With inputs from agencies

NEW DELHI: A member of Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), a constitutional body which advises the Pakistani legislature on "whether or not a certain law is repugnant to Islam", has written to the Council's Chairman to propose a bill for the protection of men's rights , the Dawn newspaper reported on Saturday.It's significant that such an appeal should be made in a country that in 2011 was ranked third in a Thomson Reuters expert poll on the world's most dangerous countries for women (India ranked fourth), and that only this year passed a law that closed a loophole that allowed perpetrators of 'honour' killings to be pardoned by their victim's relatives."We support the rights of women but men should be granted their rights as well," Sahibzada Zahid M. Qasmi, the CII member who wrote to council Chairman Maulana Mohammad Sheerani , was quoted as saying by Dawn.Qasmi, who's the Secretary of the Pakistan Ulema Council, also told the newspaper that the CII would discuss the issue of men's rights during its next meeting on November 14, after he asked Sheerani that the council discuss the subject of protecting men from women."Some women in Pakistan torture men, and force them out of their houses...Islam grants rights to men as well and in this society those rights are being violated," Qasmi wrote to Sheerani.Speaking to Dawn, Qasmi further alleged that in "several cases," men in Punjab had had their nails pulled out or their hands and feet chopped off, after their wives asked relatives to "take violent measures" against them. He also said men who were thrown out of their homes by their wives didn't have any shelter homes to go to, but women who faced a similar fate did.Qasmi said that after the government of Punjab passed a bill earlier this year protecting women in the province from all forms of violence, men contacted him to tell him that just like women, they deserved to be given their due rights too. Qasmi expressed hope that a Bill protecting men's rights would also be passed, according to Dawn's report.The CII's decision to debate the issue of the protection of men's rights is seen as an attempt to dilute a progressive bill passed by the Pakistani province of Punjab on February 29: The Protection of Women Against Violence Act 2016. Among the Act's provisions were the creation of shelters, and of a toll-free hot line that women could use to report ill-treatment.The CII, a body that once infamously said husbands were allowed to beat their wives in "a light manner," is creating its own version of the bill.As early as in February, the The Protection of Women Against Violence Act was described as an attempt to "change religious and national values in the name of protecting women," and a "tragedy that is of great concern," by Muhammad Naeem, the head of Karachi's Jamia Binoria, one of Pakistani's largest Sunni Muslim seminaries.