In December 2025, Additional Sessions Judge Mirza Tauseef Ahmed of Karachi did something unusual. He acquitted a husband who had driven his wife to suicide and then publicly lamented that he had no legal power to convict him. “It is a matter of grave concern,” the judge wrote, “that in Pakistan there exists no specific law that renders a person legally responsible for being the cause or reason behind another’s suicide.” This was not judicial activism. It was judicial honesty. And it exposed a gaping hole in Pakistan’s criminal justice system.
No Specific Law Against Abetment of Suicide
Pakistan has no law that criminalises the abetment of suicide. Not one. India has Section 306 of its Penal Code, which explicitly punishes anyone who abets suicide with up to ten years in prison. Bangladesh has a similar provision. Pakistan has nothing. What do we have instead? The general abetment provision in Section 107 of the Pakistan Penal Code. But courts have interpreted “instigation” strictly to mean explicit goading: “go kill yourself” — not mental torture, not sustained verbal abuse, not years of psychological cruelty. In the 2025 Karachi case, the wife’s suicide notes spoke of sorrow and persistent cruelties inflicted by her husband. The judge found the evidence compelling. Yet he acquitted because the husband never explicitly said, “commit suicide.” The law required magic words. The victim left none.
Domestic Violence Act Falls Short
Some will say: What about the Sindh Domestic Violence Act, 2013? It criminalises emotional and psychological abuse. True. But its maximum punishment is six months’ imprisonment. And it does not address what happens when that psychological cruelty ends in death. The Supreme Court of Pakistan, in a landmark 2025 judgment authored by Justice Ayesha Malik, held that psychological torture in marriage is as serious as physical violence. That was a progressive step, but only for divorce and domestic remedies. It created no criminal liability for driving a person to suicide.
Pattern of Stretching Homicide Provisions
In March 2026, Dr Abdul Karim Shaikh, a chief medical officer in Mithi, allegedly took his own life after being falsely accused of sexual harassment. Police charged eight suspects under Section 316 PPC, qatl shibh-i-amd (doubtful intentional murder). This is becoming a pattern: prosecutors, having no specific abetment law, stretch homicide provisions to cover suicide cases. But as the 2025 Karachi judgment made clear, homicide provisions do not apply to suicide. Stretching the law does not fix the gap; it creates bad precedent.
Islamic Jurisprudence Offers a Solution
Here is the irony. Pakistan’s Constitution, under Article 227, requires all laws to conform to the injunctions of Islam. And Islamic jurisprudence already has a solution: the doctrine of tasbib (indirect causation). Under tasbib, a person who is not the direct killer (mubashir) but is the indirect cause (sabab) of a death is criminally liable, provided the act was deliberate and directly linked to the harm. If a husband subjects his wife to sustained mental torture, knowing the severity of her depression, his actions are the sabab of her suicide. Islamic law imposes three distinct liabilities: ta'zir (discretionary imprisonment), diyat (mandatory blood money to her heirs), and kaffarah (spiritual expiation). This is not a foreign concept. The Qisas and Diyat laws are already part of Pakistan’s criminal code. The doctrinal foundation exists. Parliament simply refuses to build upon it.
Proposed Dual Framework
This article proposes a dual framework. First, the abettor: a new provision in the Pakistan Penal Code, Section 306A “Abetment of Suicide” would provide up to ten years’ imprisonment as ta'zir, mandatory diyat to the victim's heirs, and kaffarah at the court's discretion. Second, the survivor: Section 325 shall be re-added to the PPC, but completely transformed. It will not punish the survivor. Instead, it will provide for quarantine and mandatory rehabilitation. A person who attempts suicide is a danger to themselves. The state has a duty to protect both the survivor and the community.
Decriminalisation Does Not Shield Abettors
A legitimate question arises: if Pakistan decriminalised attempted suicide in 2022, how can we punish an abettor? The answer lies in Section 108 of the Pakistan Penal Code and in Islamic principles. The abettor is punished not because the victim committed a “crime”, but because the abettor’s own culpable conduct caused the loss of a life. The decriminalisation of suicide was intended to protect survivors, not to shield abettors. The Federal Shariat Court is currently hearing a challenge to the decriminalisation of suicide.
Parliament Must Act
Judge Mirza Tauseef Ahmed did his duty. He acquitted a man who, by his own finding, had driven his wife to death. Then he told Parliament that the law is broken. Every year, hundreds of Pakistani women and men take their own lives after enduring sustained mental torture. Their abusers walk free. Their survivors receive no treatment and return to the same abusive environment. Article 227 commands us to bring our laws into harmony with Islam. Islamic jurisprudence has provided the blueprint: tasbib, ta'zir, diyat, and kaffarah for the abettor. For the survivor, Islam’s emphasis on the preservation of life (hifz al-nafs) demands mandatory treatment, not punishment. Two tracks. One for the abettor: punitive justice. One for the survivor: quarantine and healing. Parliament must act on both. How many more suicide notes must be written before our legislators read the signs?
