its proscription".
The bill also provides that if members of such organisations or their associates were found "continuing the activities of the proscribed organisation, they would be denied passports and foreign travel, and loans or financial support by any bank or financial institution and have their arms licences cancelled". In a move to meet a common complaint of law-enforcement agencies about courts releasing terrorism accused on bail, a clause of the bill says that "no court shall grant bail to a person accused of an offence under this act punishable with death or imprisonment for life or imprisonment exceeding 10 years".
Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan made a long speech on his party's role to change what he said would have been a "state within a state" under the original bill based on a Musharraf-era decree simply to a housing society adhering to normal government laws.
‘‘It is now just a housing society," he said about the Islamabad DHA as well as a sister organisation set up for nearby Rawalpindi.