An adjournment motion was submitted on Friday in the Senate secretariat on Friday to discuss the assassination of human rights activist Rashid Rehman in Multan.
Signed by ANP’s Afrasiab Khattak and PPP’s Senator Farhatullah Babar, the motion says that the gruesome assassination at the hands of some fanatics, whose names Rehman also identified, had raised issues of grave and urgent public importance.
It said that Rehman had complained to the judge of the court in April that he was being threatened by some people to dissuade him from professionally defending an accused. It is most worrying that he was actually assassinated within a month of the threats hurled at him while his pleas to seek protection were not heeded.
The assassination highlights the denial of fair trial to people accused of religious crimes dramatised by threats and assassination of defence lawyers, the motion said.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Senator Farhatullah Babar said that it was most disturbing that the defence of the legal rights of those accused of religious offences had become almost impossible.
Not only is it difficult to find defense lawyers in such cases the courts are often besieged by mobs demanding instant death even without due process, the motion adds.