LAHORE: A Punjab Assembly committee has decided to ban distribution of three books by different authors, besides a daily newspaper, and initiate legal action against more than hundred social media IDs for allegedly containing blasphemous contents.

The Special Committee-6, which met at the assembly secretariat here on Thursday under the chair of Law Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja, decided to ban publication and/or distribution of The First Muslim and After the Prophet, both works by foreign author Lesley Hazleton, and History of Islam by Mazharul Haq. It also decided to ban publication of daily ‘Al-Fazl.

The committee decided to move police and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for immediate action against the social media IDs, at least 127, containing blasphemous material.

The minister lamented that there were a number of foreign and local books in the market containing blasphemous remarks against Prophet Muhammad (PBHU) and other prophets, as well as against his companions and his family, that hurt feelings of the Muslims. Such material, he added, must be banned.

He said as only the federal government could act against imported books, therefore, the issue had been raised in the National Assembly and now it was lying with a Standing Committee of the lower house of the parliament.

He promised taking solid steps against publication of blasphemous contents and for the purpose representatives of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and other relevant departments and agencies would be summoned in the next meeting of the Special Committee-6.

Those who attended the meeting included Punjab Mines Minister Hafiz Ammar Yasser, MPAs Mian Shafi Muhammad and Muhammad Ilyas, representatives of school education, law, home, higher education and information technology departments, Punjab Textbook Board (PTB) as well as advocate-general.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2020