DWS, Sunday 24th November to Saturday 30th November 2013

	DWS, Sunday 24th November to Saturday 30th November 2013
The DAWN Wire Service (DWS) is a free weekly news-service from Pakistan's largest English language newspaper, the daily DAWN. DWS offers news, analysis and features of particular interest to the Pakistani Community on the Internet. DWS is sent by e-mail every Saturday. What’s Inside? National News | Editorial | Columns & Articles	For suggestions and comments: Email: webmaster@dawn.com Website: http://dawn.com Fax: +92(21) 35693995 Please send all Editorial submissions and Letters to the Editor to: letters@dawn.com
NATIONAL NEWS
PTI to block Nato trucks until drone strikes end By Ashfaq Yusufzai PESHAWAR, Nov 23: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan declared on Saturday that his party had decided to stop Nato trucks to and from Afghanistan through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa till a complete halt to the US drone attacks in the tribal areas and the province. . “There will be complete blockade of supplies to Nato forces till the US assures us of halting drone strikes,” he said at a public meeting after launching his anti-drone campaign. Members of the PTI’s coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa stayed away from the protest on the Ring Road, near the Motorway Interchange, one of the routes for Nato trucks. The PTI kept alive its tradition of adding colour to such events as speeches of its leaders were interspersed with national songs. “I also appeal to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to come forward and join our protest because the latest attack has taken place on its soil. There should be a complete ban on Nato supplies because the US has violated our land,” Mr Khan said. “It is a defining moment for us – either we resign ourselves to slavery or assert our independence and sovereignty,” he said. The PTI chief accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of not standing up to US aggression despite being entrusted with a responsibility to take measures for peace by participants of an all-party conference in September. The PTI leader urged the prime minister to order stoppage of Nato supplies. “Nawaz Sharif had promised (during the election campaign) that he will not permit drone attacks in our territory and will take the matter to the UN Security Council, but nothing has happened,” he said. Imran Khan alleged that the prime minister hadn’t conveyed the nation’s concerns to US President Barrack Obama during their meeting last month. DIALOGUE SABOTAGED: According to the PTI chief, the United States had sabotaged the peace dialogue supported unanimously by all political parties by killing Taliban leader Hakeemullah Mehsud in a drone attack. “It has no regard for Pakistan’s concerns and treats it like a slave,” he said. There should be distinction between a friend and an enemy, he added. “America doesn’t care about our sovereignty and is no friend of ours,” he said. He recalled that the US had carried out a drone attack in Waziristan last year just a day after the then government had passed a resolution. “The whole nation will stand behind the prime minister if he shows teeth to the US. It is his responsibility to protect the people.” The prime minister had the best opportunity to emerge as a hero by ordering a halt to Nato supplies, he said. The US did not bother about “statements of condemnation we have been issuing against illegal drone attacks for the past nine years and now we should take steps to protect our voters in the face of foreign aggression.” The public meeting was dominated by the Punjab-based PTI leaders because a majority of its key figures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are part of the provincial government. “We have lost 50,000 people in the war against terrorism, but the US still does not trust us,” Imran Khan said, adding that it was time to distance ourselves from the US-led war for the sake of peace in the country. Jamaat-i-Islami leader Liaquat Baloch said protests would be held in Karachi and Lahore on Sunday (Nov 24) and Dec 9 against the drone attacks. The Obama government had carried out 317 drone attacks in the country, he claimed. Sheikh Rashid Ahmed of the Awami Muslim League said the prime minister didn’t know about the prices of essential commodities and was instead “interested in making assets and securing business deals for his family empire”. The nation was passing through a dark period of history while the prime minister was devoting his time to foreign tours, he said. Among other speakers were the PTI’s Makhdoom Javed Hashmi and Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Usman Tarakai of the Awami Jamhuri Ittehad.
Pakistan keen to normalise ties with India, says Nawaz By Shoaib Ahmed LAHORE, Nov 23: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday that his government was keen to normalise relations with India in order to realise the dream of a peaceful and prosperous sub-continent. . “If India takes one step for good relations, Pakistan will take two. We even want to put an end to visa requirements between the two countries,” Mr Sharif said in an inaugural address at a literary conference at Alhamra Hall. He, however, said unfortunate flare-ups like the recent exchange of fire along the Line of Control did not help matters. “We want peace with India. We have good relations with China and Iran while our relations with Afghanistan are improving. Hence we look forward to having good relations with India too, ” the prime minister added. Recalling his meetings with Atal Behari Vajpayee, Nawaz Sharif held up the former Indian prime minister as a statesman, stressing that “the kind of dialogue I had with him should be revived”. APP add: Dwelling on the menace of terrorism, Mr Sharif expressed confidence that his government would succeed in eliminating the scourge, but it would certainly take time. “All institutions, media and society will have to follow a uniform policy, play their role and refrain from politicising national issues,” said the premier. He referred to the current trend in the West to malign Islam, observing that “Islam is being held responsible for terrorism and extremism these days. So we now need to highlight its true face. “The conference should help remove misconceptions about our religion. Projecting the real face of Islam is a great service.” Nawaz Sharif said Islamic teachings were not based on sectarianism and religious hatred. Rather Islam preached unity, peace, fraternity, love, tolerance and interfaith harmony. He said the Khilafat-i-Rashida, Persian and Ottoman empires had promoted true Islamic culture and brought about a social revolution in the Arab world. The prime minister said the people of Bangladesh still lived in the hearts of Pakistanis who, however, should remember how the country was disintegrated and who were responsible for it.He said today’s amazing technological developments owed their origin to Muslim scientists, mathematicians and scholars. Now the West was using media and information technology to propagate its culture. “We are lucky that Dr Allama Mohammad Iqbal was born in this part of the world. He comprehended problems of the Muslim Ummah and awakened them by highlighting the Islamic ideology and culture through his poetry and writings,” he added. Mr Sharif described poets and literary personalities as the country’s assets who were doing a great service by reforming the people’s mindset and behaviours. He announced a grant of Rs20 million for construction of a modern club for poets and literary persons. He was presented a book by Keval Dheer, a storywriter. Prime Minister Sharif and Lahore Arts Council chairman Attaul Haq Qasmi exchanged shields. Earlier, Mr Qasmi presented the address of welcome while retired Justice Javed Iqbal, Dr Ali Bayat from Iran, Ibrahim Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Misri from Egypt, Dr Abdul Wahid from Bangladesh, Prof Locasword from Germany, Editor of the Times of India King Sukh Naz and Dr Naumanul Haq spoke on “Bright Face of Muslim Culture: Its Past, Present and Future”. A large number of poets, scholars, dramatists, artistes, critics and literary personalities attended the session.
4 teachers, 3 others kidnapped in Bara By Ibrahim Shinwari LANDI KOTAL, Nov 23: Four teachers of a private school and three health workers were kidnapped in Bara on Thursday after a team administered anti-polio drops to hundreds of children under the protection of security forces, sources said on Saturday. . A relative of a kidnapped teacher told Dawn that he was not sure about the identity of the kidnappers, but believed that the kidnapping was related to the vaccination campaign conducted in their school. He said no clue about the teachers’ whereabouts had been found nor had anyone claimed responsibility for kidnapping them. A health worker said he had heard that unidentified gunmen had kidnapped 10 teachers of a private school in Speen Qabar area after he and other vaccinators had administered anti-polio drops to children there. He said he was not sure about the motive behind the kidnapping. “We were escorted to the area by security forces and the schoolteachers had nothing to do with the vaccination campaign,” he said. Political Agent Mutahir Zeb and Assistant Political Agent Mohammad Nasir did not respond to queries put by Dawn about the kidnapping but Political Tehsildar Shakil Khan dispelled the impression that the incident was related to the anti-polio campaign. He said he had received information that the kidnapping had been caused by a dispute between the teachers and the kidnappers. Announcements about vaccination were made on loudspeakers from local mosques, he said and added the vaccinators had not faced any resistance from any quarter. Shakil Khan said a jirga had been engaged to trace the missing teachers. He said the polio campaign continued in parts of Bara on Saturday as health workers told him that they had administered anti-polio drops to at least 1,578 children in Meel Wat area and hundreds of other children in Alamgudar and Malikdin Khel areas. AFP adds: Tribesmen were negotiating on Saturday to seek release of seven polio workers kidnapped by a militant group from the Khyber tribal district, officials said. Authorities said the workers were kidnapped by Lashkar-i-Islam group. Two government officials in Khyber Agency said the workers included four teachers of a private school, a male nurse and two volunteers. “A tribal jirga has started negotiations with Lashkar-i-Islam people. We are hopeful for the early release of polio workers,” a senior government official in Bara said. The second official said the abduction occurred in broad daylight when the workers were busy vaccinating the children. “Now the jirga is requesting them to release the abducted workers,” he said.
Egypt expels Turkish envoy after row over Morsi CAIRO, Nov 23: Cairo on Saturday expelled Turkey’s ambassador and Ankara downgraded relations in tit-for-tat moves that marked a further fraying of ties after the July ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.. The latest row between the two US allies saw Egypt expel the Turkish envoy after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday renewed his criticism of the “coup” that ousted Mr Morsi and Egypt’s continuing crackdown on his Islamist supporters. Cairo decided to expel Turkish ambassador Huseyin Avni Botsali, declare him persona non grata, downgrade ties to the level of charge d’affaires and not send its own ambassador back to Turkey, Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty said. A ministry statement accused Ankara of “supporting...organisations seeking to create instability in the country,” in a clear reference to the Muslim Brotherhood movement to which Mr Morsi belongs. It said Ankara was also “trying to influence the international community against Egyptian interests”. Turkey responded by declaring Cairo’s ambassador to Ankara, Abderahman Salah El Din, as “persona non grata” and downgrading ties “in line with the reciprocity principle that forms the basis of international relations”. Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned the Egyptian charge d’affaires in Ankara for an explanation and said Ankara held Cairo’s new military-installed authorities responsible for the current tensions. Cairo and Ankara had both recalled their ambassadors after a previous spat in August, but while Mr Botsali eventually returned to Cairo, Egypt’s envoy Salah El Din stayed home. Mr Abdelatty said Mr Erdogan’s latest comments, made in Ankara on Thursday before he headed to Russia for talks, were “provocative” and amounted to “interference in Egypt’s internal affairs”. The Turkish premier had said: “I applaud Mr Morsi’s stance against the judiciary. I respect him. I have no respect for those who put him on trial.” Mr Morsi is being tried on charges of inciting the killing of protesters during his one-year rule but has told the court that he remains the country’s legitimate president and does not recognise its authority. In a separate development on Saturday, Egypt extended by 15 days the detention of a Turkish student for participating in protests in Al Azhar university. HOPE FOR STABILITY: Turkey’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) government had forged a close alliance with Mr Morsi after he won Egypt’s first freely contested presidential election in June 2012. But he president was ousted by the army following days of mass protests by opponents, who accused him of poor governance and of betraying the 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling president Hosni Mubarak. Mr Erdogan angered Egypt’s new authorities immediately after Mr Morsi’s July 3 ouster by describing it as a coup. Mr Morsi’s opponents have rejected that term, insisting the army responded to the will of the people expressed through mass protests.—AFP
TTP owns Karachi attack KARACHI, Nov 23: The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility on Saturday for twin bomb attacks targeting Shias in Karachi overnight that killed seven people and wounded many others.. Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, said that the bomb blasts were carried out in revenge for violence in Rawalpindi on Ashura day. He said the attacks were aimed at Shias in Karachi, and vowed further violence. “It was to avenge the Rawalpindi incident, we will carry out more such attacks to avenge the killing of Sunnis,” the TTP spokesman told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. The explosions in Karachi on Friday night took place within minutes of each other in Ancholi, a predominantly Shia area.—AFP
Nadra in a fix over verification of thumb impressions By Iftikhar A. Khan ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has received the first case from Punjab which requires verification of thumb impressions taken during the polling on May 11. . The case pertains to the NA-118 constituency of Lahore where PML-N candidate Muhammad Riaz Malik was declared winner in the May general elections and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s candidate Hamid Zaman the runner-up. However, Mr Zaman accused Mr Malik of rigging the elections in collusion with the government machinery, police, presiding officers and polling agents. He said the verification of voters’ thumbprints would prove that bogus ballots were polled in large numbers. Since the case relates to Lahore — a stronghold of the Sharif brothers — Nadra is reportedly in a fix. If the authority discharges its duty in a fair manner, it may annoy its boss, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Sources in the Crisis Management Cell of the ministry said complaints had been filed by Tariq Malik, the chairman of Nadra, that his family had been receiving anonymous calls about dire consequences much before Nov 18, when the Lahore Election Tribunal passed the order regarding verification of thumbprints. Callers had been pressing the Nadra chief not to initiate the verification process. Phone numbers and other details regarding the calls had been received from Nadra office with a request to investigate the matter on priority basis and deal with it accordingly. Sources said the Nadra chief had now sent a fresh complaint about a threatening letter which too warned of dire consequences if the verification exercise was undertaken. The sources added the letter was posted from F-8 Post Office in Islamabad on Nov 19. The SIMs of three numbers by which calls were made had been issued to three different people who have permanent residences in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. One of the SIMs is in the name of a person whose CNIC shows his temporary address in sector F-6/3, Islamabad. On the other hand, a verification exercise of some national and provincial constituencies in Sindh revealed a single person casting around 44 votes at different polling stations, along with the disclosure that magnetised ink was also not used. Since the exercise remained limited to Sindh, there looms large a question as to whether the magnetised ink was used elsewhere in the country, or the ink stock was substandard. The first thumb verification case from Punjab may be revealing if allowed to complete without political interference. The thumb impressions were taken on electoral rolls and counterfoils to help the Election Tribunal in post-election scenario about multiple voting by an individual after due forensic analysis from Nadra’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The aim was for speedy disposal of election petitions and confidence building among public about the democratic process. Similarly, the recent decision of the Election Commission of Pakistan to use non-magnetised ink in the local bodies’ elections has sparked a controversy because the critics say that thumb verification would not be possible this time round. The authorities had decided to use ink without iron particles during the upcoming elections because they wanted to cut costs.
Outlaw kills three cops near Hafizabad By Our Correspondent GUJRANWALA, Nov 23: A station house officer and two constables were killed and five other policemen injured in an encounter with a notorious outlaw in Pindi Bhattian tehsil of Hafizabad district on Saturday. . Police received information that proclaimed offender Sajjad Ahmad, alias Haji Samaan, who was wanted in several cases of robbery, murder and other heinous crimes, was present in Thatha Raiki village. SHO Arif Shah, along with his staff, reached there and ordered Sajjad Ahmad and his accomplices to surrender, but they opened fire on police with automatic weapons. Inspector Shah, Head Constable Mohammad Aslam and Elite Force Constable Rashid died, while five other constables were injured critically. The injured were taken to hospitals in Pindi Bhattian and Hafizabad. Later, another police party led by Jalalpur Bhattian SHO Inspector Zafar Gondel reached there, but the criminals managed to take them hostage. According to sources, the criminals later released the SHO and his colleagues and escaped. The encounter, which began at 6am, continued for several hours. Regional Police Officer Saad Akhter Bharwana and other senior police officers reached the village and took the bodies to Hafizabad district hospital for autopsy.
Suspects change lawyers By Malik Asad ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: Days before the fifth anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, suspects have changed their legal team. . Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind, and the suspected abettors engaged Barrister Zahid Hussain Tirmizi and Raja Rizwan Abbasi to defend them in the case being heard by an anti-terrorism court here. Lakhvi, Abdul Wajid, Mazhar Iqbal, Hammad Amin Sadiq, Shahid Jameel Riaz, Jamil Ahmed and Younas Anjum were arrested in July 2009 for their alleged role in the Nov 26, 2008 attacks in which 164 people were killed and over 300 injured. Riaz Akram Cheema, a key defence counsel who remained associated with the case since August 2009, confirmed that he had disassociated himself from the proceedings. He cited personal reasons, including ailment of his mother, for his decision. Mr Cheema said that Khawaja Haris Ahmed, the other lawyer, had also disassociated himself from the case. Sources said Mr Cheema and Khawaja Haris were both based in Lahore where they had busy schedules while proceedings of the abetment case are held in Islamabad at short intervals. The new lawyers are based in Islamabad. When contacted, Barrister Tirmizi said that change of counsel was a routine matter. He said his clients wanted to expedite the trial and the new legal team comprised local lawyers who would definitely accelerate it.
‘Pakistani-US man killed family, himself’ PLEASANT VALLEY (New York), Nov 23: Police said on Friday an upstate New York man killed his wife and then used a shotgun to kill his two sons and himself.. Trooper Melissa McMorris said that Abbas Lodhi, a pharmacist, first shot Sarwat Lodhi in Wappingers Falls, then killed 9-year-old Zain and 13-year-old Mujtaba. The man’s body and those of his children were found on Thursday in their Dutchess County hometown, Pleasant Valley. Authorities said the parents moved from Pakistan during the 1990s and became US citizens. Ms McMorris said Ms Lodhi’s body was found along a road on Friday. She said Abbas Lodhi and his sons died of gunshots to their chests, adding that his wife may have been killed with the same weapon.—AP
Iran accepts N-curbs for sanctions relief GENEVA, Nov 24: Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday curbing the Iranian nuclear programme in exchange for initial sanctions relief, signalling the start of a game-changing rapprochement that would reduce the risk of a wider Middle East war. . Aimed at easing a long festering standoff, the interim pact between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia won the critical endorsement of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Tehran said the agreement recognised its right to enrich uranium but Washington denied the deal made any such reference. Israel slammed the deal as a “historic mistake” because it failed to ensure the Islamic republic could not acquire nuclear weapons. The six world powers involved in the marathon talks however hailed the preliminary agreement, which seemed unthinkable only a few months ago and at least temporarily warded off the prospect of military escalation. Under the deal, Tehran will limit uranium enrichment — the area that raises most suspicions over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons drive — to low levels. It will neutralise its entire stockpile of uranium enriched to medium 20-per cent purities — close to weapons-grade — within six months, US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Geneva, where he and other foreign ministers helped nail down the deal. Iran will also not add to its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, nor install more centrifuges or commission the Arak reactor. UN atomic inspectors will also have additional, “unprecedented” access, Mr Kerry said. In exchange, the deal will provide the Islamic republic some $7 billion in sanctions relief and the powers promised to impose no new embargo measures for six months if Tehran sticks to the accord. This represents “limited, temporary, targeted and reversible relief while maintaining the vast bulk of our sanctions, including the oil, finance, and banking sanctions architecture,” the White House said. Right to N-enrichment? Hassan Rouhani, whose election as Iran’s president in June raised hopes of a thaw with the West, insisted “Iran’s right to uranium enrichment on its soil was accepted in this nuclear deal by world powers”. But Mr Kerry was adamant: “This first step does not say that Iran has the right of enrichment, no matter what interpretative comments are made”. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the recognition was implicit, as diplomats who were at loggerheads only hours earlier tried to sell the deal to their domestic audiences. Russia said there were only winners and no losers in the deal, while Iran’s other ally China said the Geneva document would support stability in the Middle East. France, the member of the so-called P5+1 group that had expressed the most reservations over Iran’s commitment in a previous round of talks, called Sunday’s deal “a step in the right direction”. Over the next six months, Iran and the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany are to negotiate a more comprehensive deal. “It is now crucial to ensure punctual implementation of the agreement reached and to continue working, on the basis of the trust that is being built, towards a definitive settlement of this issue,” European Union President Herman Van Rompuy said. Joel Rubin, director of policy for the foundation Ploughshares Fund, warned that the hardest work could still lie ahead. “This is going to challenge all of the feelings, and conceptions and ideologies and emotions that have been pent up in the US, in the West and in Israel and elsewhere for decades. It’s going to be a very, very hard task,” he said. The deal was reached at the third meeting of the P5+1 and Iran since Mr Rouhani replaced the more hawkish Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August and said he was ready for crunch talks. Iranians, many of whom see the nuclear programme as a source of national pride, are impatient to see a lifting of sanctions that have more than halved Iran’s vital oil exports since mid-2012. “The structure of the sanctions against Iran has begun to crack,” Mr Rouhani said after the Geneva signing. Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who last week described Israel as a doomed “rabid dog”, hailed the deal as an “achievement”.—Agencies
N-plan’s progress halted: Obama By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON: A few hours after the deal was clinched, US President Barack Obama told his nation his government had managed to “halt the progress of the Iranian nuclear programme”. . “Today that diplomacy opened up a new path towards a world that is more secure — a future in which we can verify that Iran’s nuclear programme is peaceful and that it cannot build a nuclear weapon,” he said while presenting the deal as a major diplomatic achievement of his administration. “While today’s announcement is just a first step, it achieves a great deal. For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear programme, and key parts of the programme will be rolled back,” Mr Obama said. “Iran cannot install or start up new centrifuges, and its production of centrifuges will be limited. Iran will halt work at its plutonium reactor. And new inspections will provide extensive access to Iran’s nuclear facilities and allow the international community to verify whether Iran is keeping its commitments,” Mr Obama added.
Blast kills two troops in North Waziristan By Pazir Gul MIRAMSHAH, Nov 24: Two soldiers were killed and five injured in a roadside bomb explosion near Miramshah in North Waziristan Agency on Sunday while two explosive devices were defused in the same area.. Officials said a military convoy was heading from Miramshah to Mirali town when the bomb exploded, killing two soldiers and leaving five others wounded. The wounded were brought to Miramshah and later shifted to a military hospital in Bannu. An official said that a remote-controlled explosive device had been used in the attack. The explosion occurred near Karamkot village and later security forces defused two improvised explosive devices in the same area. Little-known militant organisation Ansarul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the blast. Abu Baseer, who introduced himself as spokesman for the group, told this correspondent on phone that Ansarul Mujahideen had planned and carried out the attack on the convoy. The group has emerged recently and already claimed responsibility for several attacks on security forces in the past few months. Earlier, a curfew was imposed in North Waziristan Agency to ensure safe passage for the convoy. Helicopter gunships kept flying over the military vehicles and security forces fired at suspected targets. US drones were also flying over Miramshah and other areas of North Waziristan when the incident happened. AFP quoted a security official as saying that two security personnel were killed and five others wounded in the explosion caused by a planted bomb.
JI chief, allies assail govt’s pro-US policy By Hasan Mansoor KARACHI, Nov 24: With a barrage of accusations and scorn heaped on the ‘imperialist America’ and its ‘agents’ ruling Pakistan, leaders of three right-wing parties and a banned charity organisation vowed at a rally here on Sunday to continue their ‘peaceful protest’ against US drone attacks amid deafening chants by their cadres promising their support to the military and government if they shot down the unmanned planes.. “We’ll support the government if it moves forward and declares a clear anti-drone policy, otherwise our jihad will continue and we’ll be protesting until the imperialistic programme is shut down,” Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Syed Munawwar Hasan said while addressing the rally, and paused for a gulp of water. A party activist standing beside him helped him with a bottle of water, relieved him of the mike and chanted loud slogans: “Nawaz Sharif, shoot the drones, we are with you!” He added in the same breath: “General Kayani, shoot the drone, we are with you!” Thousands of JI workers, among them a sizeable number of women with children, and those of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) were waving national and party flags overlooking giant banners calling upon the rulers to renounce the American war. In tandem with the PTI’s sit-in in Peshawar to block military and food supplies to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Karachi’s rally signified the fact that trucks originate from the port here for Afghanistan. Mr Hasan had got the company of PTI’s Sindh chief Nadir Akmal Leghari and MNA Arif Alvi, Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP) president Sahibzada Abul Khair Zubair and Amir Hamza, a central leader of the banned Jamaatud Dawa. They were standing on a dilapidated pedestrian bridge on the M.A. Jinnah Road, near Tibet Centre, as their boisterous supporters were scrambling underneath to catch a sight of them. Mr Hasan was full of criticism for the government, particularly Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom he was conditionally ready to support if he went against the Americans. Otherwise, he said, Americans were the compulsive enemies of the Muslims and Pakistan and so were Nawaz Sharif and his coterie who were frightened of the Americans and, in fact, were serving their interests. The JI chief claimed that former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf had signed a secret deal with US President George W. Bush in 2004 to launch the drone programme in Pakistan. “Since then, more than 3,000 innocent people have died in drone attacks,” he said. He criticised Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s statement in parliament in which he gave the number of 67 innocent people recorded as collateral damage in the drone attacks. “By saying this, Chaudhry Nisar has in fact appealed to the Americans to perpetuate their drone attacks,” Mr Hasan said. He said the Americans always “belittled us and can never be friends of Pakistan”. Mr Hasan bracketed India as ‘America’s would-be policeman in the region’ and said giving India the status of most-favoured nation for trade would facilitate it to access Afghanistan’s strategic mountains and plains. He demanded that the government revisit its foreign policy and secure the most out of the current US ‘compulsion’ to withdraw its 100,000 troops and tons of military equipment from Afghanistan through Pakistan. “Twist the arm of the Americans at this hour and get everything accepted by them before allowing them to withdraw from Afghanistan through Pakistani roads.” Mr Hasan also asked transporters and their drivers involved in Nato supply operations to sacrifice ‘for the largest interest of the Ummah’ and desist from supplying equipment and other goods to Nato forces. As he spoke, the activists standing downstairs unwrapped a replica of the US flag and burnt it. The JUP’s Sahibzada Zubair urged the government to declare its dissociation from the drone programme and shut down military supplies for Nato. PTI leader Nadir Leghari said: “We’ll be nowhere in the world if we continue to remain silent and be bombed by the drones.” Jamaatud Dawa’s Amir Hamza said the recent attack in Hangu district should be an eye-opener.
PTI activists stop and search trucks in KP By Ashfaq Yusufzai PESHAWAR, Nov 24: Police either watched quietly or looked the other way as activists of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf which heads the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa hauled drivers and forcibly searched Nato supply trucks in different areas of the province on Sunday in protest against US drone strikes. . The protesters held sit-ins and set up checkpoints in Peshawar, Kohat, Charsadda and Swabi, Nowshera and Dera Ismail Khan and checked customs documents listing the goods being transported to Afghanistan. At the Hayatabad camp in Peshawar, some PTI workers reportedly roughed up a driver who had taken some time to show documents and said that he was taking goods to private parties in Afghanistan and not for Nato forces. In another incident, they broke the seal of a container which enraged the owner of the vehicle and his men because the seal was a requirement for customs clearance and a formality which must be fulfilled for crossing the Pakistan-Afghan border at Torkham. PTI chief Imran Khan, who had held a two-day sit-in against US drone attacks and to stop Nato supplies on April 23, 2010, took the same course this time to demonstrate his party’s anger, especially after the recent drone strike in Hangu, a settled district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “The sit-ins will continue till the US halts drone attacks in Pakistan,” PTI’s Peshawar general secretary Younus Zaheer Mohmand told Dawn. He blamed scuffles on the truckers’ reluctance to show documents. “We have clearly instructed our workers not to cause inconvenience to the transporters who were not supplying goods to Nato forces in Afghanistan. All commercial trucks can cross the border without any hindrance,” he said. MNA Hamidul Haq and MPAs Fazal Ilahi, Zareen Zia, Mahmood Jan and others visited the camps. PTI’s spokesman Ishtiaq Urmer alleged that some miscreants wanted to sabotage the party’s peaceful protest and asked the workers to keep a strict watch on people creating problems for trucks which were supplying commercial goods to Afghanistan. “The main objective of the sit-in is to record protest against drone strikes.” The PTI workers holding flags and banners also marched on Hayatabad toll plaza. Workers of Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad, the parties in the provincial coalition, will join the protest on Monday. Nato supplies remain suspended on weekends because of closure of customs and other offices responsible for the documentation work. According to officials, 30 trucks carrying Nato goods cross into Afghanistan while 70 enter Pakistan via Torkham border every day. PTI’s media coordinator Umar Younus said the party workers would stay in the camps on shifts. “We will not allow Nato supplies via Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.” The party high command, he said, had asked the workers not to create problems for the general public and commercial transporters, adding that the PTI did not want confrontation with the US or any other country; it only wanted to send a message to the world that Pakistan was a sovereign country and its territorial rights must be respected. Agencies add: About 100 protesters on the outskirts of Peshawar checked the documents of truck drivers as they passed through a toll booth. They shouted at the drivers and pulled one Gul Zaman out of his truck when he told them that he was carrying commercial goods to Afghanistan, not Nato supplies. “Without waiting for me to take my documents out of the glove compartment, they dragged me out,” Zaman said. “We are also concerned about drone attacks, but they shouldn’t come down heavy on us like this.” Police were present at the scene but did not intervene to stop the protesters, some of whom were carrying wooden batons. The demonstration had more symbolic value than practical impact because there is normally very little Nato supply traffic on the weekend. An AFP reporter quoted Mohammad Faisal, a senior police official, as saying that the actions of the PTI activists were illegal but he was powerless to act. “The protesters are doing unlawful acts by checking documents and screening goods; they don’t have authority,” he said. “But we can’t take action against them because we have no instructions from the government. If the government orders us, we will stop this illegal activity.” Asghar Khalil, a PTI activist, said they were heeding their leadership’s call to action and would not stop until Washington promised to end drone strikes. Imran Khan has long opposed the US campaign of drone attacks targeting Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas. He has intensified his rhetoric since a US drone strike killed TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud on November 1. The PTI chief says the attack was a deliberate attempt by Washington to sabotage efforts for peace talks with the militants. “They (PTI workers) are doing unlawful acts. They broke the seal of my container and forcibly examined the goods,” Faiz Muhammad Khan, a truck driver transporting sanitary items to Afghanistan, said. “If they want to block supplies for Nato forces, they should stop it in Karachi or at the border.” Nato supplies were suspended on Saturday because of a major PTI rally which was held on the route used by the trucks.
Ulema prepare code for sectarian harmony By Kalbe Ali ISLAMABAD, Nov 24: Maulana Hafiz Mohammad Tahir Ashrafi, chairman of the Pakistan Ulema Council and a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), has come up with a 14-point code of conduct to be observed by religious organisations to end sectarian violence in the country.. The Maulana forwarded the code to the CII secretariat on Sunday with a request that a special meeting of the council be called to discuss it. The code of conduct calls upon all religious parties to distance themselves from violence in the name of religion. It says that no Muslim sect can be termed infidel. It also denounces any attempts to amend blasphemy laws. “We have seen that leaders of the Shia community have agreed to have a code of conduct to be observed by all parties. After the recent Rawalpindi tragedy, Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi also expressed willingness to observe some code if formulated by the CII,” Maulana Ashrafi told Dawn. “It is a responsibility of the council to guide the government on various matters in the light of Quran and Sunnah. “We have seen that despite numerous efforts made by the authorities the country is facing an explosive situation because of sectarianism,” Maulana Ashrafi said in a letter he sent to the CII. The proposed code of conduct says that anyone making derogatory remarks about the households of the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), including his respected wives and companions and Imam Mehdi should be declared as renegade from Islamic faith. It suggests stopping any speech and literature which are disliked by another sect or incited hatred. The code says that recordings of hate speeches and spreading them through any medium should be banned. Any slogan inciting hatred or instigating violence should be avoided by religious groups and all sects should respect places of worship and traditional norms of others. It suggests a ban on display of arms, especially illegal weapons, in all religious congregations and religious places. The code of conduct desires that speeches, especially during Friday prayers, should promote sectarian harmony and peace. It calls for holding regular seminars addressed by religious scholars to promote sectarian harmony. It proposes setting up of a board comprising ulema belonging to various sects to resolve differences. Maulana Tahir Ashrafi said in his letter that the code of conduct would have to be implemented by the government which should deal with its violator in accordance with law. The letter also calls upon the council to recommend strict measures to be taken against elements violating the sanctity of religious places of non-Muslims. The Maulana said there were laws in the country about such violations but either they were lenient or punishments were insufficient. “We need to ensure implementation of laws to achieve this gigantic task of maintaining peace and harmony among sects and various religions in Pakistan.” A similar effort was made in mid-1990s by the Milli Yakjehti Council which had come into being after the formation of Sipah-i-Mohammad, an offshoot of now banned Tehreek-i-Jaferia led by Allama Sajid Naqvi. Maulana Ashrafi was a founding member of the Milli Yakjehti Council. “I persuaded the leadership of banned Sipah-i-Sahaba to join the Milli Yakjehti Council and shun violence and they agreed,” the Maulana said. “It is time for clerics and Islamic scholars to come forward and play their due role, otherwise history will not remember them in good words.” Leaders of various sects and religious groups refused to comment on the code of conduct before studying it thoroughly.
Altaf calls for unity against terrorists By Our Staff Reporter KARACHI, Nov 24: In a scathing attack on some political parties which have been holding sit-ins and demonstrations in protest against US drone attacks but have chosen to remain silent on the killing of innocent people in acts of terrorism, Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has termed them “enemies of humanity” for condoning “ruthless terrorism”. . He urged the government, patriotic political and religious parties and prominent persons of all schools of thought to distinguish between friends and enemies of humanity. “We have to unite against the beasts who are killing innocent people belonging to different schools of thought,” he said while speaking at an MQM meeting in London. According to a press release issued by the party on Sunday, he said that ruthless terrorists who had “butchered” personnel of security forces, attacked military installations, mosques, Imambargahs and shrines and killed innocent people were “enemies of humanity”. So were the religious and political parties which were supporting them. Mr Hussain urged people belonging to different schools of thought to put aside their differences and unite against terrorists and their supporters. He condemned what he called “hypocrisy” of the parties which were holding demonstrations against drone strikes and also “begging for US aid”. The MQM leader said the country was confronted with internal and external threats and people were facing hunger, unemployment and other problems. He directed elected representatives belonging to the MQM to work for the solution of people’s problems and also pay attention to legislation so that people could easily get justice. He discussed the situation in Pakistan and the steps needed for forging unity among Muslims and propagating sectarian harmony in the country. Speaking to the MQM’s lawmakers and office-bearers on Saturday evening, Mr Hussain asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to tell the nation in clear terms that the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and those directly or indirectly supporting its actions were enemies of Islam and Pakistan. He said that some parties were holding demonstrations in protest against a drone strike in Hangu on Thursday. The next day two bomb blasts took place in Karachi’s Ancholi area and the TTP claimed responsibility for them. “It is the height of hypocrisy that the parties have not protested against the blasts and have instead served to undermine the killing of innocent people by staging sit-ins against drone attacks.”
Rocket ‘fired from Iran’ kills girl in border town By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, Nov 25: A girl was killed and six people were injured when a rocket fired by Iranian border forces hit three houses in Tump town of Kech district on Monday.. Balochistan Home Secretary Asadur Rehman Gilani confirmed the incident and told Dawn that the rocket fired from across the border had hit the houses in the town near Pak-Iran border. Sources said the three houses were destroyed by the attack. An official of Kech administration said that one of the houses belonged to Mullah Omer, believed to be a commander of an Iran-based religious outfit, Jaish-ul-Adl. The two other houses were of Mullah Omer’s brother Abbas and his close relative Mohammad Arif Jaish-ul-Adl surfaced about two months ago and claimed killing 15 Iranian Pasdaran (border guards) whose bodies were found in an Iranian border area. A group of people were arrested in Iran in connection with the killing of Pasdaran and 15 of them were hanged in the Iranian province of Sistan Baluchistan. The sources said that the Iranian outfit came to the limelight after the hanging of Jundullah leader Abdul Malik Rigi in 2010. He had been arrested by Iranian security officials while travelling in a Kyrgyzstan-bound passenger plane in February that year. An official said people in Tump accuse Mullah Omer of being involved in drug business. But, he added, there were reports that he was a commander of Jaish-ul-Adl. Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch took notice of the rocket attack from the Iranian side on a Pakistani area and said the provincial government had informed the federal government about it. He said he had asked Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to take up the border violation with Iranian officials.
PTI puts onus of Hangu attack on CIA By Ashfaq Yusufzai PESHAWAR, Nov 25: While the provincial police chief asked investigators to look into a PTI application which nominates the US and its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the FIR on the Hangu drone strike, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government presented a protest memorandum to US diplomats here on Monday. . Meanwhile, workers of the PTI and its allies continued for the second day to block the vehicles carrying supplies for US and Nato forces. According to a PTI press release, KP police chief, Nasir Durrani, ordered an investigation in response to the application by the party’s central legal secretary Barrister Suleman Afridi. Senior Minister Sirajul Haq and other members of the provincial cabinet and legislators handed over the protest memorandum to the US Consulate’s Regional Security Officer Christopher Backend, who invited the minister for tea after receiving the communique. “You can come for a cup of tea anytime,” Mr Backend said to Mr Haq. The minister said the provincial government would also present a memorandum at the US embassy in Islamabad. After the diplomat had received the memorandum, Mr Haq shouted: “stop drone strikes”. The memorandum called upon the United States to forthwith stop drone strikes on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The two-page statement described drone strikes as an unlawful, inhuman and immoral act of aggression and a war crime and detrimental to the cause of peace in the region. The memorandum said the unlawful US drone strikes were acts of aggression against a sovereign state under the UN Charter and international law and a war crime under a May 9 verdict of the Peshawar High Court. During the protests on Monday, PTI workers blocked Nato supply routes at five places in four districts of the province. They denied passage to more than 10 vehicles but allowed those transporting Afghan Transit Trade goods, a press release said. The workers checked the documents of such vehicles before allowing them to proceed to Afghanistan through Torkham. They were joined by activists of Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami Jamhuri Ittehad. During their visits to protest camps, PTI’s provincial legislators instructed the workers to avoid clashes with commercial transporters and stop only Nato vehicles. PTI spokesman Ishtiaq Urmer told Dawn that the protest campaign would continue till complete stoppage of US drone strikes. “There will be no compromise on the sovereignty of the country. We will continue to oppose the violation of our geographical boundaries,” he said. He rejected claims of certain politicians that such protests would not be able to stop drone strikes and said every nation had the right to record its resentment.
Afghanistan concerned over trade disruption By Intikhab Amir PESHAWAR: Afghanistan has expressed concern over disruption of trade routes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa following blockade of Nato supplies in Peshawar, Kohat, Dera Ismail Khan, Swabi and Charsadda districts by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.. At a meeting with Pakistan’s ambassador in Kabul, the Afghan authorities conveyed their concern over disruption of trade between the two countries caused by the blockade, officials said on Monday. Sources in the Federal Board of Revenue told Dawn that the Afghan commerce ministry had taken up the matter with Pakistani ambassador to Kabul. An FBR official said the Pakistani embassy in Kabul called the Peshawar Customs Collectorate on Monday for information about the situation on trade routes for a meeting of the ambassador with the Afghan commerce minister. He said the disruption was hurting the multi-billion dollar trade with Afghanistan. “It is a matter of Pakistan’s credibility and its obligations to the international community.” He said Afghan markets depended on goods carried under the Afghan transit trade and bilateral trade agreements. Transportation of goods to Afghanistan from Karachi via Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had resumed only a day ago after remaining suspended for over a week because of a strike observed by transporters. “About 1,000 trucks carrying regular trade items and 150 trailers carrying Nato supplies are on way from Karachi to Peshawar for onward journey to Afghanistan,” said an official. Because of the protests, the Nato trucks on way to Peshawar from Karachi had discontinued their journey, stopping at different places in Sindh and Punjab, he said.“The trucks that have not yet entered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have gone off the road because the protesters blocked all trucks heading to Afghanistan on Sunday,” the official said.Some trucks, he said, were loaded with military vehicles meant for the Afghan National Army.
Contempt plea against defence hierarchy By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: The wife of a missing person filed in the Supreme Court on Monday a contempt petition against the defence hierarchy for allegedly obstructing police investigation in order to protect an accused, Maj Ali Ahsan of the Military Intelligence. . The petition filed by Advocate retired Col Inamur Raheem on behalf of Abida Malik has named as respondents Defence Secretary retired Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Chief of General Staff Lt Gen Rashid Mehmood and GHQ Military Secretary Lt Gen Mazhar Jameel. The Supreme Court is already seized with an application of Abida Malik seeking production of her husband Tasif Ali alias Danish. She alleged that Maj Ali Ahsan known as Maj Haider was involved in the enforced disappearance of her husband. Tasif Ali, believed to be working for Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, went missing on Nov 23, 2011. He was reportedly in contact till the last call with Maj Haider who was then captain and posted at the MI-918 Mangla Cantonment. The disappearance was reported to the Sadiqabad Police Station on Dec 5 last year and the case was heard by the Lahore High Court on March 19 this year but was dismissed. In her complaint, Ms Abida alleged that harsh words were exchanged between her husband and the caller, believed to be Maj Haider, during a conversation on Nov 22 last year. The next day her husband went to offer Juma prayers and has since been missing. Tasif Ali had started a furniture business some time before his disappearance. At the last hearing on Nov 19, the apex court was informed that Maj Ahsan was performing his duty in the earthquake-hit Awaraan district of Balochistan and efforts were being made to recover Tasif Ali. The contempt petition pleaded that the respondents as well as MI Director General Maj Gen Naushad Kiani were responsible for impeding the process of police investigation which itself was an offence under the Pakistan Army Act. “It clearly proves that the entire defence hierarchy is endeavouring to provide illegal protection to Maj Ahsan, thereby obstructing the due process of the court in a sub judice matter,” it said. The petition said that it was a constitutional obligation of the superior military authority under Article 190 of the Constitution to act in aid of the Supreme Court, especially when the matter was sub judice and conduct of an army officer was questioned. “It is incumbent upon all military officers to render all possible assistance to the Supreme Court so that justice is administered.” By allegedly impeding the investigation, it said, the military hierarchy had not only misled the apex court and hampered the due process of law but also tried to prejudice the matter pending before the court and furthermore rendered their credibility as questionable/suspicious for all times. “It is, therefore, respectfully prayed that in addition to show-cause notice to the respondents, contempt proceedings under Article 204 of the Constitution and Sections 2 and 3 of Contempt of Court Ordinance 2003 be initiated against them to meet the ends of justice,” the petition said.
Surveillance drones inducted into army, PAF By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: Moving a step closer to the dream of having armed drones, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the army inducted their first fleet of surveillance drones named Burraq and Shahpar on Monday.. The drones were inducted into active service at a ceremony attended by outgoing army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, PAF chief Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt and the Director General of the Strategic Plans Division, retired Lt Gen Khalid Ahmed Kidwai. Gen Kayani was quoted by the ISPR as saying at the ceremony that the “induction of indigenously developed surveillance-capable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Pakistan’s armed forces will substantially enhance their target acquisition capabilities in real time”. Gen Kayani also visited the Naval Headquarters and met PN chief Admiral Mohammad Asif Sandila. Pakistan has been working to indigenously produce drones for years. The first reports about such efforts appeared in 2009. The spokesman did not talk about plans of developing the capability of drones to enable them to carry lethal payloads and instead said that the UAVs could also be “gainfully employed in various socio-economic development projects”. The US had offered Scan Eagle and Shadow surveillance drones to Pakistan in 2010 but a deal could not be reached. Burraq and Shahpar are believed to have been developed with assistance from China and Turkey but are far less sophisticated than the Predators and Reapers. Burraq has been developed/manufactured jointly by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and the National Engineering and Scientific Commission and is based on Italian Falco-Selex Galileo technology. Shahpar has been produced by the Global Industrial and Defence Solutions.
S. Arabia cautiously welcomes Iran nuclear deal RIYADH, Nov 25: Saudi Arabia has cautiously welcomed the Geneva nuclear deal reached between Iran and world powers, saying “good intentions” could lead to a comprehensive agreement on Tehran’s controversial atomic programme.. “This agreement could be a first step towards a comprehensive solution for Iran’s nuclear programme, if there are good intentions,” the Saudi government said in a statement on Monday. In London, the British foreign secretary called upon Israel to avoid taking any action that would undermine the agreement. Urging world leaders to give the interim deal a chance, William Hague said it was important to try to understand those who opposed the agreement. But he urged Israel and others to confine their criticism to rhetoric. “We would discourage anybody in the world, including Israel, from taking any steps that would undermine this agreement and we will make that very clear to all concerned,” Hague said in a speech in parliament. In Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had decided to send his national security adviser to Washington for talks on Iran after warning the deal will convince Tehran it has a free hand to achieve a breakout nuclear capability. US President Barack Obama has frequently tried to reassure Netanyahu, calling him to discuss the issue. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also sought to placate Israel about the agreement with Iran, whose supreme leader last week described the Jewish state as a “rabid dog” that was “doomed to collapse”. “We will work so that the security of all the countries in the region, including Israel, is better assured,” Laurent Fabius said in an interview with a news agency. Asked about the risk of Israeli strikes on Iran, he responded that he thought such as move was unlikely “because no one would understand it” at this point in time. Fabius further said EU foreign ministers were to meet next month to discuss lifting some sanctions as part of the deal, a move he said could take place “in December”. But a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton sought to dampen expectations that a firm decision would be taken at the next foreign ministers’ gathering due on December 16. “It could be in December, it could be in January, it depends on how long the process takes,” he said. The landmark deal would curb parts of Iran’s nuclear programme in return for some relief from international sanctions. One senior Western diplomat said on Monday the focus in the coming weeks would be “swift implementation”. In Jerusalem, the EU ambassador-designate to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, echoed the French foreign minister’s comments, telling a crowd of diplomats and the country’s intelligence minister that the 28-member bloc had “Israel’s security at heart”. The so-called P5+1 world powers that negotiated the accord with Iran — the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany — say it is a key first step that wards off the threat of military escalation in the Middle East. Under the deal, which lasts for six months while a more long-lasting solution is negotiated, Tehran will limit uranium enrichment to low levels used only for civilian energy purposes. It will also neutralise its existing stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, which is close to weapons-grade and therefore an area of top concern.—Agencies
Tough SC order to defence secretary By Our Staff Reporter LAHORE, Nov 25: Hearing different cases of missing persons here on Monday, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry directed the defence secretary to produce Yasin Shah, a resident of Mardan, and others on Tuesday or appear in person before the court.. A joint secretary and director legal of the defence ministry, flanked by an additional attorney general, appeared before the bench comprising the chief justice, Justice Jawad S. Khwaja and Justice Amir Hani Muslim. The director legal told the court that the alleged missing person was not in the custody of the army and efforts were being made to trace him. But the court pointed out that the Superintendent of Malakand Internment Centre, Ataullah, had submitted a statement before the Peshawar High Court two years ago that the army had handed over 35 persons to him and later took them away from the internment centre. He had admitted in his statement that Yasin Shah was among those detainees. The chief justice observed that either the superintendent of the internment centre was misleading the court or the defence ministry, and warned the director legal of punishment if he was found guilty of making a false statement. He said the Supreme Court had been asking the authorities for the past 10 years to mend their ways, but no importance had been given to its orders. Addressing the additional attorney general, the chief justice said it appeared that the incumbent government was following in the footsteps of its predecessor because kidnappings of people had not stopped. Justice Khwaja pointed out that the attorney general had undertaken before the court that this practice would end and the government was going to evolve a policy about missing persons, but nothing has happened so far. The director legal sought more time, but the chief justice issued orders for the defence secretary to ensure production of the detainee or appear in person before the court on Tuesday. Hearing another case about alleged disappearance of Advocate Zaheer Gondal of Rawalpindi, the bench ordered city police officer Akhtar Laleka to produce the lawyer on the next hearing. Initially, the court adjourned the case for a day. Later, it accepted a request of the police officer and fixed the next hearing at the principal seat of the Supreme Court in Islamabad on Dec 2.
Ministry seeks funds for treason trial By Malik Asad ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: The Ministry of Law and Justice has sought Rs3.1 million from the finance division as initial expenses for the special court set up to try former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf for high treason, sources in the law ministry told Dawn. . The trial of the former army chief, the first in the country’s history, relates to imposition of emergency rule by him on Nov 3, 2007. Sources said that a request for release of the amount had been forwarded to the finance division last week, but a reply was still awaited. According to the sources, the ministry required Rs3.1 million for providing logistical support to judges of the special court and for day-to-day matter of the court. The sources said the law ministry would assign the responsibility of providing logistical support to the three-member court comprising Justice Faisal Arab of the Sindh High Court, Justice Tahira Safdar of Balochistan High Court and Justice Yawar Ali of the Lahore High Court. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif approved names of the judges last week. According to a notification issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, Justice Faisal Arab will head the special court, being the senior-most judge of the court which will hear the case at the Federal Shariat Court in Islamabad. The sources said that logistical support for the judges included air travel, vehicles, accommodation and other expenses. After the receipt of the amount, the equipment required for the trial would be installed in the court room. The sources said that the amount of Rs3.1 million was the initial fund and it did not include the fee for the special prosecutor because that would be taken care of by the interior ministry. A senior official of the finance ministry confirmed that the request had been received from the law ministry for the supplementary grant and the matter was in process. He said the request had been forwarded to the financial adviser and after his approval it be would sent to additional secretary expenditure of the finance division. A summary in this regard would then be sent to the secretary of finance and after his endorsement it will be submitted to the finance minister.
Prosecution team’s chief appointed By Syed Irfan Raza ISLAMABAD, Nov 25: The government appointed on Monday prominent lawyer Akram Sheikh as head of its legal team to prosecute former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf on treason charges. . A source in the law ministry confirmed that a notification about his appointment as head of the prosecution team had been issued. Mr Sheikh has conveyed his consent to take up the post to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In a statement issued on Friday, he had offered his service to the government in the high treason case against Gen Musharraf and constitutional matters arising therefrom before the Supreme Court. Mr Sheikh has defended Nawaz Sharif and his family in several important cases.
Pakistan Navy ships in Shanghai on goodwill mission SHANGHAI, Nov 25: Pakistan Navy ships — destroyer PNS Khaibar and oil tanker PNS Nasr — were accorded a warm welcome when they arrived on a four-day goodwill mission here on Monday.. Navigating through Wusong estuary and commanded by Commander Destroyer Squadron, Commodore Ali Abbas SI (M), (Mission Commander) with Captain Mohammad Faisal Abbasi and Captain Tarique Hussain, the commanding officers of PNS Khaibar and Nasr, respectively, the type-21 class Khaibar along with Nasr moored to the Shanghai port as Pakistani sailors on board and Chinese sailors on the jetty chanted slogans of “long live Pakistan-China friendship” to herald the ships’ arrival. An impressive welcome ceremony was held at the harbour that was attended by a large number of senior officials and diplomats from both sides. Naval officers from Pakistan and PLA Navy, including defence and naval attaches and a consul from Pakistan’s Consulate General in Shanghai, were present on the occasion. The mission commander underlined the significance of the visit, saying such visits fostered goodwill, promoted mutual understanding and enhanced cooperation between the two countries. Rear Admiral Syed Arifullah Hussaini, following a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Rear Admiral Li Yujie, Commander of the Shanghai Naval Garrison, wrote in the visitors’ book he hoped that mutual visits would be beneficial for the two nations and international peace and stability. The Pakistani ships had embarked on their voyage from Karachi for goodwill cruise on Oct 21, touching port cities in Sri Lanka and Thailand before approaching Shanghai.—APP
PM launches major N-power project By Hasan Mansoor KARACHI, Nov 26: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif performed on Tuesday the groundbreaking of the country’s largest nuclear power plant and announced that six similar projects were in the pipeline which would make N-energy the key source of power and ultimate panacea for the power crisis. . “I am happy to announce about the information I have received that six more sites have been identified where similar projects could be set up. Our experts are busy in examining the exact information about the energy potential there,” he said with a beaming face. “We’ll take all such projects on priority. I am for all-out help to the endeavours which help in our quest to end energy shortage,” he said after launching the Coastal Power Project K-2 and K-3, which will generate 2,200MW by 2019. These are part of a string of energy projects which include wind power generation of 2,500MW, the Central Asia-South Asia project of 1,000MW and Tarbela-V extension project by 2017. Work has been initiated on the Pakistan Power Park at Gadani which will have 10 coal-based projects of 660MW each. Besides there are plans to import LNG to reduce gas loadshedding from next year. The World Nuclear Association has estimated the cost of the new project at nearly $10 billion. The prime minister said a substantial foundation would be laid during the coming year for the Nuclear Energy Vision 2050 that envisaged generation of about 40,000MW. He said uninterrupted power was key to development and “we have resolved to realise this dream”. The launching of the project was “one of the first steps towards the goal of a Pakistan free of loadshedding”, he said. The prime minister praised China’s leaders for always helping Pakistan in its hour of need. “I cannot forget that the contract for the first nuclear power plant of Chinese origin, built at Chashma, was signed by my first government.” He said: “It was not without a reason that China gave me the privilege to visit it immediately after our government was formed.” He said Pakistan would welcome investments by Chinese companies and would facilitate them. He said he dreamt of seeing Karachi as one of the world’s leading port cities and business capitals. “Karachi has immense potential to compete with Asian cities like Hong Kong, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and our endeavour is to cash in on its potential.” He said it was his government’s responsibility to assist the Sindh government in restoring the glory of the metropolis. “I want to see electricity, gas and water in every home. It is our duty to provide essential services to our people, which they ought to have had many years ago,” he said. “I want to see a secure, democratic and tolerant Pakistan. A Pakistan where everyone gets equal opportunities, where business flourishes; a corruption-free Pakistan where one gets one’s due.” He also spoke about the construction of Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu dams simultaneously, besides the Bunji dam. These dams will have combined power generation capacity of 15,000 MW from the Indus River. “We are exploring all vistas -- from hydel and nuclear to coal, wind and solar potentials,” he said. He congratulated the Strategic Plans Division and Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission on the groundbreaking of the fifth power project. Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad and Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif, Chinese Ambassador Sun Wei Dong and PAEC Chairman Dr Ansar Parvaiz attended the ceremony.
Three Afghan Taliban leaders freed By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: The government on Tuesday set free three more senior Taliban leaders to prop up the Afghan reconciliation process. . The release of the three Afghan Taliban leaders came almost a week after a High Peace Council delegation, led by Salahuddin Rabbani, visited Islamabad for discussion on the peace initiative. Unlike the past, there was no official announcement of the release of the three Taliban leaders. However, senior Foreign Office officials privately confirmed that they had been freed. Those released have been identified as Mullah Abdul Ahad Jahangirwal, Mullah Abdul Manan and Mullah Younus. Mullah Jahangirwal served as a special adviser and secretary to Mullah Omar during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. He was also Taliban spokesman in Kandahar. Taliban demanded his release last year when Pakistan, on the Afghan government’s request, started releasing detained militants. Mullah Jahangirwal was arrested by Pakistani authorities in 2009. Mullah Abdul Manan had served as a governor during the Taliban rule. Following Taliban’s fall, Manan had been charged with transportation of weapons for insurgents. Mullah Younus, a former Zabul Province shadow governor, who worked as Kabul police chief during the Taliban rule, was among those arrested after Mullah Baradar’s capture in Karachi in February 2010. Mullah Baradar was released in September this year and is believed to be the most influential Taliban commander to have been freed as yet. With the release of these three men, the total number of Taliban leaders set free by Pakistan since last November — when the process began — has reached 37. According to a source, the government has freed all high-ranking Taliban leaders. The government last year made a commitment to free all detained Taliban leaders. It is not known whether the freed Taliban leaders helped in promoting the reconciliation process. However, some leaders have reportedly rejoined Taliban ranks after their release. AP adds: Pakistan quietly released at least 10 lower-ranking Taliban prisoners last month, said an Afghan official. Taliban leaders have so far refused to talk directly with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his government or its representatives.
Obama seeks to delay new sanctions against Iran By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON, Nov 26: The Obama administration is urging Congress to hold off for another six months their plan to introduce new sanctions against Iran, US officials said on Tuesday.. As his aides reached out to senior congressional leaders for delaying the sanctions, President Barack Obama told his nation that now was the time to pursue diplomacy over conflict. “Huge challenges remain. But we cannot close the door on diplomacy, and we cannot rule out peaceful solutions to the world’s problems,” Mr Obama said in a speech in San Francisco. The US and five other world powers signed a deal with Iran this weekend, which seeks to cap Tehran’s nuclear capabilities in return for relaxation of US-led sanctions, which had crippled the Iranian economy. “Now that’s the right thing to do. That’s good for the United States. It’s good for our allies. It’s good for Israel,” said Mr Obama while responding to criticism that his deal with Iran had jeopardised the security of America’s closest ally in the region, Israel. On Tuesday, the US media reported that Mr Obama had sent his senior aides to congressional leaders with a message that bringing new sanctions at this stage would hurt the deal concluded in Geneva. The aides are believed to have told the lawmakers to delay the sanctions for six months so that they could hammer out a long-term agreement with Iran for ending its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The present deal is an interim arrangement and both sides are required to conclude a permanent solution by late 2014. In a bid to allay lawmakers’ fear that the deal would allow Iran to secretly pursue its nuclear ambitions, Mr Obama said he had gone into negotiations with Iran “clear-eyed”. Mr Obama recalled that when he came into office, “there was a lot of bluster about Iran” but no real plan to curb its nuclear programme. “And so, with the help of members of Congress… we constructed the toughest set of sanctions ever” and also brought in those “who were very reluctant to apply sanctions -- Russia and China”, he added. And as a consequence of the agreement concluded in Geneva, the world witnessed the first halt in the Iranian nuclear programme in a decade, the reduction to zero of the 20 per cent enriched uranium that was the biggest threat to immediate breakout capacity, Mr Obama said. The US president said he preferred diplomacy to war because he spent a lot of time with young Americans wounded in the war. “I’m going to do every single thing that I can to try to resolve these issues without resorting to military conflict,” he added.
Pakistan, Iran planning fresh talks on pipeline By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: After weeks of uncertainty, the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project got a fresh impetus on Tuesday when the two countries agreed to expedite negotiations on gas price and formulate a fresh implementation schedule. . A government official told Dawn that a technical delegation of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources and the Interstate Gas Company (ISGC) would visit Tehran to hold talks with the Iranian government and Tadbir Energy Gaspar, the project contractor, soon after the return of Prime Minister’s Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, who is currently in Iran to attend a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the 10-member Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO). It will be followed by a meeting of energy ministers of the two countries for which dates and venues are being finalised. The official said the two sides would immediately start fresh negotiations on gas pricing and work out a fresh project implementation schedule to make up for the time wasted in political transitions in the two countries and uncertainties associated with the US-Iran nuclear talks. “Iran and Pakistan have decided to fast-track discussions on the gas pipeline project in order to formulate a roadmap and a more realistic schedule for the implementation of this important project,” a foreign ministry spokesman said. It was an “important outcome”, he said of a meeting between Sartaj Aziz and Iranian Foreign Minister Dr Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran on Tuesday. “It was agreed that comprehensive technical commercial proposals on the pipeline project would be discussed in Tehran between Pakistan’s ISGC and Iran’s Tadbir Energy in the first week of December. It will be followed by ministerial level discussions,” he added. The spokesman said the two ministers had discussed bilateral cooperation and regional issues, expressing satisfaction over the friendly and cordial relations between Iran and Pakistan. They stressed the need for putting greater focus on bilateral economic relations and agreed to hold the next round of Iran-Pakistan Joint Ministerial Commission in Tehran early next year. Iran recently expressed its willingness to review gas price for the project, as required under the bilateral gas sale and purchase agreement (GSPA). More importantly, the two sides have to agree on a revised implementation schedule given the fact that more than six months have been wasted because of political transition in the two countries and uncertainties over impact of US sanctions on the pipeline project. The official said the GSPA provided for review of price before actual gas flows under the project on the desire of any party and on the basis of any alternative fuel price. Under the agreement, the first gas delivery to Pakistan should start by Dec 31 next year. The two countries are responsible for completion of pipeline within their territories. Failure on part of a party entails penalties equivalent to the price of daily gas quantities. The price under the original agreement had been signed at about 78 per cent of furnace oil. Subsequently, Pakistan signed another agreement with Turkmenistan for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project envisaging a delivery price in Pakistan at about 69 per cent of furnace oil, providing a comparative fuel price with an annual difference of about $1 billion. This price differential has to be narrowed down between Pakistan and Iran. But the more critical issue to be sorted out is the financing arrangement to complete 781km pipeline inside Pakistan. Iran had offered $500 million for it, but since the interest rates were seen on the higher side by Pakistan, it sought higher financial support from Iran to avoid US sanctions on Islamabad. With a breakthrough between the United States and Iran over the latter’s nuclear programme and resultant release of Tehran’s $7 billion foreign exchange assets, Pakistan and Iran have to work out a fresh project implementation schedule on the basis of actual ground situation and agree on financial arrangements. The two sides also have to renegotiate terms for Pakistan’s sovereign guarantee for Tadbir Energy’s financing to formalise its agreement for pipeline construction.
SC orders production of 35 undeclared detainees By Wajih Ahmad Sheikh LAHORE, Nov 26: A visibly annoyed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has warned the defence minister (the post is held by the prime minister) and the defence secretary to either produce on Thursday 35 undeclared detainees taken away by the army authorities from an internment centre or face consequences. . The chief justice issued the warning after the defence authorities failed to produce them and sought more time. A three-judge bench comprising the chief justice, Justice Jawwad S. Khwaja and Justice Amir Hani Muslim had taken up at the Lahore registry of the Supreme Court on Tuesday a human rights case for the recovery of one Yasin Shah and 34 other internees. Additional Defence Secretary retired Maj Gen Raja Arif Nazir, Senior Joint Secretary Anzar Rizvi, Director Legal Mohammad Irfan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa IG (prisons) Zakir Husain Afridi and Superintendent of Malakand Internment Centre Ataullah appeared before the bench. The defence secretary did not attend the hearing. Additional Attorney General Tariq Khokhar informed the court that the defence secretary had been advised medical rest. He sought time on behalf of the defence authorities to produce the missing persons. He said acting charge of the defence secretary had not been given to anyone and the portfolio of defence minister was with the prime minister. The bench noted that no document about medical leave of the defence secretary was produced and directed the additional secretary to submit it. The superintendent of the internment centre presented a list of 35 undeclared internees handed over and later taken away by the army. The chief justice said there was sufficient evidence to establish that these people were in the army’s custody, adding that the army authorities had no right to retain them in unlawful custody and were bound to produce them before the court of law. He observed that these people were not missing persons because their custody had been identified. The court put off the hearing to 1pm and directed the additional attorney general to take up the matter with the defence ministry and ensure production of the internees from the army’s custody. When the bench reassembled, additional defence secretary Maj Gen Raja informed it that the acting charge of the secretary had been entrusted to him and said he needed time to produce the internees. But the chief justice turned down the request and ordered him to produce the internees today (Tuesday) at any cost. “We are sitting here, go and bring the persons though in evening.” He regretted that the army was tarnishing its image by not producing the undeclared internees. Justice Khwaja said the matter involved implementation of Article 9 of the Constitution and the court was under constitutional obligation to maintain supremacy of the Constitution. The bench resumed the hearing at 4pm with the additional attorney general and the additional secretary defence in attendance. The court directed the defence minister and the secretary to produce the internees on Thursday or appear before it in person. The next hearing will be held at the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry.
Khattak seeks immediate meeting with Sharif By Ashfaq Yusufzai PESHAWAR, Nov 26: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has sought an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to discuss the growing concern and anger among the people of the province over the recent US drone attack in Hangu.. The chief minister said that there was already serious resentment over the ‘unbridled’ US drone attacks in Fata and the strike in Hangu had further inflamed the situation. An almost similar letter has been sent to Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. According to officials, the chief minister asked the federal government to stop Nato trucks from entering KP to defuse the public anger to some extent. “Kindly consider convening a meeting at the federal level with invitations to all provinces to evolve a common strategy. We must show to the world that we stand united when it comes to defending the sovereignty of Pakistan,” the letter said. “We can also discuss at the proposed meeting if another all-party conference could be convened in view of the current situation.” According to officials, the chief minister said that elected representatives of the people were morally obliged to stand by them and address their genuine grievances. Mr Khattak said the provincial government was aware of the hazards posed by the emerging situation. Although law-enforcement agencies have been directed to maintain peace and order during the current protests, it shall be most unfortunate if people expressing their justified resentment were confronted by their own police force to avert the possibility of anti-Pakistan elements pursuing their agenda. Meanwhile, workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf vowed on Tuesday to continue their protests till the US drone strikes were stopped. They held sits-in at Hayatabad and four other places in the province. PTI’s Peshawar general secretary Zahir Younas Mohmand said at a news conference that activists of the party were determined to continue their protests. “Nobody can stop us from our rightful protest against illegal US attacks in Fata and KP,” he said. Tuesday’s sit-in was marred by an in-fighting that was followed by firing in the air and stampede at a camp.
Military officials fall under Army Act, MI tells SC By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: The Military Intelligence (MI), one of the premier intelligence agencies of the country, reiterated its stand before the Supreme Court on Tuesday in the Tasif Ali missing person case that the military personnel involved in any offence should be tried under the Pakistan Army Act, 1952.. The MI Directorate had pleaded before the court on June 11 that an army official and a subject of the Army Act should not be investigated or inquired into by police or even by the Supreme Court. The stand taken by the MI came before a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Nasirul Mulk, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Iqbal Hameedur Rahman that had taken up an application of Abida Malik, wife of Tasif Ali alias Danish. Her application accuses a serving MI officer, Maj Ali Ahsan, earlier known as Maj Haider, for allegedly being behind the enforced disappearance of her husband whose immediate production before the court has been sought. Tasif Ali is believed to be a Hizbul Mujahideen activist who went missing on Nov 23 last year, and was allegedly picked up by Maj Ahsan. His last phone conversation was with Maj Ahsan who was then a captain posted at the MI-918, Mangla Cantonment. The matter was reported to the Sadiqabad Police Station on Dec 5 and was heard by the Lahore High Court on March 19, but the case was dismissed. In her complaint, Ms Malik alleged that harsh words had been exchanged between her husband and the caller, believed to be Maj Haider, during a conversation at about 4pm on Nov 22 last year. The next day her husband went to offer Juma prayers and had since been missing. Tasif Ali had started a furniture business before his disappearance. The Supreme Court had already ordered Defence Secretary retired Lt Gen Asif Yasin to cooperate with the police in their investigation to find the whereabouts of the missing man as well as the military officer who had allegedly abducted him. Advocate Mohammad Ibrahim Satti, representing the intelligence agency, informed the bench that the MI Directorate had written a letter to the Supreme Court in which it had again denied that Tasif Ali had been apprehended or held in custody. Advocate Satti told Dawn that the letter would be filed before the court in a day or two. He said the directorate was of the view that since an FIR had been registered against a serving military officer, evidence should be provided to the authorities concerned so that the case could be initiated against him under the Army Act. The letter denied that Maj Haider had ever served in the MI set-up in Mirpur as claimed by the wife of the missing man. The letter was sent by the MI Directorate to the Defence Ministry Legal Director’s Office in Rawalpindi. The proceedings were postponed because Additional Attorney General Tariq Mehmood Khokhar was in Lahore to appear in another missing person case before a Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. A day earlier, retired Col Inamur Raheem, representing Abida Malik, had moved a contempt of court application before the Supreme Court against the top defence hierarchy for allegedly impeding police investigation to shield and protect accused Maj Ahsan. The counsel had named the defence secretary, army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Chief of General Staff Lt Gen Rashid Mehmood and General Headquarters Military Secretary Lt Gen Mazhar Jameel as respondents. On Nov 8, the apex court had turned down a government request to constitute a new joint investigation team (JIT) comprising intelligence agencies’ representatives to solve the mystery of the missing person.
Zardari to be indicted in four cases on Dec 9 By Malik Asad ISLAMABAD, Nov 26: An accountability court here fixed Dec 9 as the date for indicting former president Asif Ali Zardari in four corruption references. . But the judge, Mohammad Bashir, directed the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to provide copies of the Cotecna reference to Advocate Farooq H. Naek, the counsel of Mr Zardari, after which the court would indict him in another reference. After the indictment, the court will commence formal trial of Mr Zardari. In the Cotecna reference, NAB has accused Mr Zardari of receiving six per cent of the value ($131 million) of a pre-shipment inspection contract awarded to the Swiss company, Cotecna. Other references allege that Mr Zardari received kickbacks from pre-shipment inspection company Société Générale de Surveillance, granted a licence to ARY Gold which caused a huge loss to the national exchequer and received illegal gratification and commission in the purchase of Russian tractors under the Awami Tractor Scheme. One of the references alleges that a polo ground was constructed in the prime minister’s house on verbal orders of Mr Zardari and former chairman of the Capital Development Authority, Saeed Mehdi. The cost of the project was Rs52.29m of which Rs600,000 was embezzled. Mr Zardari had been indicted in the references and faced trial till 2007 when the cases were closed after the promulgation of the National Reconciliation Ordinance. A NAB official told Dawn that the former president had earlier been indicted under the Ehtasab Act promulgated in 1997 by the former government of the PML-N. At present, he is facing proceedings under the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) promulgated by former president Pervez Musharraf in 1999. According to the official, the punishment for offences under the Ehtasab Act was different from that under the NAO. Therefore, the court has to frame anew charges against Mr Zardari. During the proceedings on Tuesday, NAB submitted a report about the serving of summons. It said the summons could not be served because he was living abroad and visited Pakistan for a brief period. Mr Naek submitted an application for exempting Mr Zardari from appearing before the court on Tuesday because of security concerns. But he assured the court that Mr Zardari would attend the next hearing because presence of an accused person was mandatory at the time of indictment. The court granted exemption to Mr Zardari for one day and asked his counsel to ensure his presence at the next hearing.
Saudi Arabia beheads Pakistani for drug trafficking RIYADH, Nov 26: Saudi authorities beheaded on Tuesday a Pakistani man convicted of smuggling drugs to the kingdom, the interior ministry said. . The man was found guilty of attempting to smuggle an undisclosed amount of heroin that he had swallowed, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency. His beheading in the eastern city of Dammam brings to 72 the number of executions carried out in Saudi Arabia this year, according to an AFP count. In 2012, the kingdom carried out 76 executions, according to a tally based on official figures. Human Rights Watch put the number at 69. —AFP
PM gives defence portfolio to Asif By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: After appointing the new army chief, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also relieved himself on Wednesday of the charge of defence minister, one of the many portfolios he has been holding since his election in June this year. . Khawaja Asif, who is Minister for Water and Power, was given the additional charge of the ministry of defence. In another important development, Information Minister Senator Pervez Rasheed was given the additional charge of the ministry of law. Interestingly, the notifications about appointments of the new army chief, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and defence and law ministers were released to the media through a one-page handout. The timing of appointments of the new law and defence ministers has raised eyebrows. According to a source in the PML-N, Khawaja Asif was given the charge of defence ministry in reaction to an observation made by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Tuesday during the hearing of a case relating to missing persons. The chief justice had said that if 35 undeclared internees allegedly in the custody of military authorities were not produced before the court on Thursday (today), he would call the defence minister for personal explanation. “To avoid any untoward development in the Supreme Court, the prime minister was advised to appoint Khawaja Asif as defence minister because he used to appear before the court in cases related to his water and power ministry on quite a regular basis,” the PML-N source said. In the past the chief justice had summoned senior government officials on short notice, he added. A PML-N lawmaker rejected a perception that the appointment had been made after the prime minister was done with the selection of new army chief. The decision had been taken to expedite the pace of working in the defence ministry, he explained. Zahid Hamid was removed as law minister in June when the government decided to try former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf under Article 6 of the Constitution for imposing the Nov 3, 2007, emergency. Mr Hamid, then a PML-Q legislator, was law minister in the Musharraf government. An official of the law ministry said that in the absence of a law minister, the ministry had to seek advice from the Prime Minister’s Office on all official business, which at times would consume a lot of time. Law Secretary Barrister Zafarullah Khan, a former bureaucrat and Supreme Court lawyer, has been looking after the ministry. Therefore, the official said, Senator Rasheed would only be completing the missing link between the ministry and the PM Office. But some in the PML-N are not happy with the decision of handing over additional portfolios to Khawaja Asif and Senator Rasheed because they are already full-fledged ministers. “We have nearly 200 members of the National Assembly, but the prime minister didn’t entrust any one of them with cabinet portfolios. This has put off many party lawmakers,” said a senior MNA of the PML-N.
Raheel Sharif is new army chief, Mehmood CJCSC By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: Ending months of speculation, the government on Wednesday named Lt Gen Raheel Sharif as the next army chief to succeed retiring Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani who steps down on Thursday after serving as the top commander for six years. . The government also filled the vacancy of the ceremonial office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee with the more senior Lt Gen Rashad Mehmood, chief of general staff, who was once tipped to be hot favourite for elevation to the office of chief of army staff. “On the advice of the Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and in pursuance of Article 243/4(a) and 243/4(b) of the Constitution of Pakistan, President of Pakistan and Supreme Commander of Armed Forces Mamnoon Hussain has been pleased to promote and appoint Gen Rashad Mehmood as Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and Gen Raheel Sharif as Chief of the Army Staff,” a notification issued on Wednesday said. The notification followed a meeting of the prime minister with the two generals – Gen Sharif and Gen Rashad. Senior most general officer Lt Gen Haroon Aslam, currently chief of logistic staff, has been superseded. Gen Sharif’s choice came as a surprise for many observers, who were expecting one of the battle hardened generals to take over the mantle from Gen Kayani because the transition is taking place at a very crucial time with the foreign forces set to drawdown from Afghanistan by next year and the impending peace initiative with the local militants – Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan – yet to take off. Gen Sharif, 57, despite sharing the surname with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is not related to him. The two, however, share the Kashmiri origins. Gen Sharif is a protégé of Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, currently federal minister for States and Frontier Regions and a close confidant of Prime Minister Sharif. The new army chief twice served under Gen Baloch as chief of staff of Gujranwala and Quetta corps. The army chief designate is younger brother of Maj Shabbir Sharif, recipient of the highest military decoration Nishan-i-Haider who was killed in 1971 war with India. Gen Sharif is also related to another Nishan-i-Haider recipient Major Aziz Bhatti. Gen Sharif is from PMA’s 54th Long Course and was commissioned in Army’s 6th Battalion of the Frontier Force Regiment in Oct 1976. He is from Infantry. He comes from a martial lineage. His father and two brothers served in the army. His detractors say that he may not be the best choice for a military engaged in war with the militants as compared to some other generals, who had taken part in counter-militancy operations. Others say that as the head of Training and Evaluation Wing at the General Headquarters, he was very much part of the exercise within the army for preparing troops for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. Moreover, having served as Corps Commander Gujranwala from Oct 2010 to Oct 2012 he is well versed with the army’s strategy for countering India’s Cold Start doctrine. “As a Lieutenant General he served as Corps Commander 30 Corps for two years before taking over as Inspector General Training and Evaluation in which capacity he oversaw the training of Pakistan Army. His stewardship resulted in fructification of Pakistan Army’s operational thought and doctrinal response to the much vaunted Cold Start doctrine of Indian Army,” his profile released by ISPR said. MILITARY CAREER: As a young officer, he performed his duties in Gilgit in an Infantry Brigade and also served as Adjutant of Pakistan Military Academy. He did Company Commander’s Course from Germany and subsequently served in the prestigious School of Infantry and Tactics as an instructor. He went to the Command and Staff College Canada and attended Armed Forces War Course at National Defence University, Islamabad, in 1998. Gen Musharraf, as army chief, nominated him for prestigious Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) course in London. He served as the Brigade Major of an Infantry Brigade and has commanded two infantry units – 6 Frontier Force Regiment in Kashmir along the LoC and 26 Frontier Force Regiment along the Sialkot border. He has been the General Officer Commanding of an Infantry Division and the Commandant of prestigious Pakistan Military Academy. CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS: Gen Rashad Mehmood’s appointment as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee technically makes him the head of all armed forces and the nuclear programme. The chairman’s position, however, is largely a ceremonial one in the military hierarchy. He was thought to be Gen Kayani’s preference as his successor. The outgoing army chief had made him the chief of general staff.
Kayani — his words mattered as much as actions By Baqir Sajjad Syed When Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani retires from military service today, it would not just be the end of the career of a high-profile general ranked last year by Forbes as the world’s 28th most powerful man. The day will also mark the first change in command of the army since the country returned to democracy in 2008.. One of the major legacies of Gen Kayani, as he exits the powerful GHQ, is his consistent support for democracy though the military establishment kept stringent checks on the political leaders during his tenure. This is a legacy that the retired general was well aware of. Just recently in October while addressing the passing out parade at Kakul, he had hoped that his successor could carry on his legacy and help establish democracy on firmer footings. But Kayani may also be remembered as the longest serving COAS under a civilian set up. Though he was appointed by his predecessor and a military dictator, Pervez Musharraf in 2007, Kayani ended up getting another three years thanks to the PPP government in power in 2010. When he was elevated to the office of army chief in 2007 by Musharraf, the expectation was that he would be the dictator’s man. But he dashed these hopes when he played neutral in the then developing tensions between the newly elected PPP government and Musharraf, which led to the latter’s exit. But perhaps even earlier than the Musharraf-PPP-PMLN showdown in the summer of 2008, Kayani showed the first hints of his independence when he began reducing the army’s direct involvement in governance by calling back the officers who had been seconded to government departments. He did this soon after taking over. This is not to say however that Kayani was able to achieve a complete separation of the civil-military affairs in a country, which had a history of military involvement in politics. Issues therefore continued to crop up between the civilian and the military leaders beginning with the controversy over the Kerry-Lugar Aid legislation that, to the army’s chagrin, included clauses for strengthening civilian oversight over the military. The public and private expression of reservations by the military led to an impression of confrontation, but in retrospect it was a managed affair in which the army had its way without rocking the democracy boat. It was after this that Kayani got an extension from the PPP government in 2010. The next year proved to be the most challenging not only for country’s foreign relations, but also for civil-military relations. From the Raymond Davis episode to the killing of Osama bin Laden to Memogate Scandal and Salala incident – they all tested the resilience of the nascent democracy. The security situation in Balochistan and Karachi also remained sore points in the civil-military balance. In fact, if there was one province where Kayani was seen to continue with Musharraf’s policy it was in Balochistan. But despite all the difficulties, the PPP government completed its tenure and for the first time in the country’s history, one civilian government transferred power to a second one - under Gen Kayani’s watch. The other highlight of Gen Kayani’s tenure was the fight against terrorism. He had inherited a highly demoralised force, some of whose men surrendered to the Taliban months before he assumed the command. But the new chief soon managed to turn this army into an effective fighting force. During his tenure, Operation Raah-e-Raast and Raah-e-Nijaat, among others, were undertaken, clearing Swat and six of the seven tribal agencies. Though North Waziristan continues to serve as a reminder that Kayani leaves without completing his counter-terrorism agenda. Some went so far as to allege that Kayani in his second tenure appeared indecisive on the issue of militancy. But regardless of this criticism, his will be remembered as a tenure where words mattered as much as actions – Kayani’s willingness to accept that internal threats were the greatest risk to Pakistan’s security was widely lauded – internally as well as internationally.
Detractors of CJ ready for fresh onslaught By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: Detractors of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry are getting ready for a fresh onslaught against him at a time when he is in the twilight of his successful career. . The chief justice will reach superannuation on Dec 11. The Sindh High Court Bar has cancelled its Nov 28 farewell dinner in honour of the chief justice because of Tuesday’s incident in which Islamabad police thrashed lawyers to quell their protest outside the Supreme Court. The Multan High Court Bar is giving second thoughts to its feast planned for Nov 29. The protesting lawyers from Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Sargodha, Faisalabad and D.G. Khan were calling for setting up of benches of the Lahore High Court in divisional headquarters. “I have cancelled the farewell dinner because of the Islamabad incident while the Lahore High Court Bar did not even organise it,” Sindh High Court Bar President Mustafa Lakharni said while talking to Dawn on Wednesday. Supreme Court Bar Association President Kamran Murtaza and Pakistan Bar Council Vice Chairman Syed Qalbe Hassan called for immediate resignation of the SC registrar for what they called mishandling the situation. They said lawyers’ bodies had not yet decided on hosting farewell dinners. “Police could not have dared to resort to such brutal action without the permission of the registrar,” Mr Murtaza alleged. And as if this were not enough, the Federal Ombudsman for the protection of women against harassment, Yasmin Abbasey, disclosed at a press conference on Wednesday that she had filed a reference with President Mamnoon Hussain. The reference called for invoking jurisdiction of the Supreme Judicial Council under Article 209 of the Constitution against the chief justice and six other judges who had issued a restraining order on Nov 3, 2007, asking the armed forces and government officials against implementing the emergency rule of then president Gen Pervez Musharraf and barring the judges from taking oath under the PCO. Other judges named as respondents in the reference are: retired Justice Rana Bhagwandas, retired Justice Javed Iqbal, retired Justice Shakirullah Jan, retired Justice Raja Fayaz Ahmed, Justice Nasirul Mulk and retired Justice Ghulam Rabbani. Yasmin Abbasey, who has served as a Sindh High Court judge and law secretary, alleged that the existence of the Nov 3, 2007, restraining order was highly doubtful and seemed to be a product of some later date. Even the signature of one of the judges was post-dated. The order was still not in the official record of the SHC because it was never faxed to its registrar as claimed in the order, she added. Ms Abbasey herself was the subject of an inquiry by a two-member committee which held her responsible for the missing record and documents relating to $60 million graft cases revived by the Swiss authorities against former president Asif Ali Zardari. She denied her involvement at the news conference. A source suggested that the press conference was perhaps an attempt to pre-empt a similar reference by the law ministry against her on the findings of the probe committee. Ms Abbasey informed the president that the evidence she had annexed with the reference clearly brought out a case of gross misconduct and extreme form of corruption as stipulated in Article 209. She requested the president to order withholding of all service and pension benefits of the respondent judges. Otherwise, she said, the purpose of filing of the reference would frustrate. This is the second reference against the chief justice. The previous one, filed by Lahore High Court Bar Association President Abid Saqi last month, included Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, Justice Khilji Arif and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the apex court. Ms Abbasey recalled that the chief justice had also taken oath under the PCO in 2000 and till the validation under 17th Amendment, he was allegedly working unconstitutionally in view of the apex court’s own July 31, 2009, judgment of holding the Nov 3 emergency unconstitutional. The claim by the apex court that their status as judges was again validated in the 18th Amendment whereas those 100 judges sent home under the July 31, 2009 verdict were ignored was illogical, she said. She explained that when the acts of Oct 12, 1999, along with the Legal Framework Order 2000 by 18th Amendment were declared illegal, including the declaration made by the apex court in the 2000 Zafar Ali Shah case of validating Gen Musharraf’s first coup, it became necessary to again validate the PCO oath of 2000 in the 18th Amendment. Otherwise, she added, all the judges presently sitting in the apex court and high courts would have gone home.
Justice Jillani named new chief justice By Syed Irfan Raza ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: In another major development after the appointment of new army chief on Wednesday, President Mamnoon Hussain approved the nomination of Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani as next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. . The law ministry issued a notification soon after the president approved the appointment under Section 3 of Article 175 of the Constitution on the recommendation of the prime minister. Outgoing Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who has been in the headlines during the five years of his tenure because of his judgments against the governments of Pervez Musharraf and the PPP and several actions of bureaucracy, will retire on Dec 11. Also on Wednesday, the Supreme Court registrar wrote a letter to the president seeking time for the swearing-in ceremony of the new chief justice, which is likely to be held on Dec 12. Till late evening, the president’s spokesperson did not confirm the date and time of the ceremony. Justice Jillani, who is the most senior judge of the apex court, has also been performing his duty as acting Chief Election Commissioner since Aug 16 when retired Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, who had supervised the May 11 elections, resigned. The new chief justice will hold the office for seven months and 18 days as he will reach superannuation on July 5 next year. Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Ahmed Shah welcomed the appointment of Justice Jillani and expressed the hope that all institutions would work within their domains. His spokesman Waqar Gilani quoted him as saying: “There should be no judicial activism in the country and all state institutions should work within their own purview.” Mr Shah, who is likely to become chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly in a couple of days, said that like all other state institutions the judiciary should also be answerable to parliament and the PAC. Former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf, who had imposed the emergency in November 2007, suspended the constitution and detained Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, also welcomed the appointment of Justice Jillani. He pasted a photograph of Justice Jillani on his Facebook page with a caption: “I congratulate Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani on his elevation as chief justice.” According to information on SC website, Justice Jillani was born on July 6, 1949. He did his masters in political science from Forman Christian College, Lahore, LLB from the University of Punjab and a course in constitutional law from the University of London. He started his carrier as a lawyer from district courts in Multan in 1974 and was enrolled as an advocate of the high court in 1976. He was enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court in 1983. He was promoted as additional advocate general of Punjab in 1988 and appointed advocate general in 1993. He took oath as a judge of the Lahore High Court on August 7, 1994, and was elevated as a judge of the Supreme Court on July 31, 2004, where he served till imposition of the state of emergency on Nov 3, 2007. He was made dysfunctional as a judge of the Supreme Court when he refused to take fresh oath under the PCO. After restoration of the judiciary he returned to the apex court in September 2009.
Court asks FBR to act against smuggling By Tahir Siddiqui KARACHI, Nov 27: The Supreme Court directed the federal authorities on Wednesday to devise a mechanism to beat the menace of duty evasion on imported goods and smuggling of arms and drugs “with zero tolerance” for sustainable peace in Karachi.. The court rejected a report submitted by the Customs authorities on duty collection and directed the chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue to appear in court to explain the measures taken in this regard. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justices Jawwad S. Khawaja, Mian Saqib Nisar, Amir Hani Muslim and Ejaz Afzal Khan, was seized with the implementation proceedings of the Karachi suo motu judgment case. The court was utterly disappointed and dissatisfied with three different reports filed by the customs authorities, one of them on behalf of the FBR chief, and termed them “eyewash”. Justice Chaudhry observed that the black money generated through duty evasion and smuggling of weapons and drugs was used in criminal activities not only in Karachi but also across the country. The judges asked the customs officials whether black money generated by evading taxes and levies was being controlled at Karachi Port and Port Qasim. The court observed that the customs authorities had failed to satisfy it “by making a statement that 100 per cent recovery of taxes is being made and there is no evasion”. The bench directed the FBR chief to put up a concise statement showing daily clearance of goods separately from ports along with a complete record, manifest correspondence, a clearance of the customs department with a certificate that there was no evasion, particularly of goods which were cleared on Wednesday. The court ordered the customs authorities to deliver copies of their reports/statements in the offices of Attorney General Munir A. Malik. The attorney general, along with Sindh Advocate General Khalid Javed, would go through them and give their opinion in respect of transparency in making evaluation and recovery of taxes. The judges also inquired of the customs authorities about the flow of arms and ammunition into the country through vessels or launches. They directed the FBR chief and the director general of the Pakistan Coast Guards to place on record documents to show the process of smuggling. The customs officials conceded that the department was unable to recover 100pc duty. They also referred to a customs intelligence report and said that there were dens of smuggled arms and ammunition in the Sohrab Goth area. Smuggled weapons were stored in certain residential projects, including Al Asif Square. However, he said, customs alone was unable to clean the area. “Tax evasion and illegal weapons and drugs have brought the country to the brink of destruction,” the chief justice observed, directing the customs to ensure eradication of smuggling and duty evasion. The bench issued notices to chairmen of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Frequency Allocation Board, along with six cellular companies, for issuing unauthorised SIMs and SIMs of other countries, including Afghanistan. The court observed that illegal arms and SIM cards were key elements in creating a law and order situation. It was informed that activated SIM cards of Afghan companies were being sold and operated in the country for use in anti-social activities. The attorney general informed the bench that he had taken up the matter of Afghan SIMs with higher authorities. He said there existed a roaming agreement between two companies, by which a local company provided roaming facility to the company of a foreign country. He said the PTA and any local company could not block the SIM cards of foreign companies, including those of Afghanistan. The bench issued a notice to Ramzan Bhatti, who was appointed as head of one-man commission to make findings on duty evasion and weapons and drug smuggling, to appear in court to explain why he incorporated into his findings observations which had found mention in a report submitted by the Federal Tax Ombudsman. Earlier, at the outset the advocate general submitted a performance and progress report regarding targeted operations conducted by police and Rangers. Expressing satisfaction over the performance of law-enforcement agencies, the court expressed apprehension that achievement made by them might not sustain if those arrested were not put on trial. The hearing was adjourned to Thursday. Balochistan missing persons’ case: Meanwhile, a three-member bench headed by the chief justice observed that the Frontier Constabulary had to play a role in the missing persons’ case, but no remarkable progress had so far been made. The bench was hearing a petition of the president of Balochistan High Court Bar Association and other human rights cases regarding missing persons. Advocate Shahid Hamid, appearing on behalf of the Balochistan government, submitted a report about progress in the cases of missing persons. The bench noted with concern that relatives of missing persons had travelled on foot from Quetta to Karachi, facing harsh winter weather to launch a protest for recovery of their near and dear ones. The court directed the deputy attorney general to procure the attendance of a responsible person so that, if need be, appropriate directions could be made to ensure the recovery of missing persons in light of the report submitted by the provincial government. The court will continue the hearing on Thursday.
Pakistan calls for end to ‘illegal’ attacks By Masood Haider UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27: “When armed drones kill unarmed, innocent civilians, there is a clear breach of international law,” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Masood Khan told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday as the third committee unanimously adopted a resolution which stressed the need for an international agreement on legal questions involving the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.. The Pakistani envoy called for the immediate end to what he said were “illegal” US drone strikes on Pakistan. Mr Khan said: “The use of drones violates Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. In the asymmetric terrorist war, the well-established humanitarian principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution must be observed. This is not being done.” “There is also obvious geographical disjunction between the location of drone strikes and the primary battlefield,” he added. Khan asked the general assembly to take note of UN Special Rapporteur Ben Emerson’s report last month which referred to the use of remotely piloted vehicles (UAV).
PTI nominates Islamabad ‘chief of CIA’ in drone case By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, Nov 27: Further upping the ante against drone attacks, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf named on Wednesday one of US embassy staff members as the CIA station chief in Islamabad and nominated him in a criminal case for killing innocent Pakistanis.. Addressing a press conference, PTI information secretary Dr Shireen Mazari accused the embassy official of running the CIA’s covert operations in Pakistan, including drone attacks. Separately talking to Dawn, Dr Mazari said the PTI with the help of Foundation for Fundamental Rights, a non-government organisation, had managed to uncover the operations of the agency in Islamabad. Head of the foundation Barrister Shehzad Akbar was present on the occasion. It is an organisation of local attorneys and socially active individuals working towards the advancement, protection and enforcement of fundamental human rights. “It’s not that difficult and unusual. In the past too, elsewhere governments have had implicated CIA operatives for committing violations,” said Dr Mazari. The PTI has accused the US government and the CIA of killing four Pakistanis in last Thursday’s drone attack on a madressah in Hangu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Dr Mazari read out the statement which she had submitted to the SHO of Tal police station in Hangu district, directly implicating the ‘CIA operative’ in the killing of four madressah students. She said: “The CIA station chief is currently residing in and operating from the United States embassy situated in the diplomatic enclave of Islamabad and it is a clear violation of diplomatic norms and laws as a foreign mission cannot be used for any criminal activity within a sovereign state.” According to Dr Mazari, the federal government should take necessary action to stop him from leaving the country because former CIA station chief Jonathan Banks had left Islamabad in December 2010 when his cover was blown up in a similar drone attack case. A tribesman blew up Mr Bank’s cover after he accused him in a criminal case of killing innocent people in drone attacks. The PTI leader also nominated CIA Director John O. Brennan for what she said “committing gross offences of murder and waging a war against Pakistan as indicated in the already lodged FIR with police station in Hangu”. She claimed in the statement that the CIA was running a clandestine spying operation throughout Pakistan, notably in KP and tribal areas, the main target area of drone attacks. Dr Mazari also said Hameedullah, Abdullah, Abdur Rehman and Kareem Khan were innocent Pakistani students who were killed in the Hangu attack. Two members of the Haqqani network were also killed in the attack. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Islamabad said: “We are aware of PTI’s statement. I can’t speak on alleged operational issues, but more broadly speaking I note we have a strong ongoing dialogue with Pakistan regarding all aspects of our bilateral relationship and shared interests. It is critically important that we continue to work closely with our partners throughout the world, helping to build their law enforcement capacity to carry out necessary operations in their own countries.”
Kayani chairs farewell meeting By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: Retiring Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani chaired on Thursday the farewell corps commanders’ conference.. The conference on the last day of Gen Kayani in office was attended by corps commanders and principal staff officers at the General Headquarters. On Wednesday the government announced Gen Raheel Sharif to succeed Gen Kayani. Gen Rashad Mehmood was named the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Both promoted generals attended the farewell conference. Gen Kayani congratulated Gen Sharif and Gen Mehmood on their elevation. He also commiserated with Lt Gen Haroon Aslam, who has been superseded, and lauded his services for the Army. Gen Kayani will hand over the command of the army to Gen Sharif at a ceremony on Friday morning. According to ISPR, Gen Sharif and Gen Mehmood paid rich tribute to Gen Kayani for reforms introduced by him in the army and for spearheading its transformation to meet future challenges. After the corps commanders’ conference, Gen Rashad Mehmood relinquished the charge of Chief of General Staff and took over the office of the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff committee, which makes him the commander of all the three services. A contingent of the three services presented a guard of honour to the new chairman. Gen Aslam resigns: Meanwhile, Chief of Logistic Staff Gen Haroon Aslam, who till yesterday was the senior-most general in the army, resigned from service after being superseded.
Package unveiled to revive economy By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: In a major initiative since he came to power six months ago, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced on Thursday a growth-oriented incentive-cum-amnesty package for the business community. The package aims at reviving a faltering investment climate, creating jobs and expanding tax base.. A “Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council” has also been set up to implement economic decisions to be taken on a quarterly basis. The prime minister said top business leaders, ministers and key officials would meet quarterly under the advisory council, hold discussions on economic issues, take decisions and implement them immediately. He said a similar forum, “PM’s Agriculture Advisory Council”, would also be constituted soon because the two sectors had to take the country forward. The prime minister announced the package during a meeting with leading businessmen and representatives of chambers of commerce and industry. He spoke of almost every challenge he faced in leading the country, including the recent sectarian violence, the security environment, talks with Taliban, the law and order situation in Karachi, relations with India, energy crisis and a weak economy. He promised to restore integrity and respect of non-resident Pakistanis through legislation to let them play a role in nation-building. The issue of granting most-favoured nation status to India was under consideration as promised by the previous government, but a final decision would be taken after consultations with the business community, Mr Sharif added. Taking a cue from business leaders who appealed to PTI chief Imran Khan to take into consideration Pakistan’s broader national interest while taking any political decision and end his campaign against Nato containers, the prime minister said there should be no politics on economic matters. He said the all-party conference held on Sept 9 had unanimously decided to give peace a chance through dialogue and “we want to take that process forward”. The country, he said, had given great sacrifices and its economy, people and the armed forces had suffered a lot and innocent people were still being targeted, but “we will try to take the dialogue process forward”. Without naming Imran Khan, the prime minister said there should be no politics on the issue of dialogue with Taliban and there was no need for anybody to take a unilateral path. Countries around the world solved their problems through dialogue and hence “we also want to improve our relations with India”. “They are our neighbours and neighbours cannot be changed. It is better to have good relations, move forward with patience and sagacity; otherwise neither they nor we can make progress,” Mr Sharif observed. He said peace with India was in Pakistan’s interest because the two nations had not benefited in any manner from acrimony. INVESTMENT PACKAGE: The prime minister said the government would not ask about, probe or scrutinise the source of income in case of an investment between Rs10 million and Rs50 billion in any green field industrial project or expansion in the existing industry after Jan 1, 2014, which created jobs at the rate of one person per Rs5m investment. Because of energy shortage, captive power plants will be treated as part of a green field project and the facility will also be available to low cost housing construction and livestock, including mining and quarrying in Thar, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Except for a list of 10 industries, every sector will enjoy this facility. The negative list includes arms and ammunition, explosives, fertiliser, sugar, cigarettes, beverages, cement, textile spinning mills, flour mills and vegetable ghee and cooking oils. TAX RETURNS: Announcing a tax amnesty, the prime minister extended the deadline for filing tax returns to Dec 15 from Nov 30 and said those who had already filed returns would be free to revise their returns until the new deadline in the light of new incentives. He said an individual paying as tax an amount exceeding by 25 per cent the amount paid the previous year would be exempted from audit. NTN-holders would be exempted from penalties, default surcharge and audit if they filed income tax returns for the past five years or filed missing returns and paid a minimum of Rs20,000 per annum. Returns filed voluntarily by non-NTN holders will be granted immunity from audit, penalties and default surcharge. They will also enjoy immunity for five years if they pay a minimum tax of Rs25,000 per year. Accepting a major demand of the business community, the prime minister said the powers of chairman and members of the Federal Board of Revenue to access bank accounts would stand withdrawn in case of the existing taxpayers. TAXPAYERS STATUS: Prime Minister Sharif said 400 top taxpayers in companies, main shareholders and salaried and non-salaried individuals would be issued taxpayer recognition card with an entitlement to use VIP lounge at airports, get fast-track immigration and gratis passport, increase baggage allowance from $500 to $5000 and enjoy annual dinner with the prime minister. KARACHI OPERATION: The prime minister regretted that despite having majority in both the houses of parliament and absolute powers, the past governments had not made laws or taken action against criminals in Karachi, but his government had done so despite having an opposition party in power in Sindh. He said Karachi would be made one of the most peaceful and leading cities in the world through sustained efforts. But he said this was not possible in a few months. “Let me assure you that we will not wind it up halfway; we will sustain it to take Karachi ahead of Hong Kong, Bangkok and Dubai.” He said Quran did not allow sectarianism and described it as an evil and, therefore, “we cannot allow it to flourish”. He said he had directed the provincial governments to stop the use of loudspeakers in places of worship causing hatred. NATIONALISATION: The prime minister said the 1972 nationalisation of industries had broken the backbone of the country; otherwise, “we should have been talking about annual exports of $250 billion, instead of $25bn”. He said India, South Korea, Thailand and many other countries were behind Pakistan then, but now they were 10 times ahead because of nationalisation, repeated dictatorships and wrong policies. He said nations could not grow where there was no collective wisdom, constitutions are abrogated repeatedly, judiciary was put under constraints and people doing good work were sent into exile. This led to security situation, issuance of travel advisories and investors “call you abroad for trade deals, instead of coming here for investment”. The prime minister said the economic cooperation with China for Gwadar-Kashghar trade corridor would open up an era of progress and prosperity. Likewise, he said, he had started talks with China for two nuclear projects of 1700MW each even before completion of two 1100MW projects which he had inaugurated a day earlier because Pakistan needed 40,000MW by 2025. He said he wanted to see the motorway between Peshawar and Lahore extended up to Karachi during his tenure. He said he was in contact with the provincial governments through the Council of Common Interests to acquire land for special economic zones to reduce cost of doing business by streamlining licensing, registration and inspection regimes and facilitate establishment of commercial courts. Mr Sharif said he had requested the Japanese prime minister to revive loan for the Karachi Circular Railway and the latter promised to examine it. The federal government would implement the project even though it was a provincial issue.
Jillani takes suo motu notice of poisonous jail food By Our Staff Reporter LAHORE, Nov 28: Chief Justice-designate Tassaduq Hussain Jillani on Thursday took suo motu notice of a media report that poisonous meal had been served to prisoners at the Kot Lakhpat Central Jail and held proceedings the same day.. According to the report, several women prisoners were admitted to the jail hospital on Wednesday with stomach pain after they ate the food. IG Prisons Mian Farooq Nazir and DIG Malik Mubashar appeared before a three-judge bench headed by Justice Jillani at the Lahore registry of the Supreme Court. The DIG told the court that a departmental inquiry had already been initiated into the matter and the report would be furnished within 24 hours. He said the incident apparently happened when food was being distributed among the women prisoners. He said a lizard had fallen into one of the three cauldrons of chicken meal. All the cauldrons were disposed of and fresh food provided to the inmates, he added. The bench adjourned the hearing and directed the DIG to submit the inquiry report to the court.
SC gives Asif Dec 2 deadline By Tahir Siddiqui KARACHI, Nov 28: Expressing annoyance on inaction of authorities in the missing persons’ cases, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the newly-appointed defence minister, Khawaja Mohammad Asif, to ensure the production of 35 missing persons, most of them believed to have been taken away by the Frontier Constabulary, before it on Dec 2.. A visibly irked four-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, came down hard on the defence secretary and directed him to produce all 35 missing persons in court on Friday. The court warned him that FIRs would be registered against responsible officials if the illegally detained persons were not produced. However, the court gave him extended time on the request of the defence minister after he assured the court of making all-out efforts for locating the missing men and their subsequent production in the court. The other members of the bench were Justices Jawwad S. Khawaja, Khilji Arif Hussain and Amir Hani Muslim. The chief justice said the FC had not produced the missing persons despite court orders and remarked that the law-enforcers appeared to have no respect for the court’s directives. “At least they should have respect for you,” he told the defence minister, adding that his appearance could have been avoided if the FC had produced the detained men. Justice Chaudhry lamented that orders were sent to the ministry of defence repeatedly since Aug 5, but to no avail. He observed that if the FC had helped the provincial government in solving the cases of missing persons, the Balochistan chief minister would not have stated that he was helpless. The bench rejected assertion of the defence secretary that one of the missing persons, Yasin Shah, was not in the custody of any intelligence agency under the administrative control of the ministry. The chief justice told the defence minister that there was credible information about involvement of FC personnel in the detention of missing persons, including Yasin Shah, whose brother had been attending the apex court’s proceedings in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi. One of the members of the bench remarked that the FC was running a parallel government in Balochistan and was doing whatever they wanted. “They haven’t released any missing person voluntarily. One was thrown on the street and the other at some desolate place,” he further said. Many of the missing persons were believed to have died, the judge added. Justice Chaudhry observed that even democratic government had disappointed the people and did not meet their expectations. The defence minister submitted that it was the commitment of the government to locate each and every missing person. The chief justice referred to the long march of relatives and families of missing persons from Quetta to Karachi and observed that it had brought a bad name to the country as the march was widely reported by the media. Karachi suo motu case: Meanwhile, a five-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry directed the chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to submit a blueprint outlining proposed measures to stop grey trafficking and use of unauthorised SIMs by criminals to commit crimes. The court was seized with implementation proceedings of the Karachi suo motu judgment case at the Karachi registry. Justices Jawwad S. Khawaja, Mian Saqib Nisar, Amir Hani Muslim and Ejaz Afzal Khan were other members of the bench. The court ordered the PTA chief to prepare a comprehensive report after holding a meeting with representatives of cellular companies and police officials. The PTA chief, Ismail Shah, informed the court that the cellular companies had been directed to issue only five SIMs against one identity card. He said one cellular company was going to introduce biometric system for issuing SIMs after verification by Nadra. Mr Shah said that efforts were being made to beat the menace of grey trafficking and added that over 66 grey channels had been seized during raids. The city police chief, Additional IG Shahid Hayat, said that over 3,000 activated SIMs, along with smuggled activation machines, were seized by police. The court was of the view that the current registration system was deficient and required to be revised. The counsel for cellular companies informed the court that his clients were following the standard operating procedure and other directives issued with regard to registration of SIMs and a large number of unregistered SIMs have also been blocked. The FBR chairman, Tariq Bajwa, placed on record a report showing details of daily clearance of goods from ports along with the record and manifest correspondence. He submitted that all-out efforts were being made to check tax evasion. The chief justice directed the FBR chief to bring some improvement in duty collecting system and honest officers to eradicate the menace of tax evasion and smuggling of arms and drugs. The court directed Attorney General Munir A. Malik and Sindh Advocate General Khalid Javed to go through the report submitted by the FBR and assist the court by suggesting measures to ensure 100 per cent recovery of duty on goods. The bench rejected the performance report of the Anti-Narcotics Force and directed the officials to go after drug barons instead of arresting vagabond drug addicts.
N-plants under safeguards sought By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: Pakistan is ready to get nuclear power plants from any country that can cooperate with it under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, an official said here on Thursday. . “We are willing to collaborate with any country on nuclear energy that can do so under the IAEA safeguards,” Strategic Plans Division (SPD) Director General for Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs retired Air Cdre Khalid Binauri said. He was speaking at a conference on ‘Energy crisis and nuclear safety and security’ held by the German foundation Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and a local think tank, Strategic Vision Institute, that looked into the various dimensions of the crises and options for addressing it and deliberated on nuclear energy as an alternative to traditional sources. Air Cdre Binauri said access to cheap energy was vital for sustaining growth and development in the country. The prime minister performed this week the ground-breaking of the country’s largest nuclear power plant near Karachi, which is expected to be commissioned by 2019 and have a generation capacity of 2,200MW. The government aims to set up six more plants to produce 40,000MW from nuclear sources by 2050. The target appears ambitious because of the government’s precarious financial condition and international restrictions on nuclear trade with non-NPT members. ACP1000 reactors are being purchased from China for the Karachi coastal power project at $9.6 billion. The reactors are an upgraded version of the 900MW French M3-10 reactors. Air Cdre Binauri lashed out at the discriminatory policies of nuclear cartels like the Nuclear Suppliers Group that gave India exception for international collaboration on civilian nuclear energy but was not giving the same concession to Pakistan. He said the NSG should pursue a criteria-based process instead of granting country-specific exemptions. This, he warned, would not only undermine the non-proliferation regime, but also affect the strategic balance in the region. He was upbeat about the future of Pakistan’s nuclear energy programme. He said the Chashma III and IV projects were likely to be completed before the planned 2016 within the estimated cost. SAFETY CONCERNS: He rejected concerns expressed about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities and said the country had the expertise to handle them securely. Other speakers said Pakistan had updated its safety protocols in the light of the findings of the Fukushima incident in Japan. A major emergency exercise is commencing at Chashma power plant on Friday to analyse and update the response plan in the eventuality of any incident. The Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority’s Safety Director Mohammad Rahman said it was revising its regulations and reassessment of all nuclear power plants had been ordered. Other steps like mandatory ‘robust containment’ for encapsulating primary systems and preventing radiation release, installation of back-up generators, construction of retaining walls around back-up generators and introduction of ‘re-combiners’ for preventing hydrogen accumulation have been taken. Spent nuclear fuel is currently kept at the site, but plans are afoot for developing a waste depository.
Drone attack in North Waziristan By Our Correspondent MIRAMSHAH, Nov 28: Two missiles were fired by a US drone at a place near Miramshah in North Waziristan Agency on Thursday night.. According to sources, two loud explosions were heard at around midnight but it was not clear whether the missiles had hit a target. They said the missiles might have exploded before reaching the ground. No loss of life or damage to property was reported. The sources said that drones had been hovering over the area for hours.
Fazl wants Taliban talks process revived By Zulfiqar Ali PESHAWAR, Nov 28: Laying stress on efforts for starting dialogue with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman urged newly appointed army chief Gen Reheel Sharif on Thursday to evolve a mechanism for eradicating militancy and restoring peace.. “There is need for a new strategy for handling militancy in the region, particularly in tribal areas,” Maulana Fazl said while talking to journalists after presiding over a session of a tribal jirga at his party’s secretariat on Thursday. Elders from the seven tribal agencies and six frontier regions attended the jirga. The JUI chief said the government and other stakeholders should work out a mechanism for peace talks with the Taliban. He had convened the jirga to discuss the situation arsing out of the killing of TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud in a drone attack which stalled the process of initiating the dialogue. TTP’s new chief Mullah Fazlullah has refused to hold talks with the government after Hakeemullah’s death on Nov 1. The government acknowledged that the killing had adversely affected efforts for talks and blamed the United States for derailing the peace process. According to sources, Maulana Fazl sought suggestions from the tribal elders for steps to be taken to restart the peace process. He said the government’s lukewarm response to the jirga’s efforts for starting negotiations had disappointed the elders, adding that the government was yet to work out a plan. He said an all-party conference held in Islamabad in February and attended by leaders of the mainstream political parties had authorised a grand jirga to initiate dialogue with the TTP. “A joint declaration of the grand jirga is the most effective tool for ending violence and restoring lasting peace in Fata,” he said. He said the tribal elders had expressed concern over the US drone strikes aimed at sabotaging the peace process in the region. He said the jirga had demanded that the government should take effective measures for getting US drone attacks stopped. When asked about the Taliban’s refusal to start the talks, he said neither the TTP nor the government had opposed the jirga. He said the Taliban had welcomed the jirga and expressed willingness to resolve issues through dialogue. The main objective of the jirga was to build confidence between the two sides and facilitate talks, he said.
Taliban want Misbah hailed, not Tendulkar MIRAMSHAH, Nov 28: The Pakistani Taliban have said the media should rein in its praise of Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, who retired this month after a glittering 24-year career.. Shahidullah Shahid, the spokesman for the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, said Pakistanis should get behind their embattled captain Misbah-ul-Haq, despite any failings he might have as a player. He made the remarks during an attack on the media’s coverage of the TTP’s slain leader Hakeemullah Mehsud, killed by a US drone on Nov 1. Newspapers and TV screens have been plastered with tributes to Tendulkar, who bowed out on Nov 16 as the world’s leading run-scorer in both Test and one-day cricket. In a video message posted online at the weekend, Shahid, flanked by two masked men with AK-47s, used cricket as an analogy for the way media covered Mehsud’s death. “There is an Indian cricket player called Tendulkar. He has been exceedingly praised by Pakistani media and also praised by a lot of Pakistanis,” he said. “Now someone should tell Pakistani media and other Pakistanis that no matter how good Tendulkar is, they should not praise him, it is against Pakistani nationalism and against loyalty to the country.” “No matter that Misbah-ul-Haq is a substandard and low-level player, Pakistani media should praise him because he is a Pakistani,” the he said. After Mehsud was killed, Jamaat-i-Islami leader Munawar Hassan sparked controversy by calling him a “martyr” and raising doubts about the status of soldiers killed fighting Taliban. Shahid defended his views, saying those who praised soldiers “fighting for America, secularism, democracy and British-made laws” were like those who lauded Tendulkar.—AFP
Sharif to visit Afghanistan tomorrow ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will visit Kabul on Saturday to meet President Hamid Karzai as part of efforts to revive Afghanistan’s faltering peace process.. The one-day visit comes a week after Mr Sharif met a delegation from the Afghan High Peace Council, which is tasked with opening negotiations with the Taliban as Nato forces withdraw from the country by the end of 2014. Mr Karzai is stalling on signing a security pact with Washington that would allow a contingent of US troops to stay on for training and counter-terrorism missions. Support from Pakistan is seen as crucial to peace after Nato troops depart, but relations between the two nations have been uneasy. Pakistan said it had released former Taliban number two Mullah Baradar – seen by Kabul as important to bringing the militants to the negotiating table – to help the peace process. But militant sources have complained he is effectively still behind bars. There has been no confirmation that the High Peace Council was able to meet him during its visit to Pakistan last week. It will be Mr Sharif’s first visit to Afghanistan since he took office in June. “He will meet…President Karzai and will discuss issues of mutual interest. Both the leaders will discuss the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry. The Taliban have refused to have direct contact with Mr Karzai or with the High Peace Council, dismissing them as puppets of the United States. A Taliban office in Qatar that opened in June was meant to lead to talks, but instead it enraged Mr Karzai after it was styled as an embassy for a government-in-exile. Mr Karzai and Mr Sharif met British Prime Minister David Cameron in London last month in the fourth of a series of trilateral meetings designed to foster stability in the region. The meeting was considerably more low-key than one hosted by Mr Cameron at his official country retreat in February, which ended with grand promises of a peace deal within six months.—AFP
Biometric SIM verification system to be launched By Zulqernain Tahir LAHORE, Nov 28: All cellular companies are planning to launch biometric SIM verification system in Lahore and elsewhere.. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has given the deadline of Dec 20 to all operators to introduce the biometric system in the country, except Karachi. For Karachi, the deadline is Nov 30. All the five operators have made arrangements to meet the deadline. “The operators have agreed to meet the deadline and the foolproof biometric system will be in place at their outlets by the end of next month,” a PTA spokesman told Dawn on Thursday. He said a SIM would be issued after getting a thumb impression of the applicant and subsequent verification by the National Database and Registration Authority. A Ufone spokesperson claims that it is fully equipped to launch the biometric verification system in Karachi by Nov 30 and at all its customer service centres and franchise outlets across the country by Dec 20. The installation of the system at around 70,000 to 75,000 retail points across Pakistan may cost about Rs2.8 billion. In 2008, the PTA had introduced a SIM ownership verification system 667. A customer was required to provide the original CNIC and a thumb print to get a SIM. In 2009, verification system 668 was launched. It is a process to verify how many SIMs are registered against one CNIC. The subscriber can block a SIM not in his or her use. The same year 789 system was introduced in which a customer has to make a call and answer a few questions like mother’s maiden name and the place of birth recorded by Nadra at the time of issuance of CNIC. According to PTA, both 668 and 789 would remain in place after the installation of the biometric verification system.
Imran escapes unhurt in stage collapse By Our Staff Reporter LAHORE, Nov 28: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan escaped unhurt when the wooden stage he was sitting on to address a conference on Thursday collapsed after supporters gathered on it to be photographed with him. . Mr Khan left the dais when it started shaking. The incident came as a reminder to PTI chief’s unfortunate fall from a fork-lift at an election rally in Gulberg on May 7 this year. He had sustained serious head and back injuries in that incident and remained under treatment for quite long.
Shah wants new barrage constructed in Sukkur By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: The Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Khurshid Shah, sent a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday, urging him to build a new barrage at Sukkur. He said that spending funds on the existing barrage would be a waste of money.. Mr Shah, according to his spokesman, pointed out to the prime minister that the barrage built in 1932 had completed its natural life and had now become non-repairable. “The work on the construction of barrage was started in 1925 and completed in seven years’ time in 1932. The lifespan of the dam was 60 years whereas it had already completed 82 years,” the spokesman quoted the opposition leader as saying in the letter. Highlighting the importance of Sukkur Barrage, Mr Shah who owns a vast agricultural land at the mouth of the barrage, said that 7.8 million acres were being irrigated through this barrage. In 2004, he said, “a deep pit” was detected on the right pocket of the barrage in the year 2004 and its repair cost Rs890 million. During the heavy floods in 2010, Mr Shah said, over 1.2 million cusecs of water safely passed through the old structure, but in future the barrage might not be able to withstand such a pressure. The rehabilitation of the over 80-year-old structure would only be a temporary solution whereas its “ultimate solution” would only be its “replacement”. In the letter, Mr Shah asked the federal government to undertake this project since the Sindh government could not finance such a large scheme. He said the barrage was a matter of life and death not only for the people of Sindh, but also for the economy of Pakistan. International experts are reported to have suggested that the life of the barrage could be increased only by opening its central gates rather than opening only side gates which had been the practice for the past several years.
Justice Nasir ECP’s new acting chief By Iftikhar A. Khan ISLAMABAD, Nov 29: Chief Justice-designate Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani has quit the office of acting chief election commissioner and will be replaced by Justice Nasirul Mulk, the senior most judge of the Supreme Court after him.. It will probably be for the first time in the history of the country that an acting chief election commissioner will be replaced by another acting CEC. Informed sources told Dawn that Justice Jillani had written a letter to the outgoing Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Thursday, requesting him to relieve him of his duty as acting CEC. An official of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said the reason behind the move might be to avert the possibility of his decisions as acting CEC being challenged in the apex court after he took over as chief justice on Dec 12. Justice Jillani was appointed acting CEC in August, days after retired Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim resigned from the post of CEC in protest against the court’s decision to amend the presidential election schedule announced by the commission. Justice Jillani served as acting CEC for over three months at a time when the court was criticising the provinces for dragging their feet on the issue of local government polls in violation of constitutional provisions. Under the schedule announced even before the provinces completed the prerequisites, including delimitation, the LG polls in Punjab and Balochistan were to take place on Dec 7 and in Sindh on Nov 27. Efforts by Justice Jillani, however, bore fruit and the polls in the two provinces were allowed to be delayed. Under the new plan, the LG elections in Sindh and Punjab were to take place on Jan 18 and Jan 30, 2014, respectively, and the schedule was to be formally announced on Nov 29. However, the ECP deferred the issuance of schedule for conduct of LG polls in the two provinces for an indefinite period. Sources in the ECP said the reason was the failure of provincial governments to make available to the ECP the updated LG laws and rules and notification of delimitation exercise. Justice Nasirul Mulk will be administered oath as acting CEC on Saturday.
19 FC men told to appear before police By Tahir Siddiqui KARACHI, Nov 29: Nineteen personnel of a law-enforcement agency who had allegedly taken away 35 detainees were directed by the Supreme Court on Friday to appear before the Balochistan police authorities investigating their disappearance. . A four-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry hearing the cases of the missing persons at the Karachi registry of the court expressed annoyance over the absence of the inspector general of Frontier Corps Balochistan who had been ordered to appear before the court. Attorney General Munir A. Malik said the FC chief did not appear because he could not be informed about the court order. But the chief justice remarked that he had been deliberately avoiding the proceedings because there was credible evidence to establish that the FC personnel were involved in the enforced disappearances. The court recalled that despite repeated orders, responsible FC officials, including Brig Aurangzeb, Col Naeem and Major Tahir, had not appeared before it. The chief justice said that a judicial inquiry in a missing person case concluded that FC personnel had picked up Abdul Malik. “Don’t try to hush up the matter. Those involved will have to be produced for investigation into the matter,” he snapped when the attorney general said the officers named had been repatriated to the army. The chief justice asked the AG who should be issued contempt notice for not complying with the court’s orders. The court directed the authorities to ensure the presence of all nominated FC personnel before the DIG of Special Branch, Balochistan, on Sunday for interrogation. It also directed the Sindh police chief to provide security to the families and relatives of missing persons who had marched to Karachi from Quetta. The hearing was adjourned to Dec 3. UNAUTHORISED SIMS: The Supreme Court ordered on Friday that a task force comprising the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority chairman, representatives of cellular companies and officials from police and intelligence agencies be set up to control the use of unauthorised SIM cards. The order was issued by a five-judge bench comprising the chief justice, Justice Jawwad S. Khuwaja, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Amir Hani Muslim and Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan which had taken up the implementation of the court’s judgment in the Karachi law and order case. The court also ordered the appointment of a commission to ensure 100 per cent recovery of taxes on recommendations submitted by Attorney General Munir A. Malik and Sindh Advocate General Khalid Javed. The recommendations seek maximum collection of customs duty on imported goods. These include surprise audit/inspection of goods, the duty assessed on goods declaration on any given day or a number of such days and then physical inspection of the goods thus assessed before the goods leave the customs premises. The chief federal and provincial law officers informed the court that the customs authorities were unable to inspect and verify the content of all containers because of lack of advanced technology and equipment and shortage of manpower. The court asked them to nominate a judicial, technical and accounting member for the commission and submit a list of other members to the SC registrar before Dec 3. The advocate general said an effective strategy had been worked out at the highest level to recover illicit arms and ammunition. The attorney general said details not be disclosed in open court. Khalid Javed said law-enforcement agencies were obtaining declaration from holders of arms licence that they were not in possession of any unauthorised arms and ammunition. The court asked him to submit at the next hearing a report on progress made so far to recover arms and ammunition. Earlier, the PTA chairman informed the court about temporary measures to eradicate the menace of illegal SIM cards. He said not more than two SIMs would be activated on a single mobile phone, while a single user would not be allowed to use more than five SIMs. In the first stage, he said, cellular companies would ascertain the identity cards against which more than 10 SIMs had been registered. These numbers will be called and asked to keep a maximum of five numbers against one CNIC, while the rest would be blocked. The PTA chief said import of cellular phones without international mobile station equipment identity (IMEI) numbers would not be allowed and it would be possible with the cooperation of the custom authorities. The court said it would issue appropriate orders to curb the use of unauthorised SIMs after reviewing recommendations of the task force. The court put off the hearing to a date to be announced by its office after three weeks.
Three Punjabi Taliban killed in drone attack By Our Correspondent MIRAMSHAH, Nov 29: Three people were killed and another was wounded in the US drone attack [briefly reported on Friday] on a residential compound near Miramshah in North Waziristan Agency after midnight on Thursday, sources said.. They said the persons killed were affiliated with the Miramshah-based Baddar Mansoor (BM) group, an offshoot of Punjabi Taliban. They hailed from Karachi. Qari Aslam alias Yaseen, who was injured in the attack, was admitted to a hospital in the area. The sources identified one of the dead as Ibrahim and said he was an Information Technology expert. Two missiles were fired by the drone at the compound in Angher Village. The place belongs to a tribesman who had rented it out to the BM group. Reports from the area said the local people had retrieved three bodies and one wounded person from the damaged compound. According to AFP, a senior security official, two suspected militants were killed and two others wounded. The identities of those killed in the strike were not immediately known but they appeared to be of Central Asian origin, the official said. Another security official in Miramshah said two Taliban militants were wounded in the attack and were identified as Punjabi Taliban. “One of them, Aslam alias Yaseen, is linked with attacks on Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi and another attack on (the) naval base in Karachi,” the security official said. In May 2011, heavily armed militants besieged a naval airbase in Karachi, destroying two US-made P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft, an attack that took 17 hours to repel and left 10 military personnel dead. This was the third drone strike during the current month. On Nov 1, a drone strike killed banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakeemullah Mehsud near Miramshah. The second attack was carried out in Thall area in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Nov 21 in which a seminary was targeted and six people, including three key commanders of the Haqqani group, were killed.
Kayani hands over baton to Gen Raheel By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, Nov 29: Gen Raheel Sharif took over on Friday as the 15th Chief of Army Staff, succeeding Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, whose six-year tenure was marked by fight against terrorism and first transition from a democratically-elected government to another.. Gen Sharif, 57, an infantry officer, will have a term of three years. He was handed over the baton at a ceremony at the Army Hockey Stadium next to General Headquarters by Gen Kayani.Though the more senior general Gen Rashad Mehmood was made the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee during the transition in the military, the real power lies in the influential office of chief of army staff. Hallmark of Gen Kayani’s tenure, which included a three-year extension, was the restoration of the morale of troops, more focused counter-terrorism strategy, and continuation of democracy despite challenges in civil-military relations. Speaking at the change of command ceremony, the outgoing army chief said he was leaving the army in the best possible shape. “Today I can proudly say that the army is ready to deal with both internal and external threats,” he said. Six years ago Gen Musharraf, while handing over reins to Gen Kayani, too had said that the army had “never been as strong as it is now in the whole history of the country”. But comparing the current state of his forces with conditions under which he had assumed the command, Gen Kayani said: “When I took over the command (in Nov 2007) there were a number of challenges and the army needed to use all its professional capabilities in a focused manner to deal with them.” He said his actions as the commander of the world’s 7th largest army were dictated by national interest and the interest of the institution. Gen Kayani oversaw successful operations in Swat and tribal agencies and had been very vocal over the past couple of years about sternly dealing with terrorists. When the PML-N government, after coming into power, made efforts to initiate dialogue with Taliban, Gen Kayani expressed his reservations, but didn’t block civilian leaders’ initiative. He reiterated his strong stance against militancy in his farewell address and said that terrorism had caused irretrievable loss to the country. Gen Kayani also chose the occasion to respond to the martyrdom controversy kicked up by Jamaat-i-Islami Chief Munawar Hassan, but without making a direct reference to the matter. He said it were because of army’s sacrifices that peace was established in the country’s most difficult area. “I want to pay tribute to those martyred on this righteous path (fighting terrorists). They are not only the benefactors of the army, but also that of the entire nation and their names would be written in golden letters in the history.” He maintained that army’s sacrifices during past few years were unparalleled in the country’s history and said that “army has been keeping the beacon of freedom alight with its blood”. Gen Kayani said he also wanted to salute thousands of civilian martyrs, including women and children, who “sacrificed their lives alongside the army” in the fight against terrorists. Some 3,500 soldiers have been killed in the war against terrorism, while the casualty figure of civilians runs into tens of thousands. In his parting words, Gen Kayani said he was confidant that the nation strongly stood behind the army in difficult times. “What could have been a bigger proof … than the fact that your countrymen always called for your help in hard times and they were never disappointed. Your presence is a source of solace for them,” he said in comments directed towards the army. While thanking the nation for its support, he called for rising above linguistic, ethnic and sectarian biases and contributing positively towards national development.
Investment limit withdrawn from new package By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Nov 29: The government has made a significant change in the incentive package for the business community within 24 hours after it had been announced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, by doing away with the investment limit requirement. . “No limit has been fixed for investment in the green field industrial and expansion projects that also include captive power plants, low-cost housing construction, livestock and mining and quarrying in Thar coal project, mining projects in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other expansion projects provided these are set up on or after Jan 1 next year,” said a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Secretariat on Friday. Addressing leading businessmen and representatives of chambers of commerce and industry on Thursday, Mr Sharif had said the government and tax authorities would not ask questions about the source of investment if it was between Rs10 million and Rs50 billion. Interestingly, a draft of the speech released on Thursday by the press wing of the Prime Minister’s Office said: “Investment in green field industrial projects will be immune from any probe or scrutiny of source of investment if set up on or after Jan 1, 2014, with a minimum investment of Rs25 million that created at least five jobs and then added one additional job for each five million of capital invested.” The prime minister had changed the minimum limit from Rs25m to Rs10m. He also relaxed the incentives earlier proposed for green field projects to expansion projects. He read out a negative list of industries which would not be entitled to the incentives. However, on the demand of businessmen he said the list would be finalised later on the basis of their suggestion. The negative list included arms and ammunition, explosives, fertilisers, sugar, cigarettes, aerated beverages, cement, textile spinning mills, flour mills and vegetable ghee and cooking oils. The PM Secretariat said there would be no limit on minimum or maximum investment for benefiting from the amnesty package. An official said the incentive packages and tax amnesty announced in the past also used to be specific in their objectives but were later changed time and again on the influence of powerful lobbies to include more sectors. “We will have to wait for a final version of the policy when it is formally notified in the Gazette of Pakistan. Until then the political government is always open to make amendments,” he said. A separate statement issued by the finance ministry said the incentives would not apply to funds accruing from crimes committed under Narcotic Substances Act 1997, Anti-Terrorist Act 1997 and the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2010. But it did not say how this classification would be made when questions would not be asked and there would be no scrutiny of the source of investment. The statement said the multi-pronged tax incentive package was aimed at promoting investment, creating jobs, simultaneously increasing tax collection and the number of tax return filers and acknowledging leading taxpayers. The finance ministry criticised the PPP and said the stimulus package for stock exchanges introduced by its government had exempted from scrutiny the nature and source of investment in listed companies and share of public companies subject to certain conditions. But the present government has decided to shift the focus to promoting industrial growth. It said that with the aim of increasing income tax collection and simultaneously facilitating the existing taxpayers by providing them an option to avoid tax audit, the prime minister had also allowed immunity from tax audit those taxpayers who paid 25 per cent more tax this year than paid or assessed for the previous year. The prime minister had also extended the deadline for filing tax returns to Dec 15 from Nov 30 and said those who had already filed returns would be free to revise them till the new deadline in the light of new incentives.
PM rejects summary for oil price hike By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Nov 29: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif rejected on Friday a summary suggesting an increase in prices of petroleum products, a senior finance ministry official told Dawn. . The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) had earlier this week recommended the increase despite a decline in international oil prices. Depreciation in the value of the rupee against the dollar was given as the reason for increasing the prices of petrol, high speed diesel, kerosene and high octane blending component (HOBC). The US dollar was Rs105 on Nov 1 but now it had reached Rs109.50, an increase of about 9 per cent, Ogra said. The price of kerosene was estimated to go up by 25 paisa per litre and that of HOBC by Rs3.70. The price of petrol was to go up by 8 paisa per litre but the government wants to keep it unchanged in view of shortage of CNG. The price of light diesel oil was estimated to be reduced by 85 paisa per litre but after the rejection of the summary by the prime minister it will remain unchanged.
Imran slams ‘drone attack deal’ By Mansoor Malik LAHORE, Nov 29: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan on Friday launched a fresh tirade against the PML-N government and termed it a “stooge” of the United States. . “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government has been installed to promote the international agenda of the US that has allowed it to issue statements to condemn drone attacks but do nothing in this regard,” he alleged. Speaking at a press conference, Mr Khan said the PML-N government was encouraging the rich to get richer and burdening the poor and salaried class by imposing heavy taxes. He announced that the PTI would stage a massive demonstration against price hike in Lahore on Dec 22. The PTI chief alleged that the government was hoodwinking people by pursuing a hypocritical policy. It will continue “serving” its US masters who will keep on launching drone strikes in Pakistan for another decade while continuing their stay in Afghanistan. He said drone strikes would continue to sabotage efforts to open talks with the Taliban and establish peace in the country. “The PTI stands for liberating Pakistan from US slavery.” He said the government was serving the rich by introducing schemes after schemes to help them whiten their black money. “On the other hand, it is crushing underprivileged and salaried classes…by introducing new taxes and increasing fuel prices.” He said no policy could bring investment in Pakistan unless peace was restored. The PML-N, he said, had lost the moral authority to rule because it had failed to fulfil its election promises of restoring peace, stopping drone attacks and eliminating corruption. Reaffirming his party’s commitment to the cause of elimination of corruption, he said the PTI government had ousted its coalition partner in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on corruption charges. He said the Sept 9 all-party conference had given a mandate to the government to ask the US to halt drone strikes or block Nato supplies as a mark of protest. He said the National Assembly had also adopted a resolution in this regard but instead of doing so, the government was criticising the PTI for its initiative to block Nato supplies. He said the PTI had stopped the supplies in line with a decision of the Peshawar High Court whereas the PML-N had adopted a stance on drone attacks similar to the one taken by the PPP.
Tendulkar verdict reversed after Taliban replay By Our Staff Reporter PESHAWAR, Nov 29: As in cricket, in other things in life, the longer version emerges to be the correct version.. On Friday, a feature issued by a news agency and appearing in national press had a Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman invoking patriotism to denounce Indian star Sachin Tendulkar in comparison with Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq. That turned out to be spin imparted by some who hastily quoted the TTP spokesman out of context to perpetuate the stereotype. Fingers were raised, but the conclusion hurriedly arrived at was reversed. In fact what the spokesman had said was just the opposite of what had been reported by the news agency. A longer version of the same interview of the TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid available on the internet brought home quite another story. In it the spokesman was heard drawing a cricketing analogy to explain his organisation’s views on Syed Munawar Hassan’s recent remarks in which he had declared the slain Tehreek-i-Taliban leader, Hakeemullah Mehsud, as a martyr. Shahid, in applying his logic to sift fact from fiction, had highlighted how Tendulkar was praised and how a bad performance by Misbah on the other hand had, or should have, the media criticising the Pakistan skipper. And then he had asked, media more pointedly than any one else, to report factually on who was a martyr and who was not. His was rather long-winded delivery of the message. Someone took out a portion of his statement and released it on the net where it went viral within hours. The longer and more comprehensive version of the interview did not quite match the formula where cricket mixed with militancy must find Pakistan acrimoniously positioned against an ‘enemy’. It said “…those who have denounced Munawar Hassan sahib are in fact saying that a Pakistani soldier, who dies while fighting for the Americans and for the British …and for democracy, is a martyr. And…Hakeemullah (shaheed) and other mujahideen who are fighting for Islam, must not be considered as martyrs even if they are in heaven because they were opposed to the Pakistan government and the Pakistani state.” In the same interview, the TTP spokesman had made it clear that no talks could be held with the Pakistan government for now and the matter would be held with the government would now be taken by the new ameer, Maulana Fazlullah. In a clear policy statement, Shahidullah Shahid said the TTP was fighting for the enforcement of Shariah in the country. “If this can happen through negotiations, so be it,” he said. “… we would only negotiate if we know these negotiations will lead to the enforcement of Shariah.” He said the TTP’s call for ending drone strikes, release of prisoners and withdrawal of troops from the tribal region, was made only to gauge the sincerity of the government and see if it had the authority (to make the talks meaningful). “The whole world now knows the government is neither sincere nor does it have the authority to accept these demands.” In the same interview, the spokesman praised the PTI leader Imran Khan for stopping Nato supplies. “This is hurting the Americans,” he said. He said that those believing in secularism, nationalism and democracy could not be the friends of the TTP, but added: “…definitely, this (the Nato blockade) is a good step and this could not but create a soft corner in our heart for him (Imran).” Shahidullah Shahid dispelled the impression about differences among the Taliban over the appointment of Mullah Fazlullah as new chief of the TTP, saying members representing Mehsuds in the Shura had fully endorsed his selection. “Mehsuds can never quit the group. Mehsuds are like head of this body,” he maintained, insisting that Fazlullah was appointed with consensus. He recalled the Mehsuds had wanted the Swat TTP leader to head the umbrella organisation after the death of its founding leader, Baitullah Mehsud. “How could they have been against him now,” he asked.
Editorial NEWS
Long-term perspective: Pakistan-US ties THOUGH there can be no two views on the need for the US to respect Pakistan’s borders, ties with Washington cannot be seen through the prism of the drone-dominated discourse alone. Safe havens, 2014, war on terror, the Nato supply line — these will soon pass into history, as did Raymond Davis, Salala and Abbottabad. What will not are Pakistan’s geography and America’s long-term economic and geopolitical interests in the region. The latter comprises the oil-rich Gulf, southwest Asia and the landmass south of the Himalayas. By its very being as a superpower, the US will remain engaged with states in this region for economic and geopolitical reasons. Pakistan must grasp this reality; it must realise the limitations of its elements of national power and project a relationship that will guard its vital economic and security interests in a world in which it has few genuine friends. Misunderstood no doubt, Pakistan must also blame itself for chasing unachievable geopolitical objectives and inviting the suspicion of those who otherwise would have wished it well.. The joint statement issued at the end of the US-Pakistan Defence Consultative Group in Washington on Friday shows that the two sides have not allowed the current irritants in ties to cloud their view of the future. The statement pledges the two sides to a strong defence partnership and counterterrorism cooperation even after America withdraws from Afghanistan and says they believe defence links will endure because it is vital to regional and international security. This unanimity of views on a number of issues shouldn’t make us oblivious to the difficulties in the way. Points of discord between Pakistan and America will always be there, just as they were when they were military allies during the Cold War. The US cannot accept Pakistan’s view of many regional issues, just as Islamabad may find it difficult to endorse many aspects of Washington’s Asia policy. This emphasises the need for developing a fruitful relationship. With the focus of geopolitical power shifting East, Islamabad must expect a consequent change in American policy towards major Asian players. This makes it incumbent on Pakistan to diversify its economic and defence ties, especially at a time when it faces isolation because of flawed policies. While the relations with America must grow and stabilise, Islamabad needs to mend fences with India, deepen ties with China, seek greater cooperation with Russia and set its house in order in a way that encourages the world to help make this country a regional economic hub.
Rawalpindi blowback: Ancholi blasts WHILE protests against last week’s sectarian riots in Rawalpindi staged by religious outfits passed off more or less peacefully on Friday, the day came to a bloody close as two blasts ripped through a Karachi neighbourhood late Friday night killing and injuring many. Ancholi, the area targeted, is a mixed locality though containing a large Shia population, while one of Karachi’s main imambargahs is located within it. If there were any doubts the motive behind the bombings was sectarian, TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid’s statement on Saturday that the atrocity was “revenge” for the Rawalpindi violence should have made matters clear. The extremists seem to speak with forked tongues. While right-wing elements take out rallies to denounce sectarian violence, the militants follow up with a display of indiscriminate violence designed to further fuel communal hatred. The incident is also a reminder that the TTP is transforming itself from an anti-state pan-Islamist force to a more openly sectarian concern.. While fears of sectarian trouble are never far during sensitive religious periods, the threat is enhanced manifold when militant and sectarian outfits actively try to trigger communal violence. However, the reaction of ulema of all persuasions in controlling sectarian passions has been disappointing. Instead of calming down their respective flocks, they appear more interested in one-upmanship. As for the government, it seems to be more interested in placating extremists; as reported in this paper, the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat chief has been staying in Islamabad lately at the state’s request ‘to help maintain peace’. What an organisation known for its divisive religious views and extremist rhetoric can do for communal peace is up for debate. Instead of playing ball with hardliners, the state should bring those involved in the Rawalpindi violence to book: both those who attacked the mosque and madressah and killed innocent people, as well as those who indulged in retaliatory attacks targeting imambargahs must face the law. And in light of the TTP’s pledge to carry out more sectarian mayhem, greater vigilance is needed.
More voices needed: Sexual harassment IN a country where sexual harassment at the workplace often goes unreported because of social taboos and the fear of losing one’s job, it is a good sign that some complaints are making their way to the authorities that matter. However, as reported in this paper yesterday, complaints of harassment usually come from government departments. To account for this development it has been suggested that job insecurity is greater in the private sector, hence complaints emanating from there have been fewer. The numbers themselves are telling: out of the more than 150 complaints received by the court of the federal ombudsman since 2011, only 13 came from the private sector. But the figures apart, the larger question is, are workplaces taking the law against sexual harassment seriously and doing everything they can to promote an environment where it is clearly understood that such misconduct will not be brooked?. To be sure, the law has taken its course as is evident in some of the cases cited in the newspaper report. But there is a greater need for awareness among workplace staff regarding the code of conduct that the law stipulates and for assurances given by public and private organisations to their employees that charges of harassment will not be given short shrift, and that each complaint will be thoroughly investigated. It is for employers and heads of department to realise that stamping out harassment will help promote productivity and confidence amongst staff members. It is equally important for the staff to understand that reporting cases of harassment will encourage others who have suffered to join in and demand action against sexual predators.
PTI’s one-track mind: Drones issue THE politics of drones continues to heat up and, as ever, at the vanguard of the agitation is Imran Khan. By now, at least two things are reasonably clear: one, the political right in the country will remain fixated on drones, even if it means to the exclusion of any focus on the threat of militancy; and two, drone attacks will not cease, even if their frequency goes further down. Which leaves a basic question: what now? Perhaps sensing that it may have backed itself too far into a corner, the PTI leadership has left itself some little wriggle room in its latest protest. Neither has the provincial PTI leadership been involved nor has the PTI indicated that an absolute blockade is in effect. What that allows is for the PTI to simultaneously claim it is sticking to its principled stance while also bowing to the realities of power. For, as the country learned during the post-Salala supply route shutdown, drones may be operated by the US, but the supply route serves a wide coalition of international forces. The PTI, like all provincial or federal governments over the past decade, appears to have understood that the outside world does not share Pakistan’s obsession with drones while largely giving the militants themselves a free pass in the blame game.. Still, the inherent defectiveness of the PTI’s single-track approach to defeating militancy does not mean that Pakistan does not have a drone problem. Expanding the strike zone to the settled areas of KP is an alarming sign of mission creep that almost inevitably happens whenever an intelligence agency, the CIA in this case, is also handed a trigger. If inaccessible areas of Fata are one thing, the settled areas of Pakistan proper are altogether a different category — surely, it cannot be argued that Pakistan is fundamentally unable to deal with militancy in Hangu? But therein lies a collective failure of the Pakistani leadership, civilian and military and across governments, to articulate any coherent policy on the drones issue. And that is hardly a problem that is about to go away, now that it has become clear a significant presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan is all but guaranteed until at least 2024. However, if the Pakistani leadership has failed and continues to fail, the Obama administration is equally guilty of focusing on the short term to the detriment of long-term interests. Why stoke such severe anti-Americanism in a country on the frontline in the fight against militancy just to kill a few militants who are all too easily replaced?
Necessary numbers: Call for census CARRYING out a census is a difficult job anywhere. It is tougher still in Pakistan because of the problems the country is riddled with: political violence, terrorism, ethnic and religious differences, illiteracy, etc. A national population census is a constitutional requirement that has to be met every 10 years, yet its last edition was conducted in 1998. The census before 1998 was held in 1981. But, although the absence of a regular head count has complicated matters, the ECP is hoping that now is the right time to mend matters. It has urged the government to conduct a census as soon as possible for the proper delimitation of constituencies. A census isn’t only about counting people. The very idea of representative democracy in a federation like Pakistan hinges on it. Failure to undertake the 2008 census, for example, meant the share of seats allotted to each federating unit in the National Assembly was to continue to be determined on the basis of its population in 1998. A census is also vital for equitable resource distribution among units as population remains the single most important factor for determining provincial shares. The argument is as good for the smallest administrative unit as for the provinces. It is the census which maps the changing demography and economy to help planners.. Undertaking a census is in the interest of everyone regardless of ethnicity, political affiliation, religious beliefs or social background. The previous government tried to carry out the exercise in 2011, but left it incomplete because of violence in KP, Balochistan and Karachi. It also could not afford to alienate some of its coalition partners by moving ahead with the plan. Undertaking this tough exercise won’t be easy even today because of the challenging security conditions in parts of the country. Still, the PML-N government with its definite mandate is in a much better position to implement this constitutional requirement. It did the job 15 years ago. It must try and accomplish it now as well.
Pursukoon Karachi: Yearning for peace EVEN for a country where danger is the citizens’ constant companion, the levels of violence and crime in Karachi are startling. From frequent confrontations among various political and sectarian groups to organised extortion rings and rampant street crime, much of it armed, the tragedy of the city is that its negatives far outweigh its positives. Insufficient electricity, water and other resources for Karachi’s citizens and lack of proper urban planning add to the problems posed by crime and violence. There may be roughly 18 million people living here, but perhaps not enough would admit a sense of loyalty to or ownership of a metropolis that is amongst the most crime-ridden in the world.. It is little wonder, then, that the days when Karachi was feted as the city of constant breezes seem nothing but a mirage now — even though that time is within living memory. It is this hankering after the past, this yearning for peace that can be read into the project that got under way on Friday, a day that saw yet more blasts in Ancholi. The Pursukoon Karachi festival, an initiative by Koel Gallery and some 300 artists, and supported by the Karachi Arts Council and the National Academy of Performing Arts, reminds us of what this city once was, and demands introspection into how that environment can be recreated. With a series of programmes including music recitals, dramatic reading sessions, art installations, etc, at multiple venues, the project is a poignant reminder of the track the city should be on — the irony being that in some notable cases, it is the very political groups that should care most about the city that turn a blind eye to, at times even incite, the violence.
Breakthrough at last Iran, world powers clinch N-deal INTERIM no doubt, it’s a breakthrough, nevertheless. The deal clinched by Iran and P5+1 on Sunday in Geneva does give Tehran some relief on sanctions in return for Tehran to slow down if not scrap its nuclear programme. The agreement is historic and could determine the future course of the West’s relationship with Iran. More importantly, it is likely to survive because both sides have welcomed it. While President Barack Obama said the agreement would prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons, Iranian negotiator Mohammad Javad Zarif pledged to abide by it but made clear the measures visualised in the accord were “reversible”, though he hoped Iran would not have to use this option. More significant, however, were Mr Zarif’s remarks that the deal would restore trust between Iran and the West. For President Hassan Rouhani it is a diplomatic triumph, for the agreement would not have been possible without the blessings of spiritual leader Ali Khamenei. This should help him counter hardliners at home.. The accord halts a greater part of Iran’s nuclear programme and aims to prevent Tehran from expanding it. Specifically, it lays down a 5pc cent limit beyond which Iran will not enrich uranium, and “neutralise” the existing stock above the 5pc ceiling. Similarly, the agreement cripples Iran’s ability to produce plutonium because it forbids Tehran from further developing the Arak nuclear plant. There is no doubt the implementation of the agreement will be carefully monitored, for Tehran has pledged to give inspectors greater access, if necessary on a daily basis, to all nuclear sites. On its part, the West will slap no further sanctions during the six-month ‘watch’ period and give Iran sanctions relief worth $7bn — a pitifully small amount for the world’s fourth largest oil producer. Israel called the accord “a mistake”, and some Gulf monarchies have reacted negatively. President Obama, too, is likely to encounter difficulties in selling the deal to Congress. But six months of monitoring should give results and remove the critics’ misgivings. For Pakistan, the Geneva deal opens up new possibilities for going ahead with the gas pipeline. It has been delayed for too long because of American pressure. Now that a breakthrough has been made, it is time Islamabad took up the construction of the Pakistani part of the pipeline in earnest and expedited the completion of the project. Pakistan’s energy crisis is severe, and a timely flow of Iranian gas should help it plug the current gap between demand and supply.
Good effort but… Religious code of conduct THE code of conduct proposed by Council of Islamic Ideology member Maulana Tahir Ashrafi contains many points that, if implemented, can work to reduce sectarianism in Pakistan. But this is a huge ‘if’. Few level-headed people will argue against measures such as religious groups distancing themselves from violence, banning the toxic practice of takfir or clamping down on hate speech or literature that disrespects religious personalities held in high esteem by various sects. Yet the key questions are: if the code is adopted, will the state enforce it and equally important, will scholars belonging to different schools of thought play their part to make sure it is not violated? Such efforts have been tried in the past, most notably by the Milli Yakjehti Council in the 1990s. But as the vicious sectarian violence in Pakistan proves, efforts to evolve and enforce a code of conduct have failed to tackle the monster of sectarianism. The main reason for the earlier code floundering is that ulema failed to take action against the black sheep within their ranks who were fomenting trouble. So while the preachers were quick to blame the ‘other side’ for violating the code, most kept silent when it came to confronting rabble rousers within their communities.. If the CII does adopt Maulana Ashrafi’s code and if it is to have any chance of success, two main things are needed. Firstly, the state must crack down on all hate speech and literature, regardless of who is involved in the provocation. The Rawalpindi violence is a prime example of how the situation can catch fire simply through the misuse of the microphone. Secondly, the ulema need to play a more impartial role; if preachers from their own sect are found to be fanning hate, then scholars of repute must be the first to condemn such elements. Without consensus from Shia and Sunni scholars and an effective mechanism to clamp down on violators, the proposed code has slim chances of success.
Dangerous consumption: Antibiotic-resistant bacteria IT has been nearly a century since Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. Now it looks like the global population will have to pay for what experts have been warning against for a long time: misuse of antibiotics including taking them too frequently, leading to drug-resistant strains of bacteria. A commission comprised of globally renowned scientists recently published a report in the medical journal Lancet that concluded that resistance to antibiotics is spreading rapidly worldwide, and that countries are reporting higher figures of deaths because of this. “Within just a few years we might be faced with dire setbacks,” it warns, “unless real and unprecedented global coordinated actions are immediately taken.” The problem is a global one but as always, Pakistan and the developing world are hit harder. We join India and Egypt in being the three countries where over-the-counter sales of a common class of antibiotics have increased, and the country is reporting infections caused by many germs that have developed resistance.. There is anecdotal evidence that the overuse of drugs, even in situations that don’t require them, is rampant. This is partly the effect of a largely uneducated society where medicine is seen as a miracle cure. Similarly, poorly trained or inexperienced medical staff also hands out antibiotic prescriptions in cases where there are grey areas in the diagnosis. Since getting medicines without a prescription is easy, self-medication is common. But it lies within the power of the state, the pharmaceutical industry and the drug regulation authorities to bring matters under control. We urgently need to put a stop to over-the-counter drug sales, which is merely a matter of law enforcement. A mass-scale awareness campaign targeting both society and healthcare workers would also help in curbing the misuse of antibiotics.
Dark times ahead: Water scarcity THE growing water crunch is often cited as the next biggest threat to Pakistan’s internal security, people and economy after terrorism. Pakistan is already classified as one of the most water-stressed countries because of climatic change, population growth and inefficient use of the resource. More worrying is the fact that water stress is fast developing into water scarcity. Different studies show that per capita water availability has decreased immensely since Pakistan’s inception, mainly because of population growth. In other words, our people today have access to only one-fifth of the water they had at the time of independence. The country’s population is predicted to double by 2050, meaning that the people will have access to just half the water in 2050 they have now even if they start using the available resource efficiently and climatic changes don’t reduce flows in the Indus river system. . So when a top water and power ministry official tells legislators that the country is likely to experience a drought situation 12 years from now if immediate action is not taken to “improve storage and conservation capacity” he is not off the mark. An ADB report has already underlined the need for increasing the storage capacity, the amount of water in reserve in case of an emergency, which currently stands at 30-days’ supply. This is far below the recommended 1,000 days for countries with a similar climate. Any emergency can push the country into socio-economic turmoil. Our cities are already experiencing reduction in water availability owing to excessive pumping of ground water. Water shortages can have severe political, economic and social ramifications going forward. Some implications of the increasing demand for water for both agricultural and non-agricultural use are already manifesting themselves in the form of inter-provincial water disputes. This has led many — from farmers to opposition politicians to ministers to jihadi groups — to blame India, the upper riparian, for Pakistan’s water crunch. It isn’t without reason that some experts have warned of water wars in South Asia, one of the world’s most water-stressed regions. Moreover, water scarcity can take an enormous toll on the economy and food security. And all this because successive governments have failed to invest in this sector. The situation can still be salvaged. But it’ll require efficient use of water, the development of more storage capacity, resolution of provincial water disputes as well as engagement with India to find a peaceful solution to trans-boundary water-sharing. Unless effective actions are taken now, the future appears grim.
Farcical politics: PTI’s drone rhetoric FROM the absurd to the farcical, the politics of drones continues to lurch from one unhappy direction to the next. Mocked, slyly, by its political opponents for the FIR of the Hangu drone strike only referring to unknown persons as the perpetrators of death from the skies, the PTI has tried to drag its favourite punching bags, the CIA and the US government, into the mix. High politics or farce, the PTI’s twisting and turning over its rhetoric on drones seems to have trapped the leadership in its own ultimatums and braggadocio. It has almost reached the point where, if it could, the PTI would drag a drone into court, put it on trial before a PTI judge and prosecutor and possibly a jury made up of the Taliban, and then, in full glare of the cameras, flog the drone for its sins against Pakistan’s militants. Or perhaps not — for that may only prompt the CIA and President Obama into launching another Abbottabad-style raid to rescue their drone on trial.. Unhappily, for all the debate over drones and their alleged mass murder of ordinary civilians, the PTI’s political theatrics have had a dangerous effect on the tenuous consensus against militancy in Pakistan. For now the militancy discourse has been reduced to the issue of drones. The PTI is well within its democratic right to protest and petition against drone strikes. The problem is the PML-N federal government and the other mainstream political parties are offering nothing by way of a meaningful counter-narrative. Whether Imran Khan and the PTI are mocked for their stance or supported, the PTI’s is the only narrative that is dominating the conversation on militancy. True, unilateral drone strikes by the US are not acceptable as they violate sovereignty, and the resulting civilian death toll, though relatively low according to government figures, remains a matter of concern. But the way the PTI and other parties are seeking to gain political mileage from the drones issue drowns out any attempt at a broader discourse.
It’s the people who suffer: KESC-KWSB quarrel A FINANCIAL dispute between two of Karachi’s biggest utilities serving the public has begun to hurt citizens. The Karachi Water and Sewerage Board has not paid the money it owes to the Karachi Electric Supply Company, and the latter has chosen to reduce power supply to pumping stations. The KWSB’s biggest pumping station, at Dhabeji, has had its quota of power supply cut by four hours, thus affecting regular water supply to the metropolis. As a report in this paper said, some areas had not received water for five days at a stretch. The KESC had a point when it said the water agency owed it Rs25bn, a huge amount, which is part of the Rs33bn the Sindh government owes to the private-sector power entity. The KESC spokesman backed his claim by saying that the Sindh High Court had authorised it to cut power supply to the KWSB if it failed to clear its dues. However, considering that court cases drag on and detailed knowledge of the power sector is often missing, it is time to evolve alternative, specialised forums where disputes between utilities, both public and private, can be settled quickly. This is all the more necessary as privatisation becomes an increasingly attractive option, with the public sector failing to deliver.. The agencies defaulting on payment include some of Pakistan’s biggest state-owned entities as well as private enterprises, and their refusal to meet their financial obligations merely means bureaucratic incompetence and red tape. The KESC’s decision to curtail power supply to the KWSB was unjustified. The victim is neither the Sindh government nor the KWSB but the citizenry. It is time the two utilities resolved their financial dispute.
Team Sharif? New army chief AFTER six long years and a strengthening transition to democracy, the country has a new army chief — and separately, a new Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, the more senior but less powerful military post. Both appointments tell a tale of their own. In selecting yet another CJCSC from the army, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appears to have yielded to the army’s argument that the CJCSC slot, because of its role in overseeing the country’s military nuclear programme, must remain with the more powerful and much larger army, instead of rotating between the three services. The navy and the air force will likely not be very pleased about the solidifying of a prerogative the army has long claimed for itself, but, in the final analysis, the numerically smaller services probably did not have the necessary clout to win the argument in their favour.. For patently obvious reasons, however, the focus will be on Mr Sharif’s other choice: Gen Raheel Sharif as the new COAS. In selecting the third-most senior general to lead the army, the prime minister has hewed to what is the accepted convention: selecting an army chief on the basis of seniority. In many ways, Mr Sharif’s appointment of Gen Sharif appears to be a canny move: while the other three or four potential candidates were endlessly dissected in the media and appeared to have various groups lobbying for one or the other candidate, Gen Sharif was seemingly no one’s favourite or preferred candidate. A low-key general with impeccable military credentials — perhaps the prime minister has gambled that his choice will more likely play out over the next three years as Team Sharif instead of Sharif vs Sharif. For the sake of the country, Team Sharif has to work well together, specifically in crafting a meaningful, coherent strategy to defeat militancy and bring stability to the region. Thus far, the prime minister could perhaps have argued that a six-year incumbent as army chief precluded the possibility of serious policy overhaul by a new civilian government. But starting today, that is no longer the case. Now Mr Sharif’s handpicked appointee sits atop the most powerful institution in the country. Will the prime minister demonstrate the kind of leadership he promised before the election but that he has failed to provide since taking office in June? Will Gen Sharif do more to disengage the security establishment from shadowy games and nudge the army to embrace zero-tolerance policy against militancy? On the shoulders of those two men rests a heavy burden and a nation’s hope.
A law unto themselves: Lawyers attack Supreme Court THE commotion in the Supreme Court on Tuesday proves that despite the passage of 16 years, little has changed in Pakistan. The only difference is that in 1997, it was PML-N supporters that had stormed the Sajjad Ali Shah-led court, while in the latest incident it was protesting lawyers from different parts of Punjab who attacked the nation’s highest seat of justice. The irony is quite evident: earlier it was political hotheads who had led the charge, angered by contempt charges against Nawaz Sharif, who was prime minister at the time. On Tuesday, it was members of the legal profession, who not too long ago had struggled for the ‘supremacy’ of the law and restoration of sacked Supreme Court judges, that were rampaging through the apex court. The incident is one of many in recent memory that clearly indicates the transformation of lawyers as a group from activists to vigilantes. The lawyers in Islamabad were ostensibly protesting against the non-establishment of high court benches in various Punjab cities. However, as past incidents have also proved, the black coats often resort to violence if things do not go their way. Lawyers accuse the police of resorting to brutality to break up the protest. While the unnecessary use of force by police cannot be condoned, the lawyers did not help the situation by delivering fiery speeches outside the court.. The lofty reputation the lawyers had earned through their movement for the restoration of the chief justice has all but disappeared, thanks to the thuggish behaviour of some amongst them. Members of the legal fraternity have clashed with the police, journalists as well as other lawyers while judges have been intimidated in the days since 2007. But what is most troubling is the relative silence of bar associations and senior lawyers regarding the violent tactics of their fraternity. Either bar councils have kept quiet or slapped violent elements on the wrist for aggressive behaviour. Unless this attitude changes, it is unlikely such ugly incidents will end.
Tragic miscalculation: Train ploughs into rickshaw IT is indicative of the brutalisation of Pakistani society that tragedies that would in other parts of the world cause outrage pass largely unremarked here, invoking little more reaction than a shake of the head. Rarely, if ever, are lessons learned and gaps plugged to guard against future disasters. The horrifying accident in Dadu on Tuesday is a case in point. The driver of the rickshaw carrying schoolchildren miscalculated while trying to cross a level crossing ahead of an oncoming train, which ploughed into the vehicle. Eight children and the driver were crushed to death and other students were seriously injured.. Where can we say the fault lies? With the railway authorities which did not ensure that there was a gate at the level crossing that warns traffic and pedestrians against attempting to cross the tracks? But then, it is common for people to ignore such gates even where they are installed, raising them or ducking under them in the confidence — which often, sadly, proves to be misplaced — that they are better judges of their own speed in relation to that of the train. Of course, blame must be apportioned to the driver of the rickshaw who had not just overloaded his vehicle (the three-wheeler has an optimum capacity of two to three passengers) but who also attempted to cross the tracks at a time when it was clearly unsafe to do so. Yet ultimately, perhaps, what incidents such as this point to is a deeper societal malaise where the value of life is minimal, where the safety of life and limb is disregarded, and where each fresh tragedy is viewed as a stand-alone event that must be lamented but never used as a turning point to prevent further disasters.
Bizarre ways: More appointments OVERSHADOWED by the change at the top in the military at least three other appointments made on Wednesday by the federal government send various signals of their own. The nomination of Justice Tassaduq Jillani as the next chief justice of the Supreme Court was a constitutional formality, but it has put an end to the endless speculation concerning Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s term somehow being extended beyond Dec 11. With the ascension of Justice Jillani, the country will have witnessed a historic and unprecedented constitutional transition of power across institutions this year: a new parliament, a new president, a new army chief and, on Dec 12, a new chief justice. Utterly necessary as an orderly transition was for the democratic order and stability, in many ways the real work begins now: do any of the principal figures imbued with proper constitutional legitimacy have it in them to collectively steer the country towards a better future?. In that regard, the two ministerial appointments made by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday may provide an unhappy answer. That the country has been without a defence, foreign or law minister for much of this government’s term so far has been an unexplained failure. After all, if the prime minister wanted to keep the defence and foreign portfolios for himself because of the linkages between the military, national security and key foreign relations then perhaps it was understandable. But what exactly has Mr Sharif attempted to do these past few months on those fronts? And now, faced with the defence ministry being hauled over the coals for the continuing saga of the missing persons, the prime minister has seen fit to put a buffer between himself and the court in the shape of Khawaja Asif — who will continue to be the water and power minister. Quite how it makes sense to sidetrack Mr Asif with defence ministry duties when he already has charge of a ministry tasked with solving the staggering energy crisis remains unexplained. Still, if Khawaja Asif’s appointment was merely about avoiding the prime minister being dragged to court, the appointment of Pervez Rashid as law minister is truly inexplicable. The information minister has nothing on his resumé that suggests he is capable of dealing with the complicated task of being law minister. Or is Mr Rashid just a cover for the continuing behind-the-scenes influence of sidelined former law minister Zahid Hamid? More importantly, does the PML-N, with a majority in parliament, really have no one in its ranks to fill even the essential ministries?
Trading places: ‘Fake’ prisoners IN an era of spurious medicines and imitation Rolexes, can ‘fake’ prisoners be far behind? In a briefing on Tuesday pertaining to the security situation in Karachi, the prime minister was told that there are at least 41 ‘fake’ prisoners lodged in Sindh’s jails, thus allowing the actual suspects to remain outside, free to commit further crimes. The fact came to light when the prisoners’ identities were checked through the National Database Registration Authority’s biometrics system and the details of 41 were found to be inconsistent with those of the real suspects. An inquiry is being conducted to assign responsibility and uncover whether this ‘mix-up’ is on account of erroneous entry of names at the time of FIR registration or upon the men’s arrival at the various prisons.. The situation would be amusing if it did not have such serious implications. Karachi has been held to ransom by criminals of various stripes that have struck fear into the heart of its citizens, from the most well-heeled to those with limited means. The Rangers-led operation under way since September to apprehend criminal elements in the city has therefore, with some reservations, been welcomed across the board. However, people’s faith in the law enforcement agencies, not very strong in the first place, will be further diminished by the latest revelation. Corruption in the police force means it is not inconceivable that in some cases illegal gratification may even have been paid in exchange for looking the other way while the real suspect got someone else to trade places with him. The inquiry must be thorough and lead to measures to prevent a recurrence. On a positive note, at least the case of mistaken identities has been brought to light and a system like Nadra is in place to help streamline procedures. No amount of raids will get the job done if criminals are able to work their way around the system.
Reform initiative: Khanewal community policing THE community policing model is not new in Pakistan; it was a central pillar of the Musharraf-era Police Order 2002. However, despite existing on paper, the concept has failed to take root in the country mainly because policing is seen by the state as a control mechanism, not a public service. While some provinces have retained the Police Order 2002 (such as Punjab, which has an amended version of the law), others have reverted to the colonial-era Police Act. But efforts have been made in Punjab’s Khanewal district to practically implement the community policing model. A brainchild of the district police, the Khanewal initiative has attracted the attention of the Punjab police chief; apparently, the top brass wants to keep a close watch on developments in the district so that if the experiment is successful, the model can be replicated across the province.. Violent crime is a nationwide malady and Punjab, with its high crime rate, is hardly immune. Unfortunately, the police have failed to keep a check on crime due to corruption, lack of resources and training and a trust deficit with the public. Community policing is supposed to bridge this gap by deploying officers with links to local people as well as involving citizens in the management of police affairs. If the Khanewal scheme is to succeed, there must be a change in attitude whereby the police emphasise public service over public control. As per the spirit of devolution, police powers must be delegated so that local units have the freedom to act, with the provincial police playing a supervisory role. It is hoped the Khanewal experiment succeeds so that the model can be applied to the rest of Punjab, and the country, to fight the unrelenting crime wave.
Same flawed methods: Business package STAYING true to past form, the PML-N has dipped into its old bag of economic tricks and unveiled its latest incentives for taxpayers and investors. The thinking is the same as before: tax dodgers and people who have earned millions in the black, grey or undocumented economy do not want to enter the formal economy; in order to encourage them to submit to documentation and participation in the formal economy, a no-questions-asked policy about the provenance of the investment or tax payments needs to be implemented; and this, somehow, will help address Pakistan’s investment and taxpaying problems. At least this time, the PML-N has tweaked the investment part of the programme: no questions will be asked if an investment of over a certain stipulated limit creates jobs in sectors that are not already mature and saturated.. The simple question then: how much of an impact will these measures have? On the investment climate, at the margins perhaps there may be some positive effect, but surely no more. The reasons for that are straightforward, and by now long-standing: where energy is scarce, where the currency is always on a downslope and where monetary policy is tight, where existing businesses are struggling to stay afloat, how are new investors to be convinced to invest in new projects? In addition, the PML-N government seems afflicted by the same drift and indecision of previous dispensations, dashing hopes that governance or security would quickly improve. In that climate of fear and uncertainty, no meaningful economic turnaround can be engineered, and certainly not if tried-and-failed methods are attempted once again. On the taxation front, the government appears to have virtually surrendered to special interests. After caving in to traders earlier, now the government has further diluted the senior tax authorities’ powers to access banking details. Whether the proposition itself was a good one to begin with is a separate question; what matters now is that the government has backtracked on the centrepiece of its anyway paltry tax-system reforms. This in addition to the usual promises to extend the no-audit promises to various tiers and categories of taxpayers. Why not, instead, unveil reforms to make the audit process more transparent and fair to lower the possibility of abuse and extortion? Perhaps the most telltale sign of the government’s wrong approach to taxation is the introduction of special VIP privileges for top-tier taxpayers. Paying taxes is a duty and the more the income, the greater that duty. Taxation should never be about giving the already privileged even more privileges.
Unwept, unsung: Murdered policemen THE killings of six policemen in Karachi and Hyderabad last Tuesday are another brutal reminder of the threats the law enforcers face in the line of duty. The current year has been a particularly deadly one for the Sindh police, as over 150 personnel have been gunned down in Karachi. Police officials believe that some of the officers murdered in Karachi earlier this week may have been targeted in reaction to the ongoing action against criminals in the metropolis. In fact, revenge killings, which add to the demoralisation of the police force, are not a new method of intimidation. Over 150 policemen who took part in the Karachi operations of the 1990s have been systematically eliminated in the past two decades. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also seen many policemen killed in action. However, unlike Karachi, where most of the killings are believed to have been perpetrated by criminals or politically motivated killers, in KP it is the militants who have the policemen in their crosshairs. In the first six months of this year, there were over 100 attacks targeting the police in the province.. The authorities in Sindh have come up with steps to offer police personnel better protection while out in the field. These include bullet-proof jackets as well as orders to patrol in groups. But what is most important is for all provincial governments in Pakistan to take political ownership of their respective police forces. Presently, the authorities offer token condolences when policemen are killed, while the public also remains unmoved. The families of slain police personnel are also given the runaround when it comes to collecting compensation. Despite the police’s many failings, along with better training and equipment the law enforcers need our sympathy and support. The murders of policemen need to be investigated and the culprits punished to boost the force’s morale. This would make it clear that policemen’s lives are also valuable. Perhaps dedicated units can be set up to follow up the cases of murdered policemen.
Justified frustration: Missing persons untraced THE highest court in the land is justifiably annoyed with the state over its failure to recover missing persons, and the newly inducted defence minister has visited a protest camp in Karachi set up by family members of the missing people to sympathise. But there is still no solution to the long-standing issue of the ‘disappeared’. Highlighting the Supreme Court’s helplessness in the matter, the chief justice said on Thursday that the paramilitary Frontier Corps had “no respect for the court’s directives” as it had failed to produce some 35 missing persons. If the apex court can express such frustration over the matter, can we blame the Baloch protesters sitting outside the Karachi Press Club if they take Khawaja Asif’s promise of recovering their loved ones with a heavy dose of scepticism? As one protesting woman commented, they have heard many promises in the past, but seen few results. Also, while the defence minister’s assertion that a law to end illegal detentions is in the works may be well-intentioned, will it have any practical impact on the situation when the security estab-lishment disregards the SC’s orders and elected officials’ concerns about missing persons?. The core issue here is that the FC and intelligence agencies do not seem accountable or answerable to anyone when it comes to Balochistan’s security issues. As this newspaper has stated before, if the state believes someone is involved in subversive activity, they should be produced before a court of law. Presently, the security establishment is making a mockery of due process by allegedly detaining suspects illegally. The marchers belonging to the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons and family members of all other missing people need to know the whereabouts of their loved ones and the charges against them.
Columns and Articles
The police and social media By Mohammad Ali Babakhel THE chief minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, recently urged policemen to utilise social networking sites to reach out to the public during emergencies.. We have commonly seen that in developing societies the institution of the police lacks the initiative to make optimum use of technology and social media. Extremist groups fight simultaneously at the physical level and on cyberspace. To execute their immediate agenda and launch attacks, the terrorists make use of physical space, sometimes for a few hours, or a few minutes. However, in order to wage a psychological war they ensure their continuous presence on social networking sites. The proliferation and effects of such sites have generated a new debate on how to counter their presence and ensure surveillance of social networking sites. Referring to the Rawalpindi incident on Muharram 10, the Punjab law minister condemned the negative use of social media. There is an impression that social media fanned the flames of hatred after the incident. An example from India would be useful in this regard. In September, hate-inciting, fake YouTube videos and doctored photographs were used to cause widespread rioting in Muzaffarnagar, UP. Fifty people lost their lives. To reinforce their influence, extremist groups increasingly rely on social media but our law enforcement and regulatory agencies still don’t know how to tackle the challenge. Social media can be effectively used to bring the police and community on one page. In mega urban centres, apart from the physical presence of the law enforcers, people expect the online presence of the police. Technology has introduced innovations but also added to the existing challenges facing law enforcement officers. At the other, end, extremists have easily moved from websites to more active social media. Recently in Nairobi, militants attacking a shopping mall used social media to claim responsibility. The Syrian Electronic Army, a group of computer hackers, has resurfaced with a different account after their previous one was suspended by Twitter. Misuse of social media for furthering its mission has resulted in a global debate on how to regulate unbridled social media sites. Social media has enabled protesters to quickly organise and communicate with each other. To keep the protesters under control, police must know how to monitor these types of communications. Further, social media sites are also helpful in identifying witnesses, victims and perpetrators. Police need to learn quickly about social media to keep pace. Many police forces around the world have started to use it for engagement, intelligence and investigation, and often release pictures or videos of wanted criminal and terrorist suspects on their websites. The websites of police departments in Pakistan, on the contrary, are neither public friendly nor interactive. This is a pity as police websites could help in the introduction of e-policing in urban areas. In the case of emergencies, sites such as Twitter and Facebook are effective ways to disseminate crime alerts, investigation updates, safety alerts and to counter propaganda. According to a study conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, “81pc of 728 [US police] departments surveyed said they used social networking”. To detect criminal activities many countries have equipped and empowered law enforcement agencies to monitor social media. To identify rioters in the 2011 riots, the London Metropolitan Police used social media during the investigation process. Help was taken from the extensive CCTV network that captured images of the rioters and these images were posted online with an appeal to the public to identify the suspects. On the eve of mega events like the G20 conference and London Olympics, the London police monitored sites using Radian 6 and Repknight software. During the Olympics, the police monitored 32 million social media articles and 10,300 tweets. At home, in the age of mass communication, our law-enforcement agencies lack clearly defined media policies. In the absence of such policies, police are facing persistent and blatant bashing on the media. Communication is important for effective policing. Gone are the days when police officers seeking information depended solely on khuli kutcheris or ‘open courts’ and touring villages. Traditional methods can be retained but social media would be a critical addition to the current means of policing. Increased public say and interaction will automatically help improve relations between the law enforcers and the community. Social media sites have proved helpful in the collection of evidence. It has also helped identify the location of suspects. Several criminal cases have been cracked thanks partially to social media, as police kept tabs on suspects, the less sophisticated of whom bragged about their exploits and updated their pages naming the people and places they had visited. According to the findings of a four-year study comparing the effects of social media and radical ideology, social networks were the major drivers behind the evolving of violent extremists. More than 100 current and former extremists were interviewed for the study, which found that social media enabled people to develop associations with extremists and terrorist groups. Says Greg Barton, the director of Australia’s Monash University’s Global Terror Research Centre, “Terrorists and radicals are often lonely individuals who lack any sense of belonging”. Consequently, those with such inclination are easily trapped by extremist organisations often through social media. Many websites in Pakistan inject extremism, and there’s no reason why the police should not counter this negative narrative through the same means by promoting de-radicalisation via social media. In other words, social media can be effectively used for peace. The writer is a deputy inspector general of the police. alibabakhel@hotmail.com
Pakistan’s poverty dozen By Munir Akram AT independence in 1947, Pakistan was a poor country. But it was richer than China, India and many other currently ‘emerging’ economies. Today, Pakistan’s per capita is $1000 while China’s is $5000 and South Korea’s $15,000. One per cent of Pakistan’s population controls over half its wealth; the other 99pc struggles to survive on less than $500 annually.. At this time, when hope has been revived that new leaders and policies may retrieve Pakistan from the poverty trap, it is relevant to recall the dozen reasons why our people are poorer today than at the country’s creation. First, population growth. At Pakistan’s birth, the then West Pakistan had around 50 million people. Today, we number 200 million. The population continues to grow at around 2.5pc. There is progressively less for more. The explosion can be moderated through incentives and disincentives. Second, inflation. The state spends more than it earns. It prints money to make up the deficits, steadily devaluing the earnings and savings of the people. Thus, rupee parity against the dollar has declined by around 5pc on average each year. Until 1970, the rupee was 4:1 against the dollar. Today it is 100:1. If the dollar’s own deflation is taken into account, a Pakistani must earn over 50 times as many rupees as he did in 1947 to maintain the same living standard. Third, unemployment. In 1947, 80pc of people lived off the land in rural areas. Today, with the pressures of population, urbanisation and the failure of industrialisation, effective unemployment and under-employment afflicts almost half of Pakistan’s working age population. This can only be redressed by rapid industrialisation, investment and skill creation. Fourth, ignorance. In any event, almost 25pc of our people are presently unemployable in anything except physical labour due to the progressive collapse of Pakistan’s education system. Literacy is defined as being able to read and write one’s name. By any objective standard, Pakistan’s real literacy rate is around 50pc. Massive and well directed investment is needed to promote universal and quality education. Fifth, inequality. Pakistanis were born in a state of feudal inequality in the rural regions. Feudalism has since spread to business, industry and bureaucracy. The gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially. Pakistan’s elite — the 1pc — lives high off the hog, while the vast majority slides steadily down towards the poverty precipice. Sixth, wars. Locked since inception in mutual hostility with its larger eastern neighbour, Pakistan’s financial and intellectual capital has been heavily deployed to the defence of its borders. Three wars with India; a never-ending arms race, and involvement in America’s wars in Afghanistan, has drained Pakistan’s limited resources and attention away from economic and social development. Pakistan needs to find strategic and diplomatic ways to lower the burden of deterring India. Its nuclear weapons capability should help achieve this. Seventh, extremism. Since 1977, Pakistan has become a virtual captive to the forces of religious and associated extremism. Their street power and misguided use by some Pakistani leaders and agencies to promote external and internal objectives has transformed Pakistan’s environment of tolerance into one of fanaticism and violence. They cannot be allowed to hold the country’s progress hostage. Eighth, insecurity. The combination of organised crime, religious bigotry, violent extremism and political opportunism has resulted in the current state of insecurity in many cities and regions. The global perception of Pakistan’s security environment is even worse than the reality. No significant foreign or domestic investment or development can take place until the security challenge is addressed. Confusion, vacillation and fear are the government’s worst enemies. Ninth, emigration and immigration. The composition of Pakistan’s population has changed significantly since independence. Many among the educated and skilled have left. These include members of religious minorities and those who were transformed into minorities. On the other hand, Pakistan has been inundated by millions of tribal Afghans. Despite pockets of brilliance, as an entity, Pakistan today is intellectually, culturally and financially a more backward place than 60 years ago. Tenth, disinvestment. The country is poor because the state is poor. As the country spends more than its revenues so do the people. Savings are not smart if these are going to be eroded by inflation. Without national or personal savings, investment — in infrastructure, education, industry, small and medium enterprises — has not been forthcoming from the public or private sector. Pakistan has had to depend on external assistance and loans to fund development, which remains inadequate to meet the needs of its population. Eleventh, globalisation. Unfortunately, Pakistan was persuaded by the Washington Consensus that trade and financial liberalisation was good for all. It unilaterally dismantled its protections. But it cannot produce most goods competitively. This, combined with the culture of consumerism, has led to Pakistan becoming an import destination rather than an export base. While the persistent trade deficits are partially offset by the remittances from poorer Pakistani emigrants, most of our governments have been obliged to carry the begging bowl to our rich friends, at times even to meet our vital defence needs. Twelfth, bad governance. Most of the 11 previous shortcomings originate from bad governance. With some outstanding exceptions, Pakistan has a record of bad or no policies and even worse of execution. This is largely due to the decline and eventual collapse of Pakistan’s bureaucracy and the accompanying erosion of rules and due process Personalised decision-making is now the norm; senior bureaucrats act more as personal rather civil servants. From an occasional virus, corruption has become an endemic disease. Without professional and competent people to formulate and execute sound policies in various areas, Pakistan will be unable to overcome its imposing array of challenges. The challenge posed by the poverty dozen cannot be addressed piecemeal. It requires a comprehensive policy designed to transform Pakistan into a modern, peaceful and prosperous country. Patriotic Pakistanis should demand such a policy and contribute to its formulation and implementation. They cannot give in to the dark side. The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.
From could to can’t By Cyril Almeida IT’S not really paralysis. It’s not quite suspended animation. It’s not even fear or uncertainty. It’s just — nothing. . Nawaz was supposed to be the leader who could. Instead, he’s become the leader who can’t. What’s going on? But before that — just how bad are things? Bad. Really bad. Here’s how a typical meeting with the boss plays out: minister, courtier or supplicant lays out the lie of the land; Nawaz listens, then listens some more; minister, courtier or supplicant senses the boss doesn’t want to say anything, so he sketches out the options himself. Nawaz keeps listening; minister, courtier or supplicant grows desperate as meeting draws to a close; Nawaz ends meeting with a polite thank you, saying nothing about what he’s decided or even if he’s decided or even just when he’ll decide; minister, courtier or supplicant leaves wondering what’s going on with the boss and what he’s supposed to do about the problem he went to the boss with. Or a rumour spreads: Nisar’s head is on the chopping block because Nawaz has tired of him. No one is quite sure why, but the ones in the know know Nisar has fallen out of favour. Except, nothing happens. Neither is Nisar reassured nor do the rumours die nor does Nisar get reined in. And he’s your point man and supposed go-to guy on internal security. And that’s just a sample of the all kinds of messed up this government has already become. So what’s going on with Nawaz? Forget the silliness about Nov 28 and Dec 12. The twin retirements of the chiefs matter, but it’s just a fig leaf. To understand why, flip the question around: what exactly could they block if Nawaz takes a policy decision? He’s got five years; they had only months, weeks and days. Nor does the reality-is-just-sinking-in, things-are-worse-than-he-had-realised explanation work five months in. Yeah, things are bad, but if you’re prime minister a couple of weeks of high-level briefings and the contours of the problems are apparent enough. Get on with it. It comes down to two explanations, one of which the N-League admits resignedly, the other that it still only dare whisper. Nawaz is isolated. He hates his party, he has no bureaucrats, his inner circle has shrunk and, for some, there’s no Abbaji around this time. You can’t fix a country if there’s no one you really trust. Especially if you never were the sharpest pencil in the box to begin with. The theory makes sense — to a degree. Isolation isn’t something you can’t break out of. And not everything about governance is automatically about trust — or the fear of being stabbed in the back or being screwed over. So isolation isn’t enough of a theory on its own. But then there’s the other theory. Has Nawaz given up? Has he figured out that nothing can save Pakistan? That everything’s too broken for anything to be fixed? That all a pol can do is sit tight, hang on and hope for the best — that somewhere down the road, when the tumult and upheaval and brokenness resolve themselves somehow, recovery can be attempted? The theory is less that Nawaz doesn’t know what to do and more that he’s figured out nothing can be done. Which, really, isn’t that surprising a realisation to anyone who’s been paying attention all these years. A declining state will eventually approach terminal state. Now pair the theory of hopelessness with the theory of isolation — and you’re left with a whole lot of nothing. Which is precisely what we’re stuck with on the Nawaz front. Which leaves the rest of us — you and me, the hapless lot stuck in the rear compartment of a train to nowhere — with a very simple question: can anything be done to jolt Nawaz into action? Yes. But not by us. Just by events. The problem with events though is that they rarely provide the right incentives for the right decisions — at least events of the Pakistani kind in the Pakistani milieu. Take the economy. Inflation, inflation, inflation. Punjab is already rumbling about it; that and electricity and the rupee. The N-League is worried, and for obvious reasons. But then there’s Nawaz, always talking calmly about the economy and growth and making things better, seemingly living in another economy to the one the rest of Pakistan is struggling with. Read between the lines and Nawaz’s approach on the economy comes down to this: forget trying to fix what’s already broken, just get more electricity to the people and wait for the trade dividend with India to explode. Essentially, Nawaz is playing the long game — gambling that he’s got five years, so that gives him at least three to begin to produce results. Which is why he didn’t back Dar to take any tough decisions during the budget and hasn’t paid any attention to the IMF commitments. But events wait for no man, even Nawaz. And so you already have the rumbling in Punjab — on inflation, on electricity, on the rupee — and the N-League having no idea what to do about any of it. Which has forced them into doing what everyone else before them has done: give whatever handouts they can to whoever they can until there’s absolutely no room for any more handouts and then everyone is even more unhappy. Which takes us back to the twin theories of despair and isolation. Nothing can be done because everything’s too broken to be fixed and there’s no one Nawaz can rely on — with events working to further entrench those twin beliefs of Nawaz. And therein lies the tale of the PM who went from being the leader who could to the leader who can’t in double-quick time. The writer is a member of staff. cyril.a@gmail.com Twitter: @cyalm
Time-waste or super-tool? By Hajrah Mumtaz IT’S less of a debate in Pakistan, given the socio-economic realities.. But in more developed parts of the world there is great concern amongst parents and teachers that children spend far too much time in front of screens now, the addictiveness of the television having been vastly augmented by computers. In Pakistan, too, in those households that can afford it, the same reservation is voiced. While too much television may or may not be bad for you — film and television studies are credible academic and research disciplines, after all — computers are another matter entirely. They are leading to a remarkable new educational philosophy. Both the machine and the internet constitute a game-changer. Never before have people and children had access to infinite information, and this is changing how people think, communicate, and process information. More significantly, it is changing the demands of skill sets in terms of workplaces. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, in 1970 the top three skills required by the Fortune 500 were reading, writing and arithmetic, generally known as the three ‘Rs’; by the end of the millennium, the most needed three skills were interpersonal skills, problem-solving and teamwork. According to the proponents of this new educational philosophy, the school system across most of the world is such that children are not just not encouraged to mine their potential and develop the skills that the modern world requires, they are actively inhibited or held back. There is plenty to bear out the idea that the dominant mainstream mode of education caters to the needs of the industrial revolution in the West that it was set up to serve, when the world needed factory workers and valued regularity, punctuality, attention and silence. Teaching pedagogies in large parts of the world as well as in Pakistan, particularly in the public school education sector, conceptualise the classroom as a place led by the teacher who stands at the head of the room, disseminating information to students who must then sit tests and exams to demonstrate how well they can recall that information. Curricula decide what the teacher must teach every day, and how much must be covered in an academic year. But could kids be right when they complain about school and want to play with computers instead? Several studies indicate that the answer is in the affirmative. Amongst these circles, the name of Sugata Mitra and his “hole in the wall” experiment command huge respect. Now a professor of educational technology in the UK’s Newcastle University, in 1999 he held the position of chief scientist at a New Delhi company that trained software developers. His office was on the edge of a slum that was no different from the many that we are familiar with. Looking out at that scene every day, watching children aimlessly and hopelessly ambling around with no future except perhaps for beggary, he had an idea: he placed a computer in a hole in the wall separating his office from the slum, curious about how the children might react. He gave them no instructions, simply powered the machine on and watched from a distance. The children quickly figured out how to use the machine. This paved the way for Mitra’s theory that children learn best when they are left to themselves to experiment, discuss and follow the line of thought that most interests them. His idea of teaching: provide the resources, and walk away. In a study published in 2010, he detailed a more ambitious experiment. He put a range of molecular biology materials on a computer and set it up in a village in southern India, selecting a small group of 10- to 14-year-olds and telling them merely that there was stuff in there they might find interesting; they were free to take a look if they wanted. Then he left. Children soon worked out how to use the computer and when Mitra returned after 75 days, he administered a written test on molecular biology; the children answered an average of one in four questions correctly. Another 75 days later, they were getting one out of two questions right. This experience of children teaching themselves through computers, and the massive benefits of child-led learning, particularly when aided by computers, has been witnessed in several studies and experiments. Last year, the One Laptop per Child intervention, for instance, delivered 40 tablets to children in two remote Ethiopian villages. They just left them there, didn’t even open the boxes. But the children soon taught themselves to play the alphabet song and taught themselves to write letters. All the studies undertaken to test whether child-led learning is more productive have produced answers in the affirmative. The analogy that Mitra uses of children and computers is of bees and flowers: they self-organise around that node. That the traditional method of formalised and rigid-curriculum-based classroom teaching holds children back is not really that new an idea, given that theorists including Maria Montessori and Jean Piaget propounded similar ideas decades ago, and Socrates much beyond that. Evolutionary psychologists have pointed out that young children have an innate drive to learn and this is motivated by curiosity and playfulness; when curricula are imposed on them, some argue, this drive is suppressed. There are a handful of schools in the West, with an aggregate of a few thousand students, that are following such educational strategies now. It would seem, then, that adults’ concerns about screen-time and children, and what children choose to spend their time on, might not be warranted. Maybe those kids do know what they’re doing, after all. The writer is a member of staff. hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com
Saviour to victim By Babar Sattar WE are a strange people. We welcomed Musharraf as a saviour in 1999. He did what most rulers do: focused solely on self-aggrandisement.. He got us riled up enough by 2007 that we rose up against him in the name of rule of law and democracy when he threw out the chief justice in March 2007 (who frankly not many liked at the time). By 2009, his transformation from saviour to villain was complete. When he tried his second coup in November 2009, we would have none of it. Eventually he became a liability for everyone, including the khakis, and had to leave the country. In April 2013 he decided to return. For the first time in our history we had a coup-maker in our midst whose subversion of the Constitution had not been granted ex post facto legal cover by parliament or judiciary. But as we saw Musharraf defending himself before the courts like politicians and ordinary people do all the time (without the farmhouse jail and military security of course), it was suddenly revenge and not accountability. Still remorseless, Musharraf went from being villain to victim who needed to be saved from bloodthirsty judges, politicos and extremists. When Musharraf was lording it over us we spoke about how nations with spine and grit make examples of despots. We spoke of how the corpse of Oliver Cromwell was dug up, hanged and beheaded by Royalists in England. This is not to argue that Musharraf should be hanged for his crimes (or any human being for that matter), but to note, with regret, that we are a mawkish reactionary lot, guided more by emotion and spite than principle. Musharraf’s basic crime is not that he joined the war against Al Qaeda or leased bases to Americans or came up with the notion of good and bad Taliban or was a hypocrite who spoke of enlightened moderation while injecting life into the politics of maulvis. Musharraf should not be convicted because many are opposed to his policies or how the Bugti or the Lal Masjid operations were carried out. Any ruler of Pakistan, whether legitimate or not, could have gotten those choices wrong. Musharraf’s basic crime was that his rule was unconstitutional. He had no basis to rule except by virtue of his monopoly over use of force as army chief. He abused that monopoly, subverted the Constitution and forcefully appropriated state authority. How he exercised such authority is a separate question and of no relevance to the treason trial. But we are still confused about trying Musharraf for treason not because we doubt whether he subverted the Constitution, but because we are not completely sold on the idea that our Constitution is sacrosanct. The arguments now emerging against the treason trial is a mishmash of nonsense. Why is he not being tried for the original sin of 1999 but for the lesser offence of 2007, goes the refrain. Would you try a repeat offender in an open and shut case or one that is near impossible to prove? There is no court ruling blessing the acts of 2007. There is no constitutional cover afforded by parliament. And there is an order issued by Musharraf in his capacity as army chief that suspended the Constitution. The story of 1999 is legally more convoluted. The then not-so-righteous Supreme Court gave Musharraf a pat on the back in the Zafar Ali Shah case. Through the 17th Amendment parliament afforded his coup constitutional cover. While the Sindh High Court Bar Association case declared Musharraf a traitor liable to be charged under Article 6 for his 2007 acts (and overruled the Zafar Ali Shah case) and the 18th Amendment erased the cover provided to Musharraf’s 1999 acts by the 17th Amendment, retrospective application of an amended law is fundamentally unjust. So the argument being made is this: if you cannot punish someone for the first premeditated murder, punishing him for consequent homicides is wrong. The linked aider-and-abettor argument is even more wayward. When Musharraf subverted the Constitution in 1999 no one in this country seemed to mind much and so everyone was an abettor. Now if you are not going to try active or passive abettors, why try the prime accused? So should those opposed to his trial for the 2007 crimes also be tried as aiders and abettors? Sharif’s problem with the 1999 subversion is that it was personal to him. If he opens that up some of us will lynch him for being a mean revengeful man and some for being the hypocrite who was also nurtured by a dictator. So the conversation will go back to 1977. If you start talking 1977, it will go back to 1958 and Cromwell-type solutions. In this mode of reasoning we’ll soon find ourselves talking about Cane and Abel without an agreement that a general who subverts the Constitution must be tried for treason because the Constitution says so. We don’t want to try Musharraf for reasons that are wrong: because it will vindicate Sharif, our good-for-nothing third time prime minister; because it will please the chief justice, who might himself be evolving from saviour to villain; because that might inadvertently strengthen bigoted right-wing forces already breathing down our necks; because how dare someone think of trying the chief of an army without which this country cannot exist. But we don’t want to try Musharraf mostly because we don’t think the Constitution is sacrosanct. All arguments about flawed democracy and failing state that coup-makers employ are also being employed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). There is no principled difference between what dictators do and what the TTP is trying to. When use of force succeeds, everyone around falls in line. There are no aider and abettors, but survivalists — some more expedient than others. If we refuse to defend the Constitution because we hate Sharif or the CJ more than Musharraf today or out of a sense of camaraderie for a former commander, we have no other common basis to defend the Pakistan we have today. The writer is a lawyer. sattar@post.harvard.edu Twitter: @babar_sattar
Deeper into the quagmire By Moeed Yusuf FORMER President Pervez Musharraf now faces high treason charges. It has been quite a journey for the military man. Many thought he would never come back to Pakistan. Even more questioned the wisdom of his decision to return.. The usual conspiracy theories did the rounds: he has foreign guarantees; the military must have winked; there must be a secret deal with the politicos, etc. This sense was strengthened as one heard that Musharraf was adamant on staying in Pakistan. Even when the courts started ridiculing him, most continued to believe that there was more to it than met the eye. And so they do today. The conventional wisdom remains that treason charges against him won’t be taken to their logical conclusion. After all, Musharraf is a former army chief and there is no tradition of senior faujis being docked. The military can’t possibly let Musharraf down, can it? Sooner or later it will act, no? What about the many international capitals where Musharraf is still remembered nostalgically? Surely, the government can’t ignore this? And on and on as far as reasons why this can’t happen go. History certainly suggests we are not about to see a former army chief down and out. But the equation may not be as simple this time. There is a lot working against Musharraf. For one, the government’s intent is clear. The civilian leadership couldn’t have been oblivious to the sensitivities its decision to press charges under Article 6 would entail. They have obviously chosen to give this a shot irrespective of the consequences. Why? The effect on the civil-military dynamic would have been one factor. The invincibility of military chiefs in Pakistan has held to date. What can be a more powerful message than making an example out of a coup maker? From Peru to Spain to Turkey, doing the unthinkable by taking on military leaders on comparable charges has worked. It has often left a permanent scar on the militaries and affected how future leaders of the armed forces behave. Ah, and not to forget, Turkey is no ordinary example. It is the flavour of the month — on the minds of our leadership as the model to emulate. So why not take a leaf out of the Justice and Development Party’s book and go for exemplary punishments against military leaders who have transgressed the law? It had never happened before in Turkey either; they did it; and it delivered. Perhaps equally if not more important is the personal angle. It is all well to say that leaders should rise above personal grudges and vendettas but it is never easy when the animosity is so deep. There has never been any indication that the prime minister has gotten over what happened on Oct 12, 1999 — perhaps most of us wouldn’t if we were in his shoes. Then there is Musharraf’s attitude at the time of Mian Sharif’s death; efforts to break the bond between the Sharif brothers by enticing the younger Sharif to join his government; break-up of the PML, and much more. These factors had to have been part of the prime minister’s drive to press treason charges. Corollary: he won’t be inclined to back down. The military also does not appear to be behind Musharraf. It is, at best, torn on the issue. The party line is that the charges are against the person of Gen Musharraf, not the institution of the army. And thus, this doesn’t involve them. Far from it, the reality is that the symbolism of a former chief going down in this manner affects the military deeply. But the right-wing sentiment in the institution is against Musharraf for having ‘sold out’ to the US. There are others who feel he gave the military a bad name by politicising it; they don’t necessarily want him to be put on the mat but see no reason why their institution should be sucked into this. And then there is the army leadership that had strongly advised Musharraf against returning to Pakistan. They can’t ignore what is happening but can’t see an easy way out for their former boss either. None of this, however, matters as much as the key reason Musharraf may not find the backing he desperately needs: none of the serving officers apart from some in the top brass appear to have a personal bond with him. The military may be disciplined and have its red lines, but personal connections matter a great deal just like they do anywhere else. Ten years of Musharraf and six of Kayani following him and you have ended up with one, two, and even three stars in the army who owe little to Musharraf personally. Third, the judiciary’s view of Musharraf is no hidden secret. Yes, the chief justice is on his way out and that may make the interaction between him and the courts less emotive. But the bottom line remains: Musharraf is a hated commodity among the legal fraternity. And finally, about the ‘foreign hand’ that is to save Musharraf. Yes, Pakistan’s history is filled with externally brokered deals and it can’t be ruled out this time either. Here is the problem though: the game has gone too far for anyone to believe that whatever deal Musharraf got before returning to Pakistan is still intact. It is almost impossible for a foreign power to manipulate judicial outcomes in the current context. As for external pressure on the government, if there was any, the government has defied it to move the court. It would look horrible letting Musharraf go under a shady arrangement now. So where are we headed? Into a serious legal battle. And it is the legal ambiguities and lacunas where Musharraf’s team needs to focus. This is his best bet. The stars are otherwise aligned fairly neatly against him. The writer is a foreign policy expert based in Washington D.C.
On the whims of a lobby By Umair Javed IN the absence of an uncontested theory on the subject, most people use three incredibly basic markers to determine an outline of what we so casually refer to as ‘the state’.. These include: territorial coherence, in so far that other countries recognise a defined set of geographic boundaries; monopoly over legitimate violence within those boundaries, where legitimacy is being granted through a constitution, public mandate, or traditional inheritance; and finally the authority to raise money, ie the state is different from corporations in that it doesn’t function on profit motives, and is different from NGOs because it doesn’t work on endowments/charity. The ability to extract money from a given population is a defining part of the contemporary state, and without which political order, as we understand it, would simply not be possible. The Pakistani state suffers from deficiencies in all three defining aspects. With several disputed borders, escalating levels of violence exercised by a wide variety of groups, and a complete inability to raise resources, there’s little surprise why the term ‘failing’ or ‘failed’ is used so often. The problem though is that such blanket terms, coupled with constant alarmism, aren’t very useful for analytical or prescriptive purposes. More so, while we do have plenty of commentary on violence and sovereignty, there’s very little on why the state fails in the rather mundane task of extracting resources for development needs. A common explanation, one fairly popular amongst technocrats and governance reformers, is that this is down to the failure of the bureaucracy. The self-serving, incompetent mandarins on the state’s wage bill simply don’t work hard enough to catch tax evaders, and use their professional positions to garner rents from the private sector. This, in all likelihood, is true. There is massive leakage within every level of government, and the bureaucracy has become less ‘rules-based’ and far more arbitrary in its exercise of authority over the last three decades — an outcome that is often accredited to the ‘politicisation’ of public-sector employment. The aforementioned analysis, while useful for certain reform approaches, doesn’t quite capture the overall fragmentation of political and economic space in Pakistan over the same time period. If public-sector employment and policymaking is politicised and self-serving, that in itself is surely an outcome of certain changes in Pakistan’s political economy. To demonstrate this fragmentation, it is useful to refer to three fairly recent events — all of which were fairly public in their existence, had definitive policy consequences, and received varying amounts of media attention. The first of these was the strike called by the United Goods Transporters’ Alliance (UGTA) in Karachi, which disrupted logistical flows for nearly two weeks, resulted in perishable commodity shortages in several parts of the country, and contributed to a rapid increase in hoarding by produce wholesalers. The basic list of demands put forth by the Alliance was varied — it included complaints against security agency harassment, less intrusion by government officials in day-to-day activities, and most pertinent of all, the revision of the advance income tax rate on vehicle capacity. After 12 days of protracted negotiations, posturing, and a loss of nearly Rs24 billion to the economy, the finance minister met the UGTA leadership and brought down the taxation rate from Rs5 per kilogramme, set by the government in May 2013, to Rs2 per kilo through a special notification. Later on, in this sordid chain of events, and in an effort to placate those lobbies angered by the UGTA’s strike — notably the textile exporters and perishable commodity traders — the minister for ports and shipping announced that the government was waiving demurrage charges at various ports in the country, “keeping in mind the hardships faced by the business community over the past two weeks”. The second event received far less media attention, but is equally indicative of the government’s straitjacketed existence. Over the last year, covert lobbying efforts by the Toiletries, Perfumeries and Cosmetics Manufacturers Association resulted in the issuance of an SRO that removed import duties and taxes worth Rs2bn. It turned out that relevant quarters in the finance ministry were not fully aware of this particular exemption, and that this was a result of collusion between Federal Board of Revenue officials, lobbyists and another set of politicians. Finally, the third event was a long-standing tussle between the Kissan Board (and other groups representing big farmers), and the Flour Millers Association over the government’s wheat policy. The former wanted an increase of at least Rs250 in the support price of wheat — a particular subsidy that is quite useful for big farmers — while the latter wanted the price to remain constant at Rs1,250. After several weeks of lobbying, public and secretive mobilisation and loud reminders of what the PML-N had promised these respective groups in the run-up to the elections, the government’s agricultural committee decided that it would side with the millers. The Kissan Board, at the time of writing, had responded to this decision with a call for countrywide protests. These three disparate events highlight how the state is constantly being pushed and pulled in contradictory directions. The relative weakness of mainstream political parties — especially in their ability to retain a degree of policy autonomy from financiers and economic interest groups — translates directly into a curtailed and restrictive policy environment in government. Perhaps the most worrying part is that these associations and lobbies, nearly all of which represent quick-buck capitalists and rent-seeking profiteers of varying size, appear to be gaining strength. While violence and territorial infringements plague the Pakistani state in very obvious ways, rampant rent-seeking practices and economic fragmentation pose a less obvious, but highly dangerous threat as well. The writer is a PhD candidate at the London School ofEconomics. umairjaved@gmail.com
The feel-good factor By Shahid Kardar WHAT makes countries tick and sustain high growth rates? Conventional wisdom and experience could never have predicted an economy with a heavy footprint of government (China) to grow at double-digit rates for such a long period.. So, what combination of factors stimulates investor sentiment and growth? Is it easy to identify such a set and then put it in place in any socio-political system? Do factors like the size of economy, the stock of natural, physical and human resources and low interest rates have more than a marginal influence on investor behaviour? If some of these factors had been critical it would be difficult to explain the cases of Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. Some would then argue that a combination of political stability and a business-friendly political, administrative and policy environment is probably more decisive in creating the feel-good factor that kindles investor sentiment. But then the control freak bureaucracy of the Indian variety did not impede the sterling performance of its private sector over the last two decades. Therefore, it is not that obvious what makes countries tick and what drives the ‘animal spirit’ of the private sector, although there would have to be attractive opportunities to make money to fuel private enterprise. What is it about the feel-good factor which gets translated into optimism? How do policies and practices for implementing them influence this sentiment? Can the feel-good factor be based merely on abstract numbers? The importance of this factor in generating investment is well illustrated by the cases of India and Dubai. It is the feel-good factor that largely explains why barren soil in Dubai is selling at developed country prices. Resultantly, investor confidence is high, attracting multinationals to shift their regional offices from centres like Singapore, transforming Dubai into a new business hub connecting the east and west. In Pakistan, some of the factors that have hindered the development of the feel-good sentiment include: persistent issues with law and order; lack of an environment promoting competitiveness instead of patronage and protection to inefficient entrepreneurs through concessions and ‘subsidies’; weak implementation of policies and the unpleasant experiences of investors with unpredictable changes in government policy. Examples of the latter include the 1970s’ nationalisation, the freezing of foreign currency accounts, withdrawal of incentives, tax and other concessions without adequate notice etc. Casual surveys of potential investors suggest that factors contributing to the weak sentiment in Pakistan include the high cost of doing business, resulting from the nature and degree of corruption, policy unpredictability, an inhospitable regulatory environment and lack of transparency in government procedures and decision-making. The unfamiliarity with regulatory systems, mechanisms and procedures encourages the misuse of discretionary powers, in an environment in which institutional arrangements for redressing grievances are limited. Moreover, the power of veto is so liberally distributed in the system that subordinate staff can scuttle the process at any stage. Senior officials are left almost helpless to even check, let alone reverse, the attempt to put a spanner in the works, especially out of fear of NAB and the media and judiciary. These problems are exacerbated by widespread political and bureaucratic interference. In addition, there’s the general mindset of the bureaucracy. It believes that private entrepreneurs make money simply by exploiting others. Thinking which stems partly from the value system and social ethos of both bureaucrats and an uninformed civil society leads both to distrust market forces. These factors are instrumental in creating a low-trust culture and in providing a regulatory role for the government even in areas where it is not required, thus constraining the development of a robust private sector. Enterprises that are able to function in such an environment are generally those that have managed to reach some understanding with the relevant government departments, mandated to enforce these laws, on how these laws are to be implemented. This arrangement, in many cases bilateral in nature, can be disrupted with the change of government or key department personnel. Since legal and judicial systems in Pakistan have not been successful in enforcing contracts, they have failed to resolve disputes in an efficient and timely manner. The high cost of contract repudiation increases costs for investors in two ways. First, it increases the risk of larger-scale investments. Secondly, it forces firms to diversify their manufacturing operations into activities in which they do not have a comparative advantage, thereby lowering the efficiency of investment. Since it takes years to get disputes resolved through courts, contract violators have much to gain by getting a case stuck in the court queue. Weak enforcement of property rights and contracts adds to the atmosphere of low trust that prevails in the economy. Perceptions take time to change since views shaped over a long period have a deep-seated impact, especially if the scale of the shock and the losses incurred are large. Since the feel-good factor is critical in shaping sentiment, nasty experiences of the past reduce the time horizon of investment payback and lower the threshold of losses that investors are willing to bear in Pakistan, compared with the limit that they would place in the case of another country similarly placed economically but with a more credible history. Contrary to the widely held belief in Pakistan, foreign investors do not create a boom, they follow a boom created by domestic conditions and the success, and resulting buoyed sentiments, of local investors. Foreign investment tends to supplement/complement domestic investment. And lest we forget, foreign investors need domestic investors as partners, if only to navigate local laws, regulations, procedures and administrative structures. However, with the public sector slowly adopting a more transparent and merit-based system, better governance and active promotion of a competitive environment will begin to be accepted as the more important factors underlying prosperity, thereby gradually changing perceptions, the socio-political culture and work ethics. But then with even the rest of South Asia hurtling past us, how long should we wait? The writer is a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.
Fear & loathing in Awaran By Naziha Syed Ali IT was a surreal setting. The ruins of a village in Awaran, Balochistan, bathed in the light of the nearly full moon. . A tiny mosque was the only structure, it seemed, that had been left standing here after two earthquakes in late September killed an estimated 400 people in the sparsely populated Awaran and Kech districts. In this particular village, there were close to 60 casualties, including about 20 deaths. Here, in the shadow of the mosque, I heard from locals about lives that have become yet more difficult in this impoverished district, not only because of the earthquake but as a result of what has transpired in its wake. For this disaster has not only highlighted the ruinous policies long pursued by the security establishment towards Balochistan, it has perhaps further exacerbated the fault lines that threaten Pakistan’s integrity. The province, wracked by the fourth insurgency since independence, is poised on a precipice. An activist from the Baloch Students Organisation-Azad, a banned group with substantial support among the youth, was present at the little gathering. He related how the army came to deliver relief to the village in the form of tents and food supplies. The people, he said, destroyed the goods. “How can they accept help from those who humiliate them? Their sons have gone missing; they’ve suffered terribly at the hands of the army.” Two men from the village were still missing — picked up, claimed locals, by Frontier Corps (FC) personnel several months ago. The ‘missing people’ are a recurrent motif in the stark, forbidding landscape of Awaran. It’s a thread that ran through most of my conversations with local people. One that was echoed in the weary but determined footsteps of those who have marched from Quetta to Karachi to raise a voice for the missing Baloch. The term refers to individuals — students, doctors, farmers, journalists, etc — allegedly abducted by agents of the state, including the FC and intelligence personnel. Most remain untraced while many are murdered and dumped, their bodies often bearing signs of extreme torture. Although the numbers are disputed, rights groups estimate that thousands of people have been kidnapped over the past decade and detained in secret prisons, allegedly by security forces. The home department of Balochistan has stated that 592 bullet-ridden, mutilated bodies have been found in the province in the last three years. It’s scarcely surprising there’s so much hostility here towards the state. The state for its part issues stock responses from the army and intelligence agencies, claiming ignorance of the abductions and murders. But there are only so many abductions that can be carried out — often in broad daylight with witnesses present — before denial starts to ring hollow. Since the earthquake, say locals, large convoys of army and FC have been conducting raids on villages in the district, sealing off the area before going from house to house. Several young men have been picked up this way they allege, although some have been released unharmed after being interrogated. The army’s increased and visible presence has reportedly driven nearly half the population to migrate from the area. Awaran is seen as the epicentre of the ongoing insurgency that exploded in the province after Nawab Akbar Bugti’s death in 2006 at the hands of the army. This time, it has been a markedly vicious conflagration. Insurgents have responded to state violence with killings of non-Baloch people in the province, bringing a new element to the conflict. The banned Baloch Liberation Front and BSO-Azad are particularly active in Awaran, largely because Dr Allah Nazar, leader of the BLF and founder of BSO-Azad, is a native of Awaran’s Mashkay tehsil. Before the earthquake, the area was almost totally under the insurgents’ control. Physically at least, the army has established its presence in parts of Awaran district. Earlier, it could not venture beyond the military barracks in Awaran city. One can now see army encampments on several surrounding hillocks. The tricolour ‘independent Balochistan’ flag has been replaced by the Pakistani crescent and star in nearby villages. Students have had to hastily relearn the national anthem, the singing of which had long been forbidden in the local schools. However, despite its relief operations in the area which were substantially hampered by armed attacks from insurgents suspicious of its motives, the army has not won any hearts and minds here. Its refusal — in the name of security risk — to allow international NGOs to conduct relief operations in the affected area illustrates that the imperative to maintain a veil of secrecy over the unrest in the province trumps concerns for the welfare of those in dire need of specialised disaster assistance. Pakistani NGOs who depend on overseas donors have also found their sources of funding choked off by bureaucratic red tape. A Rs70 million project funded by Oxfam and specifically meant for earthquake relief has recently been cancelled as a result. Local NGOs maintain there are remote areas where even tents have not been delivered. At the same time, there are disturbing signs that establishment-favoured, faith-based charities have been given free rein to operate in the district. Wall chalkings of the Jamaatud Dawa’s Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), Jamaat-i-Islami’s Al-Khidmat and Jaish-e-Mohammad’s Al Khair Trust are visible everywhere. Black-and-white FIF flags line the main street in Awaran city and JI’s banners exhort the faithful to prayer. Along the road leading into the city an FIF camp/madressah is under construction. Interestingly, virtually no one I spoke to could vouch for the ‘charities’ doing any relief work in the area. All indications point to these having been injected into the landscape for the purpose of undermining an essentially secular insurgency. If so, this is yet another manifestation of the establishment’s disastrous policy of using religion to further political objectives, a policy that has brought the state of Pakistan nothing but grief. In such a bleak scenario, one cannot help but ask, is it even possible to bring Balochistan back from the brink? The writer is a member of staff. naziha@gmail.com
Muslim world is burning By Muhammad Ali Siddiqi FROM Pakistan to the Levant, the Muslim world is burning in a self-lift fire, the ‘confrontation without’ having given way to ‘a confrontation within’.. Beyond the Levant, as in North Africa, Maghreb and Muslim sub-Sahara, instability, violence and uncertainty reign. Political movements have turned religious, and the religious ones have degenerated into sectarian bloodbaths. Hoisted by its own petard, Pakistan has a story to tell. Decades ago, nobody believed the militants tasked by America with defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan would one day become Pakistan’s most implacable foes, turn into sectarian hounds, demoralise the armed forces, and eat into its vitals. In the Arab world, the fragrance of the Spring has turned into an overpowering stench enveloping the Fertile Crescent and its neighbourhood. As the phoney stability imposed by the dictators gave way to anarchy, the character of the Arab Spring changed. Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak, Ali Abdullah Saleh and Muammar Qadhafi fell — until the Spring attempted a blossoming in Syria. Suddenly, as Bashar al-Assad fought back to preserve the 40 years of dynastic rule, madness descended — and not only on the Syrians. Within months, a power line-up had come into being, with nearly a dozen states and sanctimonious cults baying for Muslim blood. These included Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Hezbollah, a bewildering variety of Al Qaeda factions, the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (into which Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra merged), the newly formed Islamic Front, and last not but not least battle-hardened Pakistani Taliban — a reincarnation of Changez Khan’s bloodthirsty hordes, who gloried in tossing babies on lances. Over 115,000 are dead, a vast majority of them Muslim. Watching in tension on the sidelines are Jordan and Turkey, both hosting Syrian refugees whose overall number has crossed two million. This sectarian fire — this confrontation within — has replaced what until Anwar Saadat’s assassination was a confrontation without. Until that fateful October day, the eighth anniversary of the 1973 Ramazan war, when Nasser’s successor was gunned down, the Arab world appeared one monolithic unit. It had no religion and no sect. Ruling the hearts and minds of the Arab people was the fervent nationalism unleashed by Gamal Abdel Nasser. The gradual erosion of this spirit of ‘confrontation without’ was a phenomenon not confined to the Arab world; it affected the landmass from Pakistan to Morocco. There were reasons why. Giants Nasser, Faisal, Ben Bella, Boumediene and Bhutto were followed by midgets who considered the expedient American commitment to their tyranny an alternative to popular mandate. Jerusalem, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gujarat, Sabra-Shatila, Bosnia, 9/11: the very dimensions of these challenges and humiliations were beyond their comprehension. Afghanistan turned out to be a tragedy: it became the source of religious militancy for the Muslim world. Pakistan, of course, gets the blame, perhaps rightly, but let us note that the US-led West just walked off after the Soviet defeat, saddling Pakistan and the region with well-armed, uncontrollable jihadis euphoric over their triumph. With the Left demoralised as the Soviet camp collapsed, it was the religious parties which filled the vacuum when the strongmen fell. The religious right had not been idle during these decades of dictatorship: it utilised this rights-less era by expanding community networks and earning the people’s gratitude. In this category fell the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates in Egypt and the Maghreb; and the Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan. No wonder, the religious parties today occupy centre stage in this intra-Muslim conflagration that shows no signs of dying out. The jihadis have now virtually abandoned the cause of Muslims under foreign occupation, except as catchy shibboleths. Their principal enemies now are fellow Muslims and the minorities. This fixation on a self-invented enemy within the Muslim milieu reflects an inquisitionist credo of basically sick minds. In Pakistan, the Taliban are massacring Shias; in the Levant, non-Syrian Sunni militias and Hezbollah have turned the anti-Baathist struggle for democratic rights into a sectarian strife; in Bahrain, Saudi troops are helping the Sunni monarchy crush the Shia rebellion; Iraq is witnessing a throwback to the 2006 sectarian conflict with fatalities this year close to 6,000, and Riyadh is as much concerned over Iran’s nuclear quest as Tel Aviv. Here we can see two incompatible phenomena: Muslim governments’ anxiety to safeguard their national interests and the international jihadi fraternity’s cold-blooded indifference to Muslim states’ geopolitical concerns. This disregard for state interests stems from the militants’ quizzical contention that Islam doesn’t believe in nation-states. The absurdity of the practical implications of this theory was acknowledged by Maulana Maudoodi when he gave up this ‘Trotskyite’ belief and headed for Pakistan to set up an Islamic state. No wonder, extraterritorial loyalties are ingrained in Pakistani Islamists’ theory and practice, as reflected in Syed Munawwar Hassan’s conferment of shahadat on a man who was supreme commander of a rebel army which was, and is, at war with the state of Pakistan. Notice that Chinese have been a major target for the Taliban and Lal Masjid rebels. Rawalpindi on Ashura was symptomatic of what ails the Muslim world. Worldwide, the Islamists could have advanced their cause by democratic means. They had the means to influence people. That — unknown to Imran Khan — they should massacre their own people is a tragedy for the Muslim world. They are destroying what potentially could have been the bastion of their power. The anarchy now reigning in the Muslim heartland has made the suffering people develop nostalgia for the ousted tyrants. With Syria’s chemical weapons confiscated, the UN has no interest in peace in the Levant. So brother Muslims are welcome to keep fighting till hell freezes over. The writer is a member of staff. mas@dawn.com
A thriving industry By Jameel Yusuf KIDNAPPING for ransom took root in Karachi by way of interior Sindh in the late 1980s, where previously livestock used to be abducted and returned after the abductors were paid a price.. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) traditionally had the highest rate of kidnapping, though most cases were falsely attributed by police to business/financial disputes. Therefore no proper records were kept, and investigation of cases of kidnapping for ransom, which carry the death penalty, was not thorough. Besides other exigencies, faulty FIRs and the low rate of detection, prosecution and conviction also led to encouraging mass-scale abductions. The negligent attitude of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in KP encouraged the spread of this crime to neighbouring regions, where some of the most high-profile abductions have been carried out. The unchecked transportation of kidnap victims just like that of stolen vehicles to the north of the country and Balochistan is done with great ease. Once inside the safe haven of the Waziristan agencies, ransom demands increase manifold. Of late, kidnap victims have been driven from Karachi by road accompanied by armed criminals, up to the border of Afghanistan and some through southern Punjab into KP, unchecked along the entire route. We wonder how weapons are smuggled unchecked; here kidnap victims are transported fearlessly by armed abductors who travel hundreds of miles with ease, without any fear of being intercepted or questioned. Other victims of kidnapping for ransom hail from Quetta, Islamabad, Faisalabad, Lahore, Sialkot, Muzaffarabad, Jhang, etc., and are abducted by banned sectarian and other groups. In Sindh, namely Sukkur, Nawabshah and Larkana, even poor travellers and small traders are kidnapped and moved into the kutcha areas or through isolated routes to adjoining remote areas inside Balochistan. Sadly, the provincial governments are totally insensitive to their citizens’ safety and security. Cases of kidnapping for ransom are difficult for the police to deal with anywhere in the world, due to the extreme fear of harm to the victim or the family. One of the greatest achievements of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee since its inception in September 1989 was winning the confidence of the victims’ families. Working with the police and intelligence agencies led to busting many notorious gangs of kidnappers at regular intervals involved in the abduction of businessmen and schoolchildren. By 1992, a detection rate of 80pc was achieved increasing to over 90pc by 2001, meaning criminal gangs were identified, apprehended and killed in encounters during raids to rescue the victims. Those apprehended were convicted after due process of law with the help of privately retained criminal lawyers notified as public prosecutors, funded and pursued by the CPLC ensuring quality investigation leading to their convictions. Today, across the country, including Karachi, the detection rate has fallen below 12-15pc. The non-registration of FIRs, no authentic data, negligent investigations, a low rate of detection, lack of supporting and credible evidence leading to lighter sentences if convicted and increasing acquittals are serious anomalies which have led to the spread of this crime across the country. Kidnapping for ransom is the easiest and largest source of funding for terrorists, through which they purchase explosives and sophisticated weapons, develop IEDs, recruit informers and reward the families of suicide bombers with monthly stipends. Short-term abductions are settled within the day. Frequent calls need proper guidance from the LEAs to safely retrieve the victim with least ransom paid or help bust the gang. In cases of children’s abduction, the involvement of drivers, guards and maids is most common as children are used to them. It is essential to do a thorough background check of all domestic staff with their previous employers and keep their latest photographs and CNIC with Nadra verification. Contrary to perceptions, most kidnapping for ransom cases are randomly carried out. A gang may prey on a person who may be at the wrong location at the wrong time. The car the victim is travelling in is considered additional booty. They may start their demand with Rs10-50m, but settle for 5-10pc of the amount, depending on the negotiator’s level of confidence and nerves to withstand threats and professionally carry out the negotiations. Nowadays victims are being taken to areas within Lyari, making it difficult for LEAs to raid and recover them. A recent raid by the Rangers led to the recovery of many victims; such ‘no-go’ areas are a perpetual threat to law and order. Planned and targeted kidnappings are masterminded by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and other religious and political militant/criminal groups across the country. Dealing with these elements requires the advice of trained investigators and negotiators (who presently do not exist). The victims may not necessarily be high-profile, but are from wealthy and well-established families. In one recent case, reference to the victim’s wealth was made quoting the balance sheet of the company, wherein a lot of disclosures are mandatory and can be used against the victim. In the prevailing circumstances, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan should consider an alternative and amend their rules to provide the same on written request, to be sent to the shareholders’ postal address. Unfortunately, kidnapping for ransom is such an issue because we never took serious steps to revamp and strengthen the criminal justice system for the safety of our citizens. Ransom is the main source of funding for leading terrorist groups and the issue needs to be specially handled by a select counterterrorism institution, with all the technological resources and data to identify patterns and locations and apprehend the militants during the long period of hostage negotiations. We facilitate the Taliban by failing to follow the cash trail of local and foreign transactions and intercepting the funds collected through kidnapping, extortion and bhatta — the subject of a subsequent article — by different political and religious parties and mafias with impunity. All such gangs are a combination of different ethnic and sectarian elements. Only a humane political leadership can address this burning issue with strict enforcement of the law as was envisaged by the Quaid. The writer is former chief of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee.
Feminism of convenience By Rafia Zakaria THAT Tarun Tejpal’s most recent novel is titled The Story of My Assassins has not been lost on commentators and competitors chronicling his sudden fall from grace. . Founder of the Indian investigative journalism portal Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal had long been hailed as the most innovative and fearless force in Indian journalism. Under his leadership, Tehelka reporters undertook months-long undercover investigations and obtained video proof of government corruption and wrongdoing, or politically motivated apathy and neglect. Notable among Tehelka’s achievements was releasing recordings that proved the involvement of politicians from the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party in orchestrating and inciting the Gujarat riots of 2002. They became evidence in court cases and heads rolled. Those were the good days. Tarun Tejpal had never shied from controversy or balked at the prospect of having enemies; in the Indian media, he was a powerful man. Then came the events of the first week of November. According to various Indian media outlets, Tarun Tejpal was involved in an incident of sexual assault at Tehelka’s annual conference held in Goa earlier in the month. By Nov 21, 2013, allegations against 50-year-old Tejpal went public and he resigned from his post of editor-in-chief of Tehelka. In his statement Tejpal said that he was recusing himself from his job for the next six months to “atone” for an “unfortunate incident”. Tejpal insisted that a “bad lapse of judgement” and awful “misreading of the situation” led to the incident, which in his opinion had since been honourably “addressed and redressed”. From the other side, close friends of the alleged victim of Tejpal’s misconduct said that she had been subjected to an act of “grave sexual misconduct”. Various Indian websites and news outlets soon published the actual emails that the complainant had written to her immediate supervisor, Tehelka’s managing editor Shoma Chaudhury. Faced with the situation, Shoma Chaudhury failed to report the incident to the police and tried to patch up the situation as best she could. The email written by Tejpal as an apology to the complainant has also been reproduced. If proven authentic, its contents suggest that the incident did indeed take place. Amid all the flying rumours and aspersions and outcry, an FIR was filed in the case at the police station in Goa. According to the document, Tejpal was charged with “rape” and “outraging modesty” under sections 354 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code. In a statement following the filing of the charges, Tejpal said that he intended to “cooperate fully with the police investigation”. He has sought pre-trial bail so that he may remain free during the proceedings. Wherever they transpire, cases of sexual assault are complicated. The nature of intimate crime is that it inevitably, despite the efforts of procedural safeguards, becomes a battle of credibility between the accuser and the accused. In patriarchal and male-dominated societies, the male is always the more believable; the character, motives and truthfulness of the female always in question. South Asia is precisely such a terrain. Even women who would logically be expected to come to the aid of one of their own are quick to relinquish any such duties. The denouement of countless publicly discussed rape allegations reveals that men stand together while women nearly always turn against each other, eager to blame their own. One of the most successful products of the patriarchal society, one that enables its persistence and prevalence through the ages, is the self-hating woman, ready and willing always in the destruction of her own kind. Oppression continues because no one identifies with the victim and everyone with the oppressor. It is worth noticing that the accuser’s immediate supervisor failed to believe her, failed to go to the police and was entirely complicit in the cover-up, despite being an avowed feminist. Added to this usual mix of doubts and suspicions are the dark doses of intricately wrought political intrigue. The professional demise of an editor who ran a publication that ousted members of a right-wing religious party cannot but inspire conspiracy theories in the frenzy of an upcoming election and conjure images of salivating BJP leaders eager to call out Indian liberals for their debauchery. The visions are not entirely fictive; in the weights and measures of politics and everything else, the misfortunes of one are nearly always the bounties of another. A former member of the Indian parliament and women’s rights activist, writing in the Indian newspaper The Hindu, tried to separate the machinations from the matters at hand. He called to attention the fact that, while the BJP-dominated government in Goa had rushed to an investigation of Tejpal, the Gujarat government refused to investigate another young girl’s complaint against unlawful surveillance under the Terrorism Act. In future weeks, the rumours and counter-rumours and the allegations and counter-allegations are likely to continue. In the midst of all of them, some sort of investigation will hopefully be conducted and the initial stages of a trial initiated. These are times of great change in India, where the emergence of women as permanent participants in the professional workforce is demanding greater oversight and regulation of means available to protect them in these spaces. The implication of the leader of a news outlet that has often championed women’s rights reveals how deep the roots of sexism and patriarchy reach and how untouched they are by the superficial slogans so easily mouthed by so many. The close-minded narrowness of religious- and tradition-motivated political forces is easy to call out and often plain for all to see. However, as the Tehelka case so crudely reveals, misogyny lives on with just as much caustic virulence in the innards of those who pretend to be champions of women’s causes. It is they who are the proponents of a feminism of convenience, a sham of slogans that fails to stand up for wronged women, for fear of causing the fall of important men. The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy. rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Let’s not get distracted By Jawed Naqvi LET’S not get distracted. Tehelka’s editor Tarun Tejpal used his position of power to force himself on a junior colleague who was his daughter’s age. . He contests the charge of rape but he did confess in a letter of apology to an error of judgement in seeking ‘liaison’ with the woman in question. So we shall leave it to the courts to judge what exactly happened in the lift of a five-star hotel in Goa earlier this month, not once but twice on consecutive days. Hotel cameras are said to have recorded some moments of the two incidents. Now Tejpal has tamely accused the right-wing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of maligning him. It is true that the BJP is exulting. It was at the receiving end of several sharp and far-reaching exposés carried out by Tehelka in its heyday of quality journalism. News is also surfacing that in 2009, if not more frequently, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi obsessively stalked a vulnerable woman with the full might of the state apparatus with which he would on leaner days hunt alleged Muslim terrorists. Modi’s defenders allege that the story, insinuating a sex scandal, was planted by the rival Congress party to stall his advance on the prime minister’s office in next year’s race. News reports have described in detail the rise of the woman’s ordinary family businesses into a small empire soon after she began meeting Modi. Why he started stalking the woman he had befriended could become the subject of salacious novels and movie plots. The chief minister has, meanwhile, set up a committee to probe the charges in the affair. There are compelling issues here, but they threaten to distract us into making a wrong call or draw a politically unsound judgement. Let me illustrate the point with the help of a respected political activist who is also a well-known writer. She was opposed to and still is against the construction of the string of small and large dams that would mostly benefit a pro-elite development of Gujarat. Her argument was that big dams were potentially disastrous for the environment and fatal for the poor inhabitants whose land and habitat they threatened to submerge. The corporate-funded media, as is its wont, asked her nothing about the dams at the press conference. Instead, they pilloried her about her private life, as if it’s any of their business. “Look. It’s ok if you think I am a woman of loose character,” she shot back. “It’s all right also if you think I am coveting someone’s land and habitat. But even if you are right, which you are not, it still doesn’t justify the building of dams on the Narmada.” The withering repartee quite probably holds the answer to some questions confronting us about Messrs Modi and Tejpal. Mr Tejpal’s sexual pursuits may sooner or later find him in jail. And he deserves to spend the rest of his life there if the woman’s charges are proved right, which provisionally seems to be the way it all happened. That still would not take away anything from Tehelka’s priceless history of investigative journalism, which Tejpal led with merit. If there is a decline in his canons of journalism, the compromise is elsewhere, possibly in the fact that he is increasingly getting support from the very business lobbies he once vehemently opposed. An excerpt from Tejpal’s second novel should give a nice glimpse of his thinking on these issues. In the The Story of My Assassins, he wrote: “Power is the engine of the world, and sex and money its oil and lubricants,” he wrote. He likened religion to a goli, a multi-flavoured pill, invented by those who have power, money and sex, to give to those who have none! “Love is another great goli. Some days we too swallow these golis. They feel good, like a joint, a temporary high! But they are not the reality. The reality is power, money, sex! And yes, there’s another goli — morality!” Yet, despite all of Tejpal’s inanities the old Tehelka and its exposés will remain a legend to savour. On the other hand, if Modi gets off the hook in the stalking saga — and it will not be surprising if he does with the help of a fawning corporate media — it will still not absolve him of the other serious charges, most notably that of supervising a brutal pogrom against Gujarat’s Muslims 10 years ago. The fact is that Modi poses a real and present danger to India’s fragile democracy. And that danger cannot be fought with the help of sex exposés, or shall we say not by sex exposés alone. If anything, India needs a nationwide political mobilisation to underscore the threat the country faces. We can’t see one on the horizon. To fathom the present threat we need to closely focus on the secret alliance cemented over the years between religious revivalism and the future corporate agenda, something Tehelka exposés had forewarned us of. The way Modi is going about distributing burqas and skull caps to woo Muslims to his rallies, it seems that animosity towards the Muslims may have become an obstruction to his political purposes for the future. Targeting them in Muzaffaranagar and elsewhere will remain a part of the only mobilisation the BJP and Modi know — the communal mobilisation. Muslims could be a means but not the object of Modi’s future hate mongering. What does the future portend and who are Modi’s next quarries? I think the most important bit of recent reportage by Tehelka indicates the BJP’s fascist agenda. But for Tehelka’s investigations we would never have known the full scale of Soni Sori’s tragedy, to take just one example. Jailed as a suspected Maoist conduit she was tortured with stones shoved in her private parts. This didn’t happen in a hotel lift at the hands of a sex-obsessed intellectual, but under the full gaze and connivance of the state. Don’t get distracted. The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi. jawednaqvi@gmail.com
Killed for his name By I.A. Rehman THE murder of Prof Shabbir Shah is like one of those casualties in an epidemic that offers a measure of the calamity and the scale of devastation caused by it.. One of the friends of the intellectual gunned down some days ago announced the event in these words: “Shabbir Shah, a humanist, academician, historian and a secular democrat, was killed in Gujrat today by terrorists since his last name was Shah.” True, the gregarious teacher had done enough to invite the fury of hotheads. He broke through the shackles of a humble origin, took up the unrewarding profession of teaching children as far away from home as Murree and Quetta and acquired academic distinction in history and political science, the two disciplines he considered essential for understanding the dynamics of change in his tradition-bound community. All this might have been forgiven if Shabbir Shah had been driven by considerations of personal advancement and comfort only. But he chose to struggle for social change. Outspoken and always willing to fight for egalitarian causes, he made a name for himself as a fearless advocate of the rights of the disadvantaged and for denouncing all the forces of darkness that are threatening to smother reason in Pakistan. But humanists and secular democrats are so far not high on the extremists’ hit list. Their turn may come later and of academicians and historians perhaps after them. Unless the Punjab police can track down the killers and uncover their motive in cutting down a promoter of love and learning the popular verdict will be that he was killed for his name. There have been instances in the past too when people have been targeted for bearing certain names — for instance, the brutal killing of human rights campaigner Jarar Husain in Peshawar and the murderous attack on Justice Maqbool Baqar in Karachi. One has often wondered as to what kind of pestilence is this that eminent persons are exterminated for their names or physical features. For obvious reasons, these incidents will be treated as part of the ongoing conflict between the largest and the second largest Muslim sects which has resulted in both massacres and targeted killings in Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and elsewhere in the country. Its latest manifestation was in Rawalpindi. The people are not unaware of the steady and many-sided escalation of this conflict. First, the tradition of accepting the various sects as Muslim has been breached; Muslims belonging to the ‘other’ sect are being branded infidels with impunity. Secondly, under the new canons developed by the militants, members of the ‘other’ sect must be exterminated. And, thirdly, the fight against the opponents can be extended to foreign countries, such as Syria. (Incidentally, the authorities seem to be unaware of or unconcerned with the freedom to enter and exit from Pakistan enjoyed by the militants.) Despite the availability of many tomes on the centuries-old conflict within Islam, especially Khaled Ahmed’s exhaustive study (Sectarian War), the government is adamant to treat it purely as a law and order matter. The responses to the Rawalpindi incident amply reveal a pathetic inability to face the reality. The government is concentrating on rounding up the culprits and hounding the officials who failed to discharge their duty. This may be necessary but it will not meet the need to tackle the disease and not merely its symptoms. Besides, in a highly polarised situation, the punitive action that may be taken against any group could lead to increased inter-sect strife. However, the authorities deserve credit for realising the urgency of curbing hate speech. Several cases have been registered against persons accused of stoking sectarian fires and one hopes these cases will be pursued with due diligence and efficiency. The religious elements are as usual diverting the people with their double-speak. Some of them are still looking for scapegoats among the country’s external foes while others continue to deny the sectarian nature of the conflict. They are right only to the extent that sectarian conflict does not enjoy religious sanction and it cannot further any Islamic cause. But nobody can challenge the sectarian nature of the conflict even though it is all too clearly a political contest for space or dominance in the scheme of governance at home and also in international politics. No way out can be found without a clear comprehension of the politics of the Shia-Sunni confrontation. This politics not only affects Pakistan’s relations with Iran and Saudi Arabia but also has a bearing on its approach to Al Qaeda/ Taliban ambitions in Afghanistan and their challenge to Pakistan’s polity. Any deal, or even negotiations, with the hardline militants on their terms will aggravate sectarian tensions. Islamabad must also realise the contribution its policy of allowing the unhindered inflow of cash and other help to religious seminaries and associations is making to sectarian bloodbaths. Above all, there is no denying the fact that sectarian violence is unavoidable in a country where politics is subservient to belief. In a theocratic state, not only the religious minorities but minority sects of the state religion also will always be vulnerable. Even if they do nothing to provoke the largest sect their visibility in the economic field and in services and their assertion (rightfully) of identity through their choice of names will be enough to fuel the fires of envy, hatred and conflict. There will be no end to the killing of people for their names so long as belief-based politics is not given up. The task is not easy but it will become increasingly harder with the passage of time.
New dawn in Iran By Khurram Husain PERHAPS it’s a little early to say this, but let’s say it anyway: the recent thaw in Iran’s growing isolation is a very positive development for Pakistan. But there are grounds to be cautious.. The sanctions on Iran do not grow out of one law or act. In fact, there is a wall of sanctions built up with 26 executive orders issued by the president of the United States over three decades, 10 specific statutes, or legislative acts passed by Congress, 28 federal register notices which are amendments to existing acts and five federal regulations issued by the Treasury department. Then there are five UN Security Council resolutions, and the EU sanctions on top. In addition, a regular series of advisories and other interpretative guidance notes issued from time to time have served to sharpen the focus of the sanctions, specify individuals and government and commercial entities and all manner of dealings with Iran as subject to sanctions law and general licensing requirements. On a day when public opinion around the world was busy digesting the implications of a possible thaw between the US and Iran, the Treasury department announced “the largest ever settlement outside of the banking industry for apparent violations of US sanctions on Iran, Sudan and Cuba”. The company in question settled for $100 million, but has also been investigated ruthlessly and fined $253m for other violations like bribery of foreign officials to gain unfair competitive advantage. This ruthless zeal with which the sanctions are pursued, coupled with the vast array of legal instruments through which they are enacted, pose a formidable challenge for the future. In the next six months, as the P5+1 powers move ahead towards a final settlement with Iran, plenty of opportunities will present themselves for a spanner to be thrown into the delicate machinery of talks. For one, there will be a push to forever raise the bar to which the Iranians are to be held accountable as prior conditions to easing the sanctions. Pakistan’s interests in all this are fairly straightforward. Iran’s reserves of natural gas are the best replacement for Pakistan’s own dwindling gas supplies, which is fuelling the power crisis. Allowing Iranian gas to travel to Pakistan, and then continue on to other destinations is a vital national interest for us, and any softening of the sanctions is good news towards allowing this. In return, Pakistan must be allowed to smoothly make payment for this natural gas, something the sanctions currently prohibit. “You can build the pipeline,” a US government official once told me when discussing the sanctions. “You can even receive the gas through it. But when you make the payment for it that will trigger the sanctions.” Those clauses in the myriad sanctions laws that prohibit dealings with Iranian financial institutions and the central bank must be loosened, or at least a new exemption must be allowed for Pakistan to make purchases under a gas purchase agreement that predates the sanctions law. Given the enormity of the challenges facing the thaw, perhaps Pakistan can help play a positive role in putting some momentum behind the talks. The recent visit by Sartaj Aziz to Tehran, for the Economic Cooperation Organisation talks, struck all the right notes. But more is going to be required. This is the moment when Pakistan should agree to a road map for a full normalisation of ties with all its neighbours. I say agree because first and foremost we have to agree amongst ourselves on this point. Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad need to capture the opening presented by this moment and come together on this single platform. Full normalisation of ties with all neighbours — what a simple proposition, and a rare opportunity has presented itself for making it possible. It’s important to capture the promise of the moment, and the biggest obstacle we have to face is ourselves. Our message to the world needs to be this: we seek peaceful and unencumbered ties with Afghanistan, India and Iran, and seek our long-term national security within a stable and economically integrated region. The challenges to getting there should not be underestimated. Here in Washington, D.C. for instance, the mood changes as soon as you mention Iran in any conversation. Even mention of the Iran gas pipeline proposal causes the spine to stiffen, and the conversation grinds to a halt. “Out of the question,” comes the response. “Pakistan shouldn’t expect anything from these talks to change that.” The same officials are willing to consider a few other propositions that would otherwise be unthinkable for them. For instance, coal power is something the Obama administration is allergic to, but an interagency dialogue is currently looking for a way they can authorise funding for a coal conversion project at Jamshoro power station, using funds from the Asian Development Bank. Where will the coal come from, you might ask. Here too, they are willing to entertain a difficult thought: Chinese investment in Thar coal. So a clean energy administration, which increasingly views China as a strategic competitor in Asia, is currently looking for ways to make a coal-fired project happen in Pakistan with possible help from China. They’re not likely to find a way though, the opposition domestically is too strong, but the fact they’re willing to even entertain the thought is enough at this point. But Iran stiffens the spine and dries up the conversation. Considering Iran holds one of the best propositions for the region’s energy security in the future, it is important that Pakistan play a helpful role in pushing the thaw further. The writer is a business journalist and 2013-2014 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington D.C. khurram.husain@gmail.com Twitter: @khurramhusain
Populist haven By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar IT has been more than a century since the renowned German sociologist Max Weber wrote about the declining influence of charisma in the modern era.. Weber argued that the larger-than-life individuals who had in the past commanded unquestioned authority on the basis of extraordinary traits were becoming increasingly obsolete with the emergence of modern and impersonal rationality that privileged written laws and bureaucratic procedures. Like all of his contemporaries, Weber thought that modern Europe was more ‘advanced’ than other regions of the world. Thus legal-rational forms of authority were conspicuous by their absence in non-European societies and charismatic figures and various superstitions governed the behaviour of a majority of people. If someone had asked him, Weber might have argued that the rest of the world would eventually catch up with Europe. Yet the truth was that catching-up — even if it were desired — was impossible given that modernity in the non-Western world was mediated through European colonial empires. Indeed it was during colonial rule that formal legal and bureaucratic institutions of the modern kind were established in most of the non-Western world, with the British Raj in India arguably the most comprehensive experiment of all. Weberian legal-rational institutions have over the course of the past century and a half dramatically shaped the trajectory of subcontinental society. But what Weber called charismatic and traditional forms of authority have not yet withered away, and are unlikely to do so in the near future. So what does that tell us about the institutions of the state that the British promised would lead us to the promised land of ‘legal-rationality’? Some Pakistan ‘experts’ in the Western academy argue that ‘traditional’ social norms have been so historically resilient that the state’s modernising project has been completely neutered. In other words the state has — in spite of its best efforts — simply failed to ‘advance’ society in the face of deeply-ingrained ideas and practices. Writers like Anatol Lieven have lauded the military in particular for being the only fountain of modern rationality in a sea of backwardness. The truth is that our state — both the colonial original and its post-colonial successor — hardly fits the Weberian prototype. Its claims to being the bastion of modern rationality fly in the face of its utterly contradictory practices, including its regular privileging of ‘tradition’ so as to insulate itself from challenges to its power. Pakistani urbanites often ignore historical truths about the state and heap scorn on their own society instead by insisting that no other country in the world would tolerate ‘charismatic’ figures such as Sufi Mohammad and Altaf Hussain who are revered in quasi-prophetic ways by their followers. In effect they share Lieven’s contention that (the majority of) Pakistanis are yet to become truly rational and modern. The fact is that eccentric and sometimes outrageous characters — who might exude a certain charisma — ply their trade in virtually every country of the world. For example, Rush Limbaugh and Jean-Marie Le Pen — who represent political views on the extreme-right — enjoy considerable influence in the US and France respectively. Thus it is important to first establish that ‘charismatic’ figures are not the exclusive preserve of Pakistan (along with other so-called ‘backward’ societies). Insofar as there are clear differences between the politics and culture of post-colonial countries and those of the so-called ‘advanced’ world, they are explained not by Eurocentric notions that we lack modern traits. Our modernity is just different, largely because of the post-colonial state and notwithstanding the universalising force of global capitalism. The point may be further clarified through a cursory discussion of the most obvious claimant to the Pakistani charisma throne, namely Imran Khan. The Pakistani Tehreek-i-Insaf head has in recent times been able to mobilise a large number of ordinary people around his person. He is an incredibly handsome World Cup-winning cricket captain, unmatched philanthropist and Oxford graduate. He is the symbolic spearhead of a middle-class anti-corruption crusade. He is viewed as honest and uncompromising, admitting even to his own political naiveté (supporting Musharraf’s 2002 referendum) and personal transformation (having renewed his faith after years of distraction). In short it can easily be argued that he is the most charismatic personality in Pakistan at the present time. None of these compelling aspects of his character confirm anything about his or Pakistani society’s rationality. His selective (and electorally motivated) references to his ‘traditional’ background aside, Imran Khan is very much a cosmopolitan man, or in other words, as modern — post-modern even — as any Pakistani could get. His popular appeal also cannot be attributed to pre-modern traits in his followers, not least of all given that so many ‘youth’ reputedly flock around him. Of course we need to explain why individuals like Imran Khan are able to convince thousands that they can actually solve Pakistan’s problems by blockading the transport route supplying Nato forces in Afghanistan and how they are able to get away with election promises like ridding Pakistan of corruption in 90 days and shooting down drones. In other words, we need to consider why populism is the name of the game in Pakistan. Our politicians are populists, our judges are populists, our intellectuals are populists and our media persons are populists. Populism of the variety on show in this country is an entirely modern phenomenon. Indeed, media-driven populism makes charismatic characters out of the most uninspiring individuals one might ever come across. But just the same way as populists erupt out of nowhere to save us from our problems, they also fall from grace dramatically because populist solutions never work. Indeed populists completely misdiagnose the problem let alone provide sustainable solutions. Of course, none of this means that populism is irrational or anything of the sort. It is an entirely rational and calculated politics in the name of the people that only reinforces elite privilege. That Pakistan has become a populist haven should not be blamed on the subjugated mass of people who have to suffer in it on a daily basis. The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Reframing our goals By Sakib Sherani MANY — maybe most — of our economic goals and targets are fuzzy and ambiguous. In the case of some critical objectives we should be striving towards, the goal is not even defined.. Hence, as a country we have no idea when we want to graduate to ‘upper-middle income’ status (if at all!), or by when Pakistan will cut down by half the number of absolute poor, or the malnourished and hungry, or the unemployed etc. In some cases, the end-state has been defined clearly — but without any preparation, thought or coordination. A less-than-shining example of state planning was the ‘education for all’ initiative launched by the previous government. A laudable objective, it became enshrined in the Constitution as Article 25-A. The government announced it would increase the allocation for education to 7pc of GDP. But was this number pulled out of a hat? Would it be enough? What outputs and ultimately outcomes will spending the equivalent of 7pc of GDP achieve? How will this money be raised? More fundamentally, are poor budgetary allocations the issue, or how the money is spent? Too many targets are framed simply as ‘increase the allocation from X to Y’. On the last point, Sindh is a classic case. Earmarking impressive amounts in its budget for education year after year since 2008, it showcases the most woeful outcomes on the education front — after Balochistan, another recipient of PPP largesse in the past five years. As an aside, it would appear ‘planning’ is not among our national traits. In the mid-1990s, I had the chance to meet the captain of our cricket team on the eve of its departure on a tour of England. I asked him how the team ‘strategised’ before a tour or a game. His answer was shocking. Essentially, he said that the team didn’t need to think before playing because it consisted of senior players many of whom had played county cricket and were familiar with English players and conditions. “Hum nashta kar kay maidan may uttar jatay hain”! Hopefully, the Vision 2025 document of the planning ministry, preparations for which kicked-off recently, will provide more cogent, well-thought-out and clearly articulated economic goals and targets to be achieved on the country’s development path. Ironically, here too the goal of a serious, carefully deliberated, well-researched and iterative ‘consultation’ process gave way to a sound-and-light show, with the express aim of gathering ‘1,000-plus’ delegates under one roof. As one delegate noted, the breakout groups consisted of some 30-plus members in each. In the allotted time, each delegate would get approximately two minutes to contribute towards the formulation of what could arguably be the most important document this government may produce. Nowhere is the disconnect between targets that are currently being pursued versus those that should be pursued more glaring — and dangerous — than in the case of tax collection. By virtue of being in an IMF programme, much of our attention is focused on meeting quarterly targets for tax revenue. By focusing narrowly on the collection number, we are missing out on the big picture: how the tax is collected, and from whom. Given a challenging target for tax collection, on which will hinge Pakistan’s ability to meet the IMF-stipulated fiscal consolidation, the Federal Board of Revenue has resorted to “predatory taxation”. Rather than work assiduously in bringing untaxed and under-taxed sectors and citizens into the tax net, the entire focus of the FBR machinery is on ‘milking’ existing taxpayers, especially the larger ones in sectors such as financial services, energy and telecommunications. This is a mistake that has been repeated time and again in Fund programmes — the quality of fiscal adjustment is not targeted, and often the ultimate objective of tax reform is compromised at the altar of short-term programme objectives that are defined as the achievement of an absolute tax revenue number in a given quarter or year. Two of the most important objectives that FBR should explicitly be focused on should include: — Improving substantially the ratio of direct to indirect taxation in the next three years by doubling its collection of income tax — all of it from new taxpayers, or currently registered taxpayers who are non-filers or are declaring ‘nil’ taxable income; — Sending tax notices in the next three years to all of the 3.2 million people identified through the Nadra database, who are showing telltale signs of an affluent lifestyle — but are not on the tax register. Nothing could be more emblematic of vested interests being pandered to than the current lethargic pace at which the FBR is pursuing this list — a who’s who of Pakistan. On current trends, it will take the FBR 32 years to completely go through the list! Its intentions on this front have also been exposed by excuses regarding inaccurate data provided by Nadra. This list should become the focal point — indeed the sheet-anchor — of this government’s tax effort for the next three years, along with serious and credible restructuring in the FBR. Another target that will need to be reframed is ‘growth’. Simply aiming for a headline 7pc rate of annual growth in GDP is not enough. The explicit goals of economic growth should be sustainability; job creation; reducing income inequality; and inclusiveness of various segments of the population, including rural non-farm communities. Like any other target, once it has been set, then planners need to work backwards and see what achieving it will entail — the constraints, the coordination, and level of resources needed — and assign timelines and responsibilities. The writer is a former economic adviser to government, and currently heads a macroeconomic consultancy based in Islamabad.
What laws can do to marriage By Asha’ar Rehman ONE brief order by Lahore’s district coordination officer last week hit home with a ferocity rare even for the fearful times we are living in. . And the application of a few laws later, it was impossible to figure out which rules were governing the lives of Lahoris and to what extent. There was the all-too regular Section 144 in action. Section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code also raised its head to spur its own debate over what areas it covers. Then there was this reference to marriage parties and the need to wind them up without too much fanfare and before the 10pm deadline even if this conservation and austerity makes for stifled celebrations and is protested as being against rights. The DCO’s firman read: “All marriage-related functions shall be closed by 10pm in all hotels, marriage halls, open grounds/parks, residences, clubs, roads and streets or any other place where such functions can be held.” The order said there were “sufficient grounds to proceed under Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1898,” and the direction appeared necessary “to prevent disturbance of public peace and tranquillity”. This was a recipe for confusion, to say the least. The DCO, in his role as the administrator, had drawn upon Section 144 for legal basis. But the reference to the marriage parties created the impression as if this resort to 144 was to ensure adherence to the wedding-party code. There was yet more confusion since the order said it was to remain imposed for two days — Nov 22 and 23 — while the administrator of the city government, a nazim and in his absence the DCO, can impose certain restrictions under Section 144 for up to seven days. If the imposition is sought beyond this time period, the order has to come from the provincial home ministry. Nothing of the sort happened in the current instance and there was no explanation as to what exceptional circumstances warranted the violation — for two days — of the principle which says that no home can be entered without legal warrant, not even under Section 144. If mystery initially surrounded the order and the possible intention of the city government, controversy followed. What the order did was that it reinforced restrictions on wedding parties. It reminded everyone how these parties were to be wrapped up before 10pm and added ‘residences’ to the list of places that were now supposedly open to intervention by the administration. The message led to inevitable interpretations. The media stepped in claiming that the people who were forbidden from self-riotously merrymaking in ‘public’ places could no more go on doing it in hiding as well. Lahore’s local television channel — the city has only one of this particular variety but that is noise enough — took it on as an act which encroached upon people’s rights and violated the privacy of their homes. And once this initiative was taken, there was no end to the imaginary, but not entirely unlikely, situations the order could lead to. Imagine there is a dholki being organised in as private a setting as possible inside a home and a particularly loud beat catches the fancy of your local station house officer of the renowned police force. The consequences of such an intervention by the law can be disastrous unless SHO Sahib is your usual kind-hearted soul not averse to ignoring a few minor violations for general contentment in his area. Once the plot was there, a real-life instance was also there to support it. It involved Wahab Riaz, the wrong-handed Pakistan fast bowler scheduled to tie the knot on Nov 28. The dholki in the run-up to the wedding was wound up by the administration and a police case registered against Riaz under Section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The police said they had conducted the raid on Wahab Riaz’s Garden Town party on a complaint by an official of the city district administration. They maintained the dholki had been organised on an open plot close to his residence and not inside his residence. Whatever the police’s justification, the timing of the action against Riaz, a celebrity, imparted its own spin to the proceedings. It was taken as a sign of a new resolve by the city district administration to go deeper into ensuring adherence to the law. Read together with the DCO’s homing in on the issue, it seemed wedding revellers in the city of the zinda-dilan were about to face the music over their lust for excessive entertainment. Unless they were prepared to look up Section 188 and carry out their own questioning of the police. The section says: “Whoever, knowing that, by an order promulgated by a public servant lawfully empowered to promulgate such order, he is directed to abstain from a certain act, or to take certain order with certain property in his possession or under his management, disobeys such direction, shall, if such disobedience causes or tends to cause obstruction, annoyance or injury or risk of obstruction, annoyance or injury, to any persons lawfully employed, be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one month or with fine which may extend to [Rs600]…” He can also be punished “with both; and if such disobedience causes or tends to cause danger to human’ life, health or safety, or causes or tends to cause a riot or affray, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to [Rs3,000], or with both.” Now how on earth can a dholki qualify for this grand legal definition worthy of war drums? These points were drowned in the medley that was played in Lahore last week. Nothing seemed clear but a desire to control people’s lives beyond reasonable governmental limits. The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
A darker shade of green By Irfan Husain FINALLY, Imran Khan has become a true politician: he has learned the art of deflecting expectations by shouting slogans about a non-issue.. This is not to suggest that drone attacks don’t matter. However, when set against the magnitude and number of the problems Pakistan faces, the damage inflicted by American unmanned aircraft pales into insignificance. Considering the long list of promises Imran Khan made before the elections, his hysterical anti-drone campaign would make it seem his party was elected for the sole purpose of stopping drone attacks. Yet, for all the sound and fury produced by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s ruling party, the province’s problems of terrorism, poverty, illiteracy, overpopulation and disease have not disappeared. But the PTI is not alone in ducking the tough problems, and raising the Islamic/ nationalist banner. Virtually every party promises voters the moon, and as soon as it is elected, leaders divert attention towards irrelevant matters. And a gullible public, their passions whipped up by a conniving media and ignorant clerics, quickly hits the streets, repeating slogans like: “Drone hamlay bund karo!” (“Stop drone strikes!”) As an outlet for pent-up hysteria, I suppose this works, but it isn’t any substitute for meaningful policies and actions to address our vast range of problems. However, if a relatively pragmatic politician like Nawaz Sharif is frozen into inaction, I suppose we can excuse Imran Khan and his reactionary allies for preferring street protests to the hard slog involved in providing decent governance. Given the depressing track record politicians can boast of, what do they compete over in their quest for public support? As we are seeing, the fight is increasingly about capturing the conservative vote in a country that has turned intensely fundamentalist over the last three decades. In this competition over who’s the holiest, the mad scramble for the extreme right pushes common sense out of the window. So if Imran Khan orders his immature followers to block Nato supplies, how does Munawar Hasan of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Khan’s coalition ally, top this, apart from joining the anti-drone protests? He raises the stakes by calling Hakeemullah Mehsud, the psychopathic mass murderer, a martyr. And in the Jamaat chief’s book, Pakistani soldiers who have fallen in battle defending us cannot be shaheeds because that title is reserved for terrorists. Maulana Fazlur Rahman, not to be outdone in the lunacy sweepstakes, promptly joins the fray by declaring that even dogs killed by American drones are martyrs. Nawaz Sharif, although clearly uncomfortable at having a provincial government setting the foreign policy agenda by blocking supplies destined for our friends in Nato, is forced to act with restraint bordering on complicity. He cannot afford to alienate his own right-wing supporters by cracking down on the goons taking the law into their own hands in KP province. Imran Khan’s latest stunt is his party’s release of the name of the CIA station chief in Pakistan. He is in the happy position of acting like a spoiled child nobody is going to punish for his tantrums. By behaving so irresponsibly, he is poisoning Pakistan’s relations not just with the US, but with other Nato members who have nothing to do with the drone campaign. The army, once the standard-bearer of the faith in Pakistan, now faces hostility from those it counted as its allies. For years, both the Taliban and the Jamaat were supported by the generals who regarded them as auxiliary forces for both military and political support. And there has been much speculation about Imran Khan’s late-blooming links with the army. So with everybody claiming to be the purest believer, who can really lay claim to be the true champion of the faith? Logically, the most extreme group should win this contest; and that, without question, are the Taliban. Who else has such a voracious appetite for death and destruction in the name of Islam? Although others may match its rhetoric, nobody comes close in terms of sheer brutal violence committed in the name of the faith. And by elevating the dead Taliban leader to the status of a martyr, the Jamaat and its ilk give the jihadis legitimacy and public acceptance. Fanning the dangerous flames of this mindless extremism is an irresponsible electronic media, forever locked in a 24/7 struggle for viewers and advertisement revenues. As the country moves in an increasingly fundamentalist direction, the few secular parties become more and more irrelevant. From being the national party of the poor, the PPP has become the party of Sindhi feudals and urban dacoits. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement hangs on to its Mohajir base by hook or by crook. Mostly by crook, actually. The Awami National Party has marginalised itself by its corrupt and inept rule in KP these last five years. And that, sadly, is the extent of secular parties in Pakistan. The left is virtually non-existent, largely by virtue of its own bickering and infighting. With few liberal, rational role models, the young are easily seduced by well-organised, self-confident right-wing parties. Propelling them on their upward trajectory is a reactionary media that is increasingly setting the agenda. It speaks volumes for the changes taking place in Pakistan that the army is now viewed as a secular force. For decades, people in my generation saw it as the biggest obstacle to political and economic progress. Now, because it is finally convinced of the existential danger extremists pose, and is the only force capable of fighting them, it is attacked by the assembled forces of the right. As this competition to prove their Islamist credentials escalates, the gap between the views of the Taliban and right-wing parties grows narrower. Short of sending out suicide bombers, the one-point agenda of ending drone attacks unites the various religious parties. Ironically, they are supported by the left in this campaign. I suppose this is the logical outcome of creating a state in the name of religion. irfan.husain@gmail.com
Law and espionage By A.G. Noorani THERE is something very blasé about American officials’ excuses about the United States monitoring phone calls of 35 world leaders including those of a trusted ally — Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.. The director of US National Intelligence, James Clapper, told Congress that his country has spied on leaders of its foreign allies for decades, as they were spying on American officials. It is done to make sure that “what they are saying gels with what’s actually going on” and to determine how the allies’ policies would affect the US. The US National Security Agency also passed secrets to American firms for commercial advantage. The NSA’s chief, Gen Keith Alexander claimed that its surveillance programme was part of a “noble” mission to fight terrorism. He said that the media’s reports were sensationalised. The central point in the matter has been missed and the gravity of the United States’ offence has been minimised. True, the world’s second oldest profession has existed from time immemorial and spies have operated by bribery and other means. But we now have a deliberate systematic recourse to crime — a new form of espionage. This development is the result of the carte blanche which the US gave to its protégé Israel’s spy agency Mossad. Its career of crime includes murders and abductions in European countries. Espionage rested on crime. The distinguished American journalist Seymour M. Hersh documents in his book The Sampson Option the famous case of the 31-year-old Moroccan Jew, Mordechai Vanunu, who worked as a technician at the Dimona nuclear weapons facility. He clandestinely took 57 colour photographs and gave them to The Sunday Times in London. Israeli intelligence had him under its surveillance. “The photographs were sent by courier to the office of Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who ordered Mossad to get Vanunu out of London and into Israeli custody. No kidnapping could take place in England for diplomatic reasons. Instead, Vanunu was enticed by a Mossad agent named Cindy Hanin Bentov (a pseudonym) to leave for Rome a few days before publication of the story.” He was taken by taxi to an apartment, where he was drugged and returned to Israel by ship to stand trial. He was sentenced in March 1988 to 18 years in a maximum-security prison. Mossad’s conduct constituted brazen criminal conduct. So does the US snooping. It is, at once, a deliberate violation of the national sovereignty of the victim states, intervention in their affairs, a violation of the human rights of the persons concerned and a violation of international law itself. The European Union’s President Herman Van Rompuy said on Oct 25 after the EU summit that Chancellor Angela Merkel and the French President François Hollande sought “bilateral talks with the US” to reach an understanding by the year’s end. More realistic were the comments by Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff in her address to the UN General Assembly on Sept 24. She mercilessly tore into the pretexts. “Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information — often of high economic and even strategic value — was at the centre of espionage activity.” It is her emphasis on the law which should pave the way for reform. Her remarks bear quotation in extenso because they pinpointed precisely how the law was violated along with a very constructive proposal. She said: “Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront to the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. … The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country.” According to her: “In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations.” She called on the UN to oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet. Multilateral mechanisms should guarantee the “neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes”. This can well be done by a resolution of the UN General Assembly which declares the rules of international law on this subject suited to this day and age. The existing law is clear enough to damn American behaviour. But it needs to be made more specific and new mechanisms need to be set up. The law is set out in Oppenheim’s International Law: “A state has a duty to do all it can to prevent and suppress attempts to commit common crimes against life or property, where such crimes are directed against other states.” Phone tapping is a crime. On Oct 24, 1970, the UN General Assembly adopted without a vote a declaration on the principles of international relations and cooperation among states in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. States are bound not to intervene “in the internal or domestic affairs of any other state” and to respect human rights. But this is flouted by phone snooping. These rules of law must be made more specific to suit the present times and, as Rousseff said, “to prevent cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war, through espionage, sabotage and attacks against systems and infrastructure of other countries”. It is in the interests of the Third World to campaign for a new regime for a global internet free from government control. A special world conference of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) must be called to draft an effective treaty. This is in addition to updating the law. The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai.
Living up to the name By Abbas Nasir “WHEN we were in PMA most of us knew Shabbir Sharif would either get the Nishan-i-Haider (posthumously) or become the chief, such was his courage and commitment.”. These were the words of a course mate of the new army chief’s brother who was killed in the 1971 war and was awarded the highest gallantry medal. I was reminded of them when news broke of Gen Raheel Sharif’s rise to the most coveted office in the army. It seems Raheel Sharif was destined to fulfil the one half of the prediction about his brother that Major Shabbir Sharif could not. The two brothers were some 12 years apart at least in terms of the dates of their graduation from the Pakistan Military Academy. Described by one of his course mates at the PMA as a “total soldier”, Raheel Sharif’s rise to the highest office in the army comes at a time when the challenges facing the institution he heads are multi-dimensional. The foremost being the restoration of peace within the country and in the region around Pakistan. Given his professionalism, “martial stock” as ISPR chose to describe his background, and the fact that he comes from a family where a brother and a close relation (Maj Raja Aziz Bhatti) were the recipients of the highest gallantry award and whose members among them share a number of other medals he is well-placed to help win us the peace. At a time when the national narrative has become so warped that we have trouble identifying as martyrs the soldiers who die valiantly defending our freedom and ensuring our safety, at least the shaheeds in Raheel Sharif’s family are undisputed. Where his predecessors struggled to change the narrative because of their fears, prejudices and misplaced strategies among other factors, should he so choose to spell out the truth as it is, he can. Too early to say definitively but perhaps Nawaz Sharif, the peacemaker, has chosen wisely. Strictly in military terms, many experts say Gen Kayani’s leadership provided reorientation to the army, and in terms of the training and equipment prepared the various fighting units to effectively play their new role in terms of counter-insurgency and counterterrorism. This is clearly evident in the successes of the military counter-insurgency operations in Swat and South Waziristan earlier and, with the solitary exception of North Waziristan, all other Fata agencies which now stand cleansed of mass murdering militants. However, a dangerous game played with the best national interests at heart, I am sure, left the nation totally confused about the war we were fighting and the losses we took both in terms of material but far more significantly in terms of thousands of lost lives. This strategy authored by Gen Musharraf’s team, which was also bought by many ultranationalist politicians, was directed at extracting maximum concessions from the US for the regime but to also win it a voice in shaping the region’s future. But it is now proving no less disastrous than other strategies formulated by the military leadership with minimal or no civilian input. The Musharraf years are more or less consigned to history. Let’s look at more recent events, for example, the Raymond Davis affair. As the then ISI chief Shuja Pasha was thinking up ingenious solutions which would let the CIA ‘contractor’ who had shot two people in broad daylight in Lahore off the hook, the ISI’s surrogate councils and parties were demonstrating on the roads asking for the American’s head. The umbilical chord with such surrogates has to be cut. To me, this incident and all other such incidents were part of failed ‘psy ops’ because while the Americans saw through our game and played along for a while in their own interest, the seeds of confusion and chaos we ended up sowing among our own people have left them with no handle on reality. Why then should we be dismayed that there’s a need to evolve a national ‘consensus’ when it should have been a given, because we face an existential threat. The military top brass may have to take most of the blame for this but the civilian leadership cannot be absolved either. This is too onerous a challenge to play politics with. At least the prime minister should ensure that his ministers speak with one voice. While it may provide small tactical gains to have the Nisar Ali Khans and Rana Sanaullahs saying different things, they combine to create a strategic disaster. At the same time, Gen Sharif will at least need to put his intelligence set-up on a tight leash so when a political party is fed highly sensitive information and makes it public all thinking people are not left wondering why but nod in agreement, marvel at the genius in the move. Sharif will also need to ensure that a Mumbai-like attack doesn’t happen again. Kayani was said to have been livid at Mumbai but it was after the fact. Equally, the new chief would need a rethink on Balochistan. The kill and dump policy is not delivering and needs to be abandoned. The COAS will need to hit the ground running, focus on his fighting units and should leave the ‘consensus’ building to the elected government. And, yes, he’d be well advised to shut down for now at least his psy ops machine which seems to score more own goals than damage any external or internal enemy. Sharif comes from a family of officers. He’ll need to take a leaf out of the common soldier’s son Kayani’s book and work tirelessly for the welfare of the other ranks. At a time when religion is being invoked by even mass murderers, this is the only way to maintain cohesion in the ranks. And Kayani understood this to his credit. Major Shabbir Sharif’s gallantry earned him the Nishan-i-Haider, his brother will need to lead with exemplary courage and imagination if he is to contribute to winning us peace and sanity. The writer is a former editor of Dawn. abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
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