DWS, Sunday 22nd September to Saturday 28th September 2013

	DWS, Sunday 22nd September to Saturday 28th September 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
Army to stay in Swat, says Kayani Dawn Report ISLAMABAD / MINGORA, Sept 21: The army made it clear on Saturday that it would maintain its presence in Swat to prevent security gains from unravelling.. “The army will continue to play its role in rebuilding the area and assisting the civil administration in maintenance of law and order,” Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said in an address to officers at the Divisional Headquarters in Swat, where he had gone to pay his respects to former division commander Maj Gen Sanaullah Khan, who died in a terrorist attack last week. Lt Col Tauseef Ahmed and Lance Naik Irfanullah also lost their lives in the attack. The comments came against the backdrop of a controversy over the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s decision to start withdrawing troops from Malakand division next month. The orders were suspended by the Peshawar High Court, anticipating legal complications of the withdrawal in the absence of any legislation. The attack highlighted the precarious security situation in the area, although the provincial government had ordered troop withdrawal on the premise that its writ in the area had been consolidated. The army is sceptical about the administration’s capacity to take over responsibilities from the military in case of its withdrawal. The army’s withdrawal is, moreover, a major demand of the groups with which the government intends to initiate dialogue for ending militancy. Gen Kayani recalled the success of the military operation in dislodging terrorists and the role played by the army in rebuilding the area, particularly after floods in 2010. “He praised them (troops) for their post-operation role in settlement of internally displaced people back in their hometowns, rehabilitation of infrastructure and capacity building of the civil administration, including training of police,” the ISPR said in a statement.
Irregularities found by Nadra in NA-258 poll KARACHI, Sept 21: Serious irregularities were committed during polling for the National Assembly constituency, NA-258 in Karachi, in the May 11 general election, revealed a report submitted to an election tribunal here by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra). . The PML-N’s Abdul Hakim Baloch was declared winner of the seat by securing 52,751 votes while the PPP’s Abdul Razzaq Raja got 36,329 votes. The result was challenged by Mr Raja who pleaded to the tribunal headed by former Sindh High Court judge Zafar Ahmed Sherwani to order verification of thumb impressions of votes cast at 18 polling stations. On the orders of the tribunal, Nadra presented the report after the verification. It said the thumb impressions on 23,432 ballots could not be matched through its system because the quality of fingerprints was very poor. Only 2,475 out of 32,865 ballots were successfully authenticated by the Nadra system. The verification revealed that as many as 4,680 ballots contained invalid computerised national identity card numbers. The report said 435 votes had been found that were not registered in the constituency and the fact had been ascertained through the CNIC numbers noted on the used ballots.—PPI
Nawaz unveils six schemes for the youth By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, Sept 21: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced on Saturday six youth-specific schemes worth Rs20 billion.. In an address to the nation, he said: “Time has come to fulfil promises which I made during the election campaign for the welfare and development of the youth.” The federal government has already earmarked Rs20bn for the youth programme in its budget for 2013-14. In sharp contrast to his last address to the nation on August 19 when he looked sombre and talked about grave issues like terrorism and economic meltdown, a beaming Nawaz Sharif outlined salient features of the programme, saying that it would cover the four provinces as well as Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. The programme will benefit both educated and unskilled youths in urban and rural areas across the country, unlike the previous government’s Benazir Income Support Programme which catered only for the poorest of the poor. Throughout his speech, the prime minister bemoaned that “bad governance of previous governments” had ruined public sector organisations, causing a loss of Rs500bn to the exchequer annually. Mr Sharif said one of the reasons behind weakening of state institutions was overstaffing due to nepotism and political appointments. “Institutions like PIA, Steel Mills and Railways are just a few examples of nepotism, favouritism and financial mismanagement,” he said. The prime minister said the staggering amount of Rs500bn, if saved, could be utilised on financial initiatives that could bring about a revolution in the lives of lower classes and youngsters. The main idea behind these initiatives, he added, was to provide financial opportunities for making these segments self-reliant. “Job opportunities in the public sector are declining the world over. Pakistan’s case is no different,” he said. A critic of the PML-N government had an interesting take on the speech. “The prime minister has tried to build up a case for privatisation of state institutions.” The government has already announced privatisation of 26 per cent shares of the Pakistan International Airlines, along with its management, by the end of the next financial year. It is also weighing the pros and cons of privatising the Steel Mills. A snapshot of the six schemes unveiled by Nawaz Sharif, which he held up as a “milestone for my government”, follows: 1. Rs3bn allocated to provide small interest-free loans to weak segments of society. It will benefit 250,000 people. 2. Educated youngsters who wish to start their own business will get small business loans. Fifty per cent of the loans will be provided to women. Loans ranging from Rs500,000 to Rs2 million will be given with a discounted interest rate of eight per cent. The rest will be paid by the government. Initially, these loans will be provided through the National Bank of Pakistan and the First Women Bank. The government has decided to spend Rs5bn under this scheme. 3. Students who have completed 16 years of education but are unemployed will be provided on the job training to help them compete in the job market both in the country and abroad. A monthly stipend of Rs10,000 will be given to them for a training period of six months. It is projected that 50,000 graduates will benefit from the scheme, which will cost Rs4bn. 4. Jobless youngsters (male and female) up to 25 years of age, who have gained middle level education (8th Grade), will be provided vocational training under the youth skill development scheme worth Rs800m. They will be given a stipend of Rs3,000 to Rs5,000 for six months. 5. The government will bear the fee of students from far-flung areas who want to acquire higher education. The scheme will cost Rs1.2bn and benefit 30,000 students. 6. The government will spend Rs4bn to provide latest laptops to 100,000 students.
Baradar walks free; whereabouts unknown By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Sept 21: The government freed senior Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar on Saturday to help revive the faltering Afghan reconciliation process.. “Mullah Baradar has been released,” Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said. He had said on Friday that the government was releasing the Taliban leader to “further facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process”. Officials said that Mullah Baradar was released in Pakistan and was free to go anywhere or contact anyone. His whereabouts since his release could not be known. A family friend contacted an Islamabad-based journalist on Saturday evening to get information about his release and said that the family had not been informed about his latest status. Mullah Baradar is the 34th Taliban detainee to have been released by the authorities since November when the process was started. He is the most senior and apparently the most influential leader yet to have been freed. All, except Mullah Mansoor Dadullah whose release was announced earlier this month, have rejoined their families, but have made no known contribution to the reconciliation process. Taliban sources had expected that Mullah Dadullah would be released with Mullah Baradar. The release of Mullah Baradar was a key demand of the Afghan government, which is expecting him to pick threads from where he had left in February 2010, at the time of his arrest, when he was believed to have been working for a political settlement with the Afghan government. The Afghan High Peace Council (HPC) welcomed his release. “His release will surely have a positive impact on the peace process,” HPC spokesman Shahzada Shahid was quoted by Afghan media as having said. The Afghan government was equally pleased by the move. President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faizi said: “The Afghan government welcomes Pakistan’s decision to release Mullah Baradar.” Besides releasing Taliban detainees, Pakistan has provided safe passage to those leaders of the militant group who wanted to join the reconciliation process. Agencies add: Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, another member of the HPC, praised the release, saying “we are very much hopeful that Mullah Baradar can play an important role in the peace process”. Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, who served as foreign minister when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, also hailed Mullah Baradar’s release and cautioned Pakistan not to try to control his movements now that he is free. “They also have to allow him contact with Taliban leaders…,” Mr Muttawakil told AP. Not everyone agreed that Mullah Baradar’s release would contribute to peace, saying his long imprisonment had robbed him of both his influence and position in the Taliban. “This is a very, very meager step. It will not bring peace. It is just a show,” said Mohammad Daoud Sultanzai, an Afghan political commentator and talk show host. “He doesn’t have importance among the Taliban leadership, or any other leadership that would be able to deliver anything with authority.”
PM rejects nominee of opposition, proposes new name By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, Sept 21: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has rejected the opposition’s nominee — retired Justice Mian Mohammad Ajmal — for the office of National Accountability Bureau chairman and proposed retired Justice Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry’s name for the post. . The proposal came from the prime minister during his 35-minute meeting with the Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, here on Saturday. The two leaders had earlier met on Friday to discuss the issue. Talking to reporters after the meeting, Mr Shah said he had told the prime minister that he would respond to the proposal after discussing the matter with legal experts and PPP leadership. Sources said the prime minister had objected to the nomination of Justice Ajmal on the ground that he was law secretary when former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf proclaimed state of emergency in the country in 2007. On the other hand, Justice Chaudhry was among the judges who were deposed by the dictator and later reinstated along with Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in 2009. Justice Ejaz Chaudhry retired from the Supreme Court in 2010 and was later appointed as a member of the Judicial Commission by the chief justice. The government had initially proposed the names of retired Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaffery and former federal secretary Khwaja Zaheer Ahmed whereas the opposition had suggested the names of retired Justice Bhagwandas and retired Justice Sardar Raza. But the four names were rejected by the two sides. On Sept 13, the Supreme Court observed that major operations of the NAB had come to a halt in the absence of a chairman and asked the government to make the appointment soon or be ready to face the consequences. The government sought one week which ended on Friday. The last NAB chief, retired Admiral Fasih Bokhari, was removed by the court on May 28, which declared his appointment illegal on a petition filed by then opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
Aviation officials move to evict squatters from airport land By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Sept 21: Major terrorist attacks in the country, particularly the June 23 attack on foreign nationals at the base camp of Nanga Parbat and the July 30 jailbreak in Dera Ismail Khan, have given senior officials of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) sleepless nights over the security of the Chinese working at project site of the New Benazir Bhutto International Airport (NBBIA), Fatehjang. . A senior official of the CAA said that his organisation had repeatedly requested the local authorities to take appropriate measures to protect the project site, situated about 30km from Islamabad. “But despite repeated requests, help has not been forthcoming,” he remarked. He said the National Crisis Management Cell and the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been receiving information about possible attacks on expatriates, particularly the Chinese. Soon after the Nanga Parbat incident in which a number of foreign climbers were killed, the NBBIA’s project director, Muhammad Musharraf Khan, wrote a letter to the Attock police, highlighting the need for evicting people living without authorisation in the fenced area of the airport and on the CAA land. Copies of the letter written on June 26 were sent to Rawalpindi commissioner, Rawalpindi’s regional police officer and assistant commissioner of Fatehjang tehsil. The CAA officials have raised the issue also during proceedings of the Supreme Court, hearing a case relating to the delay in the construction of the airport. “These locals are a potential threat and any terrorist group can use them for mala fide activities,” an official said. He added that about 149 Chinese nationals were working and residing at the project site. Thousands of Pakistani labourers working for contractors or sub-contractors also work and live at the site, according to the source. Work on the construction of the perimeter fence was yet to be completed and many squatters were residing on the site, he added. Earlier, the squatters were given a ten-day notice to vacate the area in view of the poor security situation obtaining in the country. Even a meeting between the CAA officials, police authorities, Fatehjang’s assistant commissioner, notables of the area and representatives of the squatters was arranged in late June to solve the problem. But the squatters have not only been refusing to vacate the area but have threatened the CAA officials of dire consequences, according to the source. The CAA officials also requested the law enforcement agencies to take necessary action under the law to evict the illegal occupants of the land, in order to avert any untoward incident on the site. Meanwhile, on the advice of the Attock police, the CAA officials sent a letter on Aug 3 to the Naseerabad police station, Rawalpindi, because of jurisdiction issues, the source said. The CAA has put security staff deployed at the site on high alert and has also hired the services of additional guards.
3 kidnapped doctors freed by TTP By Pazir Gul MIRAMSHAH, Sept 21: The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Saturday set free three doctors who had been kidnapped from Balochistan’s Loralai district in June.. According to an official, the doctors were handed over to the administration at Kajori post near Mirali in North Waziristan. Political Tehsildar of Bannu Frontier Region received Dr Nasrullah, Dr Anwar Khan and Dr Ayaz Ahmad. Officials said the TTP freed the doctors unconditionally after negotiations were held with them through tribal elders, adding that no ransom was paid to secure the release. The doctors told reporters that gunmen kidnapped them on June 10 while they were going to Zhob. The kidnappers had set free their driver and another person last month. Last week militants freed seven employees of the Gomal Zam dam project after the government reportedly paid a heavy ransom to them. The TTP had confessed to having kidnapped them.
Carnage at church after Sunday mass: Two suicide blasts leave 78 dead, 120 injured By Ali Hazrat Bacha PESHAWAR, Sept 22: The capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was shaken once again by a heinous attack on churchgoers on Sunday morning. . As the besieged city and its inhabitants dealt with death, tragedy and mayhem, the rest of the country began to rally around to condemn the inhuman act that took 78 lives. The day began quietly in the city and the churchgoers gathered at the historic church at Kohati Gate in a busy commercial-cum-residential area of the city. Before the clock struck 12, the peace of the church and the city was cruelly interrupted as two suicide bombers blew themselves up on the church premises, killing 78 people and injuring another 120. Thirty-four women and seven children were among the dead. Seventeen injured are reported to be in critical condition. According to foreign news agencies, a wing of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it would continue to target non-Muslims until the United States stopped drone attacks in the tribal region. This was the first suicide attack on the Christian community in Peshawar that has suffered countless assaults by suicide attackers and other militant offensives. However, this is not the first such attack on the Pakistani Christian community. In fact, some of the first few suicide attacks in the country back in 2002 targeted churches in Islamabad and Taxila. However, as the militants grew more indiscriminate in their violence as the years progressed their targets included the general public and state installations. As a result, this attack on a church came as a surprise. By the evening, the general sense of outrage was palpable in the air. And the loud condemnations from the ruling parties made it clear that the politicians realised the significance of what had happened. By the evening PTI chief Imran Khan and Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan had turned up in Peshawar and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had spoken about the issue in London. His statement appeared to be defining a new government policy on the Taliban. Earlier in the day, the injured were rushed to Lady Reading Hospital, the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC). City Circle Superintendent of Police Ismail Kharak told the media later that a suicide bomber had entered through the rear gate of the church where a police constable tried to stop him. However, the attacker blew himself up, killing the policeman also. A second constable was injured in the blast. “It seems that the bomber had first used a hand grenade, he then entered the church and then blew himself up,” he said, adding that this was the police’s initial assessment and further investigations might lead to different conclusions. Bomb Disposal Unit chief AIG Shafqat Malik said that two suicide blasts had taken place and that each bomber carried six kilograms explosives. He said the head of a bomber had been found and sent for forensic testing. Another investigation officer collecting evidence at the crime scene said three empty bullet shells had been found which suggested that the attackers had also opened fire with one or more pistols. Philip, an eyewitness, told Dawn that on an average 600 to 1,000 people participated in the Sunday service but luckily the service ended at about 11.10am and most of the people left the venue. Father Samson Anwar explained that although security was provided each Sunday by police, he had never imagined that an attack of this kind would ever take place. Agencies add: The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had set up a new faction, called the Junood ul-Hifsa, to kill foreigners to avenge US drone strikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives. “We carried out the suicide bombings at Peshawar church and will continue to strike foreigners and non-Muslims until drone attacks stop,” Ahmad Marwat, a spokesman for the group, told AFP by telephone. Reuters described Marwat as a member of the TTP’s Jundullah group and quoted him as saying: “(The Christians) are the enemies of Islam, therefore we target them. We will continue our attacks on non-Muslims on Pakistani land.”
Business community gets surprise concessions By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: In a major policy shift, the government on Sunday extended over Rs2 billion worth of tax concessions and procedural facilitations to the business community by withdrawing several measures for documentation of economy announced in the federal budget 2013-14.. The government has withdrawn “condition of Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC), National Tax Number (NTN) [and] addresses for retailers and reduces withholding sales tax for unregistered person to one per cent”, said an announcement made by the Finance Ministry and Federal Board of Revenue on Sunday. FBR Chairman Tariq Bajwa told Dawn that the policy decisions approved at a meeting presided over by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar were aimed at facilitating the business community with financial impact of less than 0.1pc of the Rs2.475 trillion revenue target set for the current year. The ‘exact’ impact of revenue loss was yet to be firmed up, he said. Another official said the exchequer would suffer a loss of about Rs2 billion to 2.5bn a year, but the move was clearly a setback to the government’s documentation drive. Mr Bajwa, on the other hand, said that major initiative to document big players – distributors and wholesalers – would remain protected, though retailers in a couple of instances now stood exempted from documentation. A Finance Ministry official said the relief measures would not have a financial impact sizeable enough “in view of the IMF programme”. In one of major relief measures, the government has reduced the rate of withholding sales tax from 17pc to 1pc on purchases from unregistered persons which will not be adjustable. Before the budget 2013-14, this rate was 5pc which was increased to 17pc in case of purchases from unregistered persons. Likewise, the government has decided that items added in the Third Schedule to the Sales Tax Act of 1990 wide the finance bill, 2013, (except for fertiliser and cement) be omitted from the schedule and subjected to 2pc extra tax in lieu of sales tax at retail stage. The FBR chairman said the measure would have “some revenue impact, exact amount of which would be worked out”. He said given the cascading nature of revenue collection, taxpayers were allowed refund adjustments but since the major objective was documentation and not revenue collection, it was creating difficulties for the supply chain because of different prices of goods at retail stage, hence 1pc withholding sales tax had been allowed for an improved compliance. The government has also exempted items chargeable to sales tax on retail stage from sales tax withholding regime. Mr Bajwa said the measure would have no revenue impact and it was simply removal of a tax anomaly to facilitate the business community. Similarly, the government has reduced rate of withholding for wholesalers, dealers (including petroleum dealers) and distributors from current level of one-fifth (3.4pc) to one-tenth (1.7pc) of the applicable rate of sales tax. The FBR chief said the measure would have nominal revenue impact but facilitate mostly petroleum dealers who had been agitating the difficulties because their profit margins were negligible but withholding tax used to be applied on their volumes. The government waived the condition of providing CNIC, NTN and addresses of retailers under section 236H to be provided in the withholding statement under section 165 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. Mr Bajwa said the waiver would have a minor revenue impact. He agreed that a section of businesses, particularly retailers, would get a relaxation from documentation but it needed to be appreciated that a middle step to document distributors and wholesalers would be achieved.
Nawaz condemns Peshawar attack ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the suicides attacks on the church in Peshawar and expressed deep sorrow and shock over the loss of precious human lives. . He said terrorists had no religion and that targeting innocent people was against the teachings of Islam. Such cruel acts of terrorism reflected the brutality and inhumane mindset of the terrorists, he added. The prime minister expressed solidarity with the Christian community and sympathised with the bereaved families and prayed for the early recovery of those injured in the blasts.---APP Meanwhile, Reuters quoted Mr Sharif as saying in a televised statement: “Such incidents are not conducive to peace talks, “Unfortunately, because of this, the government is unable to move forward on what it had envisaged, on what it had wished for.”
One family lost four members; fifth missing By Waseem Ahmad Shah PESHAWAR, Sept 22: Dozens of ambulances with wailing sirens carried coffins of people killed in the devastating church blasts to the football ground of Saint John High School at Kohati Gate. Around 50 coffins were lined up in the spacious ground with hundreds of shocked mourners around hugging and comforting each other. . The school is adjacent to the All Saint Church, the second oldest protestant church in Peshawar built in 1893, which saw death and destruction on Sunday after a mass when hundreds of worshipers had started greeting each other and lining up for their lunch. The Kohati Gate area has a sizeable Christian population. This was the first terrorist attack on a church in Peshawar and the deadliest this year. The dead included women and children. The tragedy was so devastating that volunteers of Al-Khidmat Foundation had to collect coffins from different parts of the provincial capital. A large number of mourners, including women, were crying and wailing and sharing their woes. Most of them were asking the same questions: why we have been targeted? What was our crime? “We are patriotic Pakistanis. We are as loyal to this country as our Muslim brethren are,” said Munir Gill, a member of the church. Ambulances took the bodies from Lady Reading Hospital, the main public sector hospital in Peshawar, to the football ground where people belonging to the community from different areas had gathered. Relatives of the deceased accompanied the coffins carried by the ambulances mostly belonging to the Edhi Foundation and Al-Khidmat Foundation. Each coffin carried the name of the deceased. Some families lost four to five persons. People were consoling the grief-stricken relatives but could not stop their outpouring. One family lost four of its members while the fifth, a four-year-old girl, was missing. They included Naeem Nazir, his wife Mona, daughter Mehrab and brother Nasir Masih. Nazir’s daughter, Angel, is missing. Jamil Masih, who was sitting next to the coffin of his wife Shahida Jamil, said they had come from Malakand to attend the Sunday service. Initially, members of the community were in a fix over their next move. Some suggested that they should not bury the bodies and continue their protest because they had been attacked such a brutal manner. They complained that proper security had not been provided to them and after the blasts there was no proper medical treatment available to them in the hospital. “We are waiting for our bishop and will take a decision whether to bury the bodies or keep them on the ground till the government ensures our safety and protection,” said Nazir Jan, a schoolteacher. Bishop Humphrey Sarfaraz Peter later arrived and it was decided that the bodies would be buried and they would chalk out a course of action on Monday. After the decision, relatives took the coffins to two major Christian cemeteries -- Gora Qabristan in the Cantonment and the other in Wazirbagh area. The scene of the blasts explained the severity of the attack. The place was strewn with human flesh. Shoes, sandals, clothes and disposable plates meant for lunch were scattered all over the place. The enraged mourners took belongings of policemen, including their uniforms, out of a room reserved for them on the church premises and set them on fire near the church’s main entrance. “Soon after the service ended we came out of the main hall. Some people were greeting each other and others queued up for food when a suicide bomber blew himself up,” said Nazir Jan whose clothes were stained with blood. He alleged that the policemen on duty were roaming around inside, instead of remaining at the entrance of the church.
Six killed in drone attack By Our Correspondent LADHA, Sept 22: A US drone struck a compound suspected to be housing militants in Shawal area of South Waziristan on Sunday, killing four foreigners and two local tribesmen. According to an official, the compound in Palgi area, adjacent to North Waziristan, was attacked at noon. The compound was hit by two missiles.. Taliban sources said four people from Central Asia were among the victims. The names of those killed could not be ascertained. A security official told AFP that the attack had also left three militants injured. The government condemned the drone attack. According to APP, the Foreign Office spokesman said in a statement issued in Islamabad that the unilateral strikes were a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. He said Pakistan had repeatedly emphasised the importance of bringing an immediate end to drone strikes. He said the government had consistently maintained that drone strikes were counter-productive, entailed loss of innocent civilians’ lives and had human rights and humanitarian implications.
Peshawar blasts threaten to overshadow PM’s US visit By Masood Haider and Anwar Iqbal NEW YORK, Sept 22: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrives in New York on Monday for a week-long visit which includes a crucial meeting with his Indian counterpart aimed at improving relations between the two nuclear neighbours.. This is Mr Sharif’s first visit to both the UN and the United States since his re-election. Observers at the UN headquarters in New York warned that Sunday’s twin suicide bombings of a church in Peshawar, which killed 78 people, could overshadow the visit. Pakistani Christian groups and their supporters are planning protest rallies both in New York and Washington during the prime minister’s stay in the US city. “All centres of power in Pakistan should know that the rest of the world shall respond one day. When that happens, the Pakistanis should not complain because they have earned it,” said an angry commentator on a US news site. Incidents like this cast doubts on the prime minister’s claim that he “is fighting terrorism,” said Manny Alam and Victor Gill, two leaders of the Pakistani Christian community in the US, in a joint statement issued by their office. Mr Alam, who is also president-elect of the Pakistani American Congress, an umbrella of over 70 Pakistani Muslim and Christian organisations, reminded the PM that “there’s hardly a household in Pakistan that has not lost 2-3 members” in this violence. “Mr Sharif, please take notice how Muslims in America are free to worship,” said the joint statement. “Please get rid of the religious bias that is now included in our constitution and is taught at schools.” Pakistan has so far stayed out of a US list of “countries of particular concern” whose governments have engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom. On Sunday, diplomats from the Pakistan Embassy in Washington joined their colleagues at the country’s permanent mission at the UN to prepare for the visit. “But the Peshawar blasts have made things difficult for them as well, as they too will have to do a lot of explaining to their colleagues at the UN,” said a senior diplomat. The most worried, obviously, is the media team which was busy planning the prime minister’s interviews and meetings with senior US journalists. “The blasts may force them to either reconsider those engagements or prepare the prime minister for the embarrassing questions he may have to face now,” the diplomat said. Pakistani diplomats are hoping that once the dust settles, they will be able to refocus attention on the prime minister’s engagements both in and outside the UN General Assembly. The most important item on Mr Sharif’s agenda is his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The prime minister has been planning to meet Mr Singh ever since his election in May and had even invited the Indian leader to attend his inaugural ceremony. Mr Singh, who is facing an election at home, declined to take a politically risky visit to Pakistan but agreed to meet Mr Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The Pakistanis hope that the meeting will help reduce tensions between the two countries and could lead to more confidence-building measures. But the Indians appear more cautious and may not like to make any commitment so close to the elections. The prime minister will have busy schedule in New York, starting with a dinner that US President Barack Obama is hosting for him and other visiting leaders. Mr Sharif, however, will not have a separate meeting with Mr Obama and is likely to return to Washington in late October or early November for an exclusive meeting with the US leader. On Sept 25, the prime minister will address the Pakistani community and on Sept 27 he will address the UN General Assembly. His meeting with the Indian prime minister is scheduled on Sept 29 after Mr Singh meets President Obama in Washington. Mr Sharif returns home on the same evening.
ECC likely to approve LNG import project By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: The Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet is expected to approve soon for implementation a project for import of 500 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) through SSGC’s retrofitting facility.. A government official told Dawn that the board of Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) had already cleared the project for implementation following legal opinion of Supreme Court lawyer Khalid Anwar in support of it. The project’s implementation is expected to partially bridge a widening gas shortfall currently estimated at about 1.8-2 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD) and replace a part of expensive furnace oil imports. The project has been held up for more than a year because of an internal controversy among members of the board. It has now been cleared after Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi criticised the SSGC board for poor handling of the LNG-LPG Retrofit project at a time when the country faced acute gas shortfalls. About a fortnight ago, the minister is reported to have informed the SSGC board that it would be held responsible if any future bids were higher than tolling charges offered by 4Gas Asia at 80 cents per MMBTU. The cost of the retrofit project that is to utilise an LPG terminal purchased by the SSGC from a private firm two years ago for LNG handling is put at $163 million. After including all variable charges like transportation etc, the total fixed value of the project is estimated to be between $1.8 billion and $2.2bn over 20-year life of the project. SSGC board member Shahid Sattar had raised objections over the bid, saying it did not qualify the fundamental requirements of transparency and adherence to the PPRA. Nevertheless, he said, the quoted price of $0.8 per MMBTU for gas without nitrogen ballasting which the bidder (4Gas) suggested be supplied to KESC’s Bin Qasim plant even though the proposed facility could not use unballasted gas. Hence the quoted price with nitrogen ballasting was $0.88 per MMBTU and claimed that QED (the project consultant) had calculated the capacity tariff representing a 10-year rate of return of 48 per cent on the investment of $163m which was very high rate of return, resulting in a payback period of only two years. He claimed the board had previously cancelled the bidding through a majority vote. His view was, however, overruled when the bidder – 4Gas Asia – presented a legal opinion of senior SC lawyer which held that no violation of rules and procedures had been committed and the SSGC and the government should go ahead with implementation of the project to overcome energy shortage in public interest. The 500 MMCFD LNG retrofit was a turnkey storage and re-gasification unit that required a few kilometres of pipeline for integrating with the SSGC’s transmission system. The entire funding was to be arranged by the bidders while the SSGC was to bear the cost of travelling, legal and technical fee of consultants and pay tolling fee per MMBTU having guarantees for capacity utilisation. Mr Anwar said that under article 38 of the 1973 constitution, it was incumbent upon the state to formulate policies that secure social and economic well-being of people, provide facilities for work and livelihood to all citizens and give basic necessities of life to the needy. He said that if the LNG supply issue was not resolved in the near term it would be highly damaging to the Pakistani economy already reeling from a number of shocks. “This would be a recipe for disaster,” he said, adding that re-tendering for LNG supply facilities would damage the country’s credibility in preserving sanctity of the international tendering process and seriously impair the achievement of the constitutional and basic duty of every government to improve and promote the well-being of people.
Baradar kept in Karachi ‘safe house’ KARACHI, Sept 22: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a former Taliban second-in-command released in Pakistan on Saturday, is being kept in a safe house in Karachi as regional powers debate his role in the Afghan peace process, sources said on Sunday.. Afghanistan sees Baradar as a respected figure who could use his influence among the Taliban to help coax moderate commanders to the negotiating table and convince warring parties to stop fighting after more than a decade of war. There has been no official confirmation of Baradar’s movements. “Mullah Baradar was flown to Karachi from Peshawar early on Sunday. He is being kept in a safe location in Karachi,” one Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. A government source with knowledge of the situation said separately: “He will not be sent to Afghanistan. He is in a safe house in Karachi. ... Everything will be decided between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.” The source said Pakistan decided to announce his release to coincide with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to New York. “The timing of his release was tied to his (Sharif’s) departure so that Pakistan is seen as doing all it can (for the Afghan peace process),” said the government source. Baradar was once a close friend of the reclusive, one-eyed Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who gave him his nom de guerre, “Baradar” or “brother”, and still enjoys respect among the Taliban fighters. Known as a pragmatic operator, Baradar is believed to be willing to play the role of a peace ambassador, having once reached out to Kabul to seek a peace settlement. A source with the Taliban-linked militancy in Pakistan said that Baradar had been reunited with his family in Karachi, where he was arrested in a 2010 raid. “Our brother has been freed and it is our great victory,” the source said.—Reuters
Grief, anger as Peshawar buries its dead By Ali Hazrat Bacha PESHAWAR, Sept 23: Violent protests paralysed life in the provincial capital and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as death toll from the twin suicide bombings at a church rose to 83 on Monday. . Demonstrations, mourning processions and movement of VIPs forced vehicles to remain off the road in Peshawar. Enraged activists of the Christian community pelted vehicles with stones, blocked roads and held rallies on thoroughfares to vent their anger over Sunday’s suicide attacks on the All Saints Church. On the other hand, relatives and friends remained busy burying their near and dear ones in Gora Qabristan and Wazir Bagh graveyard. Sensing gravity of the situation, police made adequate arrangements to avert any untoward incident and placed barbed wire on main roads in an attempt to confine the protesters to their localities. The measures disrupted traffic on Sher Shah Soori, GT and University roads. The stick-wielding protesters coming from Bara Gate, Umeedabad and Peshtakhara blocked Bara Road and those coming from Tehkal blocked the University Road. A group of youths also fired shots in the air. The protesters’ main target was Khyber and GT roads where old tyres were set on fire near Suri Pul, forcing vehicles to remain stuck up at Malak Saad Khan flyover and in Khyber Bazaar. Police deployed at checkpoints also forced the protesters to return to their areas. Commuters faced hardship while travelling between the cantonment and the city. The protesters were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans demanding protection for minorities and immediate arrest of culprits involved in the tragic incident. Because of the absence of public transport and other vehicles, a large number of people had to reach their places of work by foot. Motorcycles were also not allowed on roads. Police remained fully alert around the church in Kohati Gate where community people offered prayers for the dead and for early recovery of the injured. Almost all shopping centers in Peshawar were closed to express solidarity with Christians. All missionary schools remained closed. The provincial government and different political parties had on Sunday announced a three-day mourning. According to a spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital, 214 injured people were brought to the hospital while five of them died on Monday. Sixty-seven of the injured, including 28 women, were discharged after treatment. Of the 83 deceased, 36 are stated to be women. Police registered a case against unidentified terrorists. A four-member committee has been set up to investigate the suicide attacks. City Circle SP Ismail Kharak said police were investigating the incident from different angles and trying to get clues which could lead to the facilitators of the bombers in the city. Protests were also held in other parts of the province, including Malakand Agency, Nowshera, Dera Ismail Khan and Karak. The protesters demanded an end to terrorist attacks on minorities. AFP adds: The protesters gathered outside the ill-fated church also raised slogans against Imran Khan. His Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf heads the coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Some of the protesters shouted abusive slogans against Mr Khan.
Three police personnel among six killed in Pishin blast By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, Sept 23: Three police personnel and three civilians were killed and eight others injured in a bomb attack in the Saranan area of Pishin district on Monday.. The bomb went off when a police van was on routine patrol on the Quetta-Chaman highway near Sanger village. “The bomb was planted underneath the police van. The dead included a police officer,” District Police Officer Mehboob Rasheed said. “The police van was patrolling the highway and the bomb exploded when it stopped to check a suspected vehicle coming from Chaman,” he said. The injured were taken to Civil Hospital, Quetta. The DPO said three policemen and two civilians died on the spot and another civilian succumbed to injuries in hospital. Five of the dead were identified as Mohammad Asghar, Bahadur Khan, Khan Mohammad, Mohammad Hashim and Mohammad Behram. Law-enforcement agencies personnel cordoned off the area to search for assailants but no arrest was reported till late in night. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. “We attacked the police in Pashin today,” TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid told Mashaal radio from an undisclosed location. AFP adds: The DPO said the blast wounded five people, including passengers of a mini-bus. A senior local administration official, Zahid bin Maqsood, confirmed the incident and the casualties.
Govt vows to ‘pursue’ masterminds By Raja Asghar ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: Amid international outrage at the massacre of over 80 people in a suicide bombing at a church in Peshawar on Sunday, the government vowed in the National Assembly on Monday to “pursue” the masterminds of the act, before a mournful house too unanimously called for bringing the perpetrators to justice.. But Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in a speech to the house that due to lack of intercepts so far, he was unsure about the authenticity of a claim of responsibility for the attack made by a group called Junoodul Hafsa, a faction of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP). However, he assured the house “what people are behind this (act), we will pursue them with full force of intelligence and security forces” and that God-willing they would meet an “exemplary” retribution. Besides condemnation of the attack by leaders of most parliamentary groups in the house, opposition leader Khursheed Shah assured the government of full support of opposition parties in pursuing those responsible for the attack in the same way as they gave it a “mandate” in a Sept 9 “all-party conference” to initiate peace dialogue with “all stakeholders” in order to eliminate militant violence in the country. “Even also, all parties are ready to give the government a mandate that you decide, pursue them, and the opposition and 18 crore people of Pakistan will stand behind you,” he said. But a question mark arose over the fate of the Sept 9 initiative after four Taliban-claimed attacks on security forces on Sept 15, one of which killed an army major-general, Sanauullah Khan Niazi, along with an accompanying lieutenant-colonel and a lance naik in the Upper Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the Taliban put forth some difficult pre-conditions for talks such as a general amnesty for Taliban fighters, release of their prisoners and withdrawal of troops to their barracks in the militant-infested tribal belt. While the last Sunday attack drew condemnation from Pope Francis as well as government leaders and ambassadors of several western nations, the National Assembly suspended its normal business for the day as part of a three-day national mourning, to discuss and adopt a joint resolution to condemn what it called a “heinous, brutal and inhuman terrorist attack”, which it said was “an attack not only against the Christian community but against all Pakistanis”. Earlier, on a suggestion from a lawmaker from Peshawar, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour of the opposition Awami National Party, members of the house and visitors in the galleries stood up to observe a minute’s silence for mostly Christians among over 81 fatalities, which was followed by a Fateha prayer for Muslim casualties of the attack, which, according to the house resolution, wounded more than 137 people. Expressing solidarity with the Christian community, the resolution demanded that the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial governments “take all necessary measures to safeguard the rights of non-Muslims as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah and provided in the constitution of Pakistan”, provide the best medical facilities to the injured and security to all places of worship, particularly those belonging to non-Muslims, and “bring the perpetrators of these suicide attacks to justice”. Chaudhry Nisar praised Christian community leaders in Peshawar for their patience and said he saw during his visit to the city on Sunday. He said the government would call a meeting of Christian community leaders from all over the country to discuss what he called a national policy to provide security to their institutions. He said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) was formulating its own plan and that “we would also like to involve” the Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan provincial governments to play a role in a federal-level security committee. Though speakers from all parties condemned the attack, varying degrees of vehemence about dealing with terrorism was evident, some of them still pinning hopes in a dialogue. Mr Khursheed Shah, who belongs to the previously ruling PPP, whose government had ordered a successful anti-terror army operation in Malakand division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, called perpetrators of violence as “enemies of Pakistan” and said “we will extend every help to the government to eliminate terrorism and make Pakistan safe”. PTI vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, whose party has been in the forefront in advocating peace with the Taliban, conceded that “terrorist mentality would show no leniency to anyone” but said a peace option should be given to those who agreed to work within the framework of Pakistan while “irreconcilable elements” be isolated. Khalid Maqbool, deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement, called the Peshawar attack a manifestation of a “collective failure of us all” and said the “brand of Islam” the militants sought to enforce “is not acceptable to us”. Sahibzada Tariqullah of the opposition Jamaat-i-Islami, a partner in the PTI-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, said the dialogue process should not be abandoned and “should be started soon”. Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai called for following the teachings of Islam and Pakistan’s founder Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah about rights of minorities and proposed inclusion of the then All India Muslim League’s 1940 resolution about the creation of Pakistan and the Quaid’s famous 11 August, 1947 speech to the then Constituent Assembly about the equality of minorities in state affairs in the national curriculum as the real ideology of Pakistan. But Maulana Mohammd Khan Sherani of the government-allied Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F, seemed to have a dig even at Quaid-i-Azam’s position as Pakistan’s first governor-general after independence saying it should not be forgotten that an “important personality” took oath of loyalty to the then British King, George VI, and called the present anti-terror war as an “imposed war”.
Imran: talks only with those who renounce violence By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan appears to have adopted a less conciliatory attitude towards armed militants, although he does not single out any militant organisation currently attacking government forces in tribal areas.. Whether it is because of the killing of over 80 people in Sunday’s suicide blasts at the Peshawar church or of two senior military officers last week, Mr Khan is now somewhat toughening his stance against militancy. A statement of Mr Khan issued by the PTI media wing on Monday said: “Those who carried out the attack against the Christian community and their church in Peshawar are to be condemned in the strongest terms possible.” A strong proponent of talks with the militants fighting law-enforcement agencies in Fata and the PTI-ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mr Khan said talks could be held only with those who were willing to renounce violence and accept the writ of the state. “If peace is to be given a chance, then it is essential to isolate those who are dedicated to an agenda of violence and to carrying out terror attacks against innocent people, from those who are prepared to have a ceasefire and talk peace within the ambit of the Constitution of Pakistan.” Although he didn’t say it in so many words, the PTI chief implied that those unwilling to renounce violence should be taken head on and talks should be held only with who were willing to engage in dialogue. “Absolutely no reasoning could justify the killing of even one innocent human, let alone attacking a whole community.”
Plan to borrow $625m from banks to boost reserves By Khaleeq Kiani and Shahid Iqbal ISLAMABAD/KARACHI, Sept 23: The government reached on Monday an agreement with a consortium of seven domestic and international banks to borrow $625 million to boost foreign exchange reserves and stop continuous bashing of the rupee. . The reserves currently stand at $10.3 billion. “We have approved the agreement under which the banks are required to bring $625 million from abroad in 10 days,” the finance ministry’s spokesman and adviser, Rana Assad Amin, said. He said the government had sought offers from the banks about two months ago and most of them offered an interest rate of 7.77 per cent over Libor (London Inter-bank Offered Rate), which was reduced to 5.3pc for one year through negotiations. The banks which agreed to provide foreign exchange are: Bank of Tokyo, Alfalah Bank Limited, Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered Bank, National Bank of Pakistan, United Bank Limited and Allied Bank Limited. The highest contribution of $150 million will come from Bank of Tokyo. Mr Amin said the agreement was aimed at boosting foreign exchange reserves and stopping the declining trend of the local currency. “It will ease pressure on (foreign exchange) reserves, stabilise exchange rate and meet the requirement of higher oil imports,” he said. The inter-bank rate of the rupee was 105.85 against the US dollar on Monday. Mr Amin said that under the agreement the banks were required to bring foreign exchange from abroad. “They cannot provide foreign exchange from the reserves held by domestic commercial banks. More than half of the country’s liquid reserves of over $10.3 billion are currently held by the commercial banks,” he said. “The government is in a very desperate mood to buy foreign exchange from right and left to build the reserves,” said Dr Ashfaque Hassan Khan, a former economic adviser of the government and dean at the Business School of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST). He said the government was under pressure from the International Monetary Fund and in fact it was one of the prior actions for a $6.64 billion extended fund facility to mop up $125 million from the market between July 1 and August 31 which shattered the market. He said the IMF programme required the government to build $4 billion of additional reserves during the current fiscal year. During his recent visit to Karachi, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar asked commercial banks to bring foreign exchange from wherever possible. Dr Ashfaque said the deal finalised with the commercial banks was very expensive, but since the government was not in a position to float international bonds, it was resorting to short-term borrowing. This has to be rolled over again and again to avoid payback. The deal would accumulate government debt while the banks would keep enjoying, he said, adding that the problem with the IMF programme was that it targeted the exchange rate instead of controlling interest rate. “This is not good for the economy.”
Gen Bukhari to succeed slain GOC By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: Maj Gen Javed Mahmood Bukhari, currently commander of the 8th Division in Sialkot, has been appointed the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 17th Infantry Division, which is operating in Swat, in place of Maj Gen Sanaullah Khan Niazi who was killed in a terrorist attack on Sept 15.. Gen Bukhari, from the Corps of Engineers, had earlier served as the director general of the Frontier Works Organisation. The appointment came as part of a major reshuffle announced by the army on Monday. Addressing officers during his visit to the Division Headquarters in Swat over the weekend to pay his respects to the slain commander Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had said that the army would remain in the valley to preserve security gains made during a counter-militancy operation. Gen Bukhari’s first task in his new posting would be to raise the morale of his troops after the assassination of Gen Sanaullah in an improvised explosive device attack in which a colonel and a sepoy were also killed. He would also be expected to work for fulfilment of Gen Kayani’s pledge of “bringing the perpetrators of the cowardly act of terrorism to justice”. D.I. KHAN: In another important move, 40th Division (Dera Ismail Khan) GOC Maj Gen Ahmad Hayat was transferred to the Inter-Services Intelligence agency as head of the analysis wing. Gen Hayat replaces Maj Gen Sahibzada Isfandiyar Pataudi, who was superseded in promotions announced last week and is awaiting his next posting. Gen Hayat was the GOC in D.I. Khan when Taliban attacked the fortified jail in the town on July 29 and freed about 250 inmates despite intelligence alerts about the attack. The army came in for intense criticism after the jailbreak for not having aided the civilian law-enforcement agencies during the attack. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had complained to the army top brass that despite having jointly planned a response to the anticipated attack with the civilian agencies, the troops deployed in D.I. Khan did not respond in a timely manner when the terrorists struck. PTI chief Imran Khan had also raised questions as to how the attackers had managed to get hundreds of their accomplices freed despite deployment of an army division in and around D.I. Khan. The new GOC in D.I. Khan is Maj Gen Abid Ejaz Kahloon, from the Infantry, who was promoted in March. LAHORE CORPS: Lt Gen Naweed Zaman was named the new commander of the IV Corps, Lahore. He will replace Lt Gen Maqsood Ahmed, who was last month appointed by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as military adviser to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Gen Zaman is currently military secretary at the General Headquarters. Lt Gen Mazhar Jamil, promoted last week, has been appointed as the military secretary. His last assignment was vice-chief of general staff. Lt Gen Khalid Asghar will continue to function as Inspector General (C&IT) at the GHQ, a position he held before his elevation last week.
Protests paralyse life in cities By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: Life was paralysed on Monday in the country’s major cities and towns as mobs from the Christian community and other minority groups held demonstrations in protest against the twin suicide bombings at a church in Peshawar the previous day.. The protesters blocked roads and key highways, including GT Road, causing traffic jams in several cities, including Islamabad and the four provincial capitals. Peace activists, representatives of civil society, lawyers and students from various universities also participated in the demonstrations and rallies to express solidarity with the Christian community. The protests turned violent at a number of places, including Peshawar, Karachi and Multan, where protesters pelted passing vehicles with stones, burnt tyres and caused damage to public property, prompting police to resort to batoncharge and teargas shelling. Taliban deny involvement: In a significant development, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan denied involvement in the attack and termed it an attempt to sabotage the ongoing peace process. “We haven’t done this. We don’t attack innocent people,” Shahidullah Shahid, the TTP spokesman, said by telephone from an undisclosed location. Most of the shopping centres in several cities remained closed in response to the three-day mourning announced by the government and political parties. Missionary schools throughout the country also remained shut. The British foreign secretary, who arrived in Islamabad on Monday evening, had to wait at the Nur Khan Air Base for more than half an hour because the Islamabad Expressway was closed to traffic. The main protest in Islamabad was held outside the Parliament House, where the National Assembly was in session. The protesters in Karachi blocked roads around the press club with rocks and burning tyres, while according to private TV channels the authorities in Lahore had to suspend the Metro Bus service for several hours due to protests at a number of places. Our Correspondent adds from Lahore: People belonging to all walks of life staged sit-ins and took out rallies all over Punjab. In Lahore, protests were held at Ferozpur Road, near Youhanabad, Bhatta Chowk in Defence, Thokar Niaz Beg and Saidpur, on Multan Road. A large number of activists of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance marched from Shimla Pahari to the Punjab Assembly building. The marchers observed a two-minute silence in front of the provincial assembly to pay tribute to the victims of the attack. In Toba Tek Singh, police used batons to control an angry mob which tried to damage public and private property. Meanwhile, Church of Pakistan President Bishop Samuel Robert Azariah has appealed to members of the Christian community to hold protest demonstrations peacefully. “The Christian community should refrain from violence and damaging property belonging to individuals or the state. We need to maintain our belief and teachings that we are a peaceful community that has the spirit of tolerance and forgiveness,” said Bishop Samuel. RAWALPINDI: Commuters faced hardships in Rawalpindi because of traffic jams on almost all main roads. Infuriated protesters burnt tyres, tore apart banners and placards of political parties and uprooted billboards. Talking to media, Bishop of Saint Paul Church Samuel Titans said: “I am short of words to condemn the attack. What kind of creatures are they (the attackers)?”
CII says DNA test cannot be primary evidence By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) on Monday formally relegated the DNA test to supporting evidence in rape cases, belying reports last week suggesting that the council might accord the scientifically proven test prime importance in investigations against rape suspects.. Speaking at a press conference here on Monday, CII Chairman Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani said that “the DNA test is not acceptable as primary evidence in rape cases, but it could be considered as supporting evidence”. Maulana Sherani explained that though DNA testing was a useful and modern technique for supporting evidence, it alone could not be used as primary evidence. He said a court of law could decide in the light of DNA test when it was taken into account with other evidence as a supporting material. Some members of the council, known as reformers and reportedly led by Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, were for ‘according’ the DNA test prime importance on the sole basis of which a rape suspect could be handed down punishment. However, hardliners led by the council chief thought otherwise and prevailed in the end. At the press conference the CII head reiterated the council’s assertion for the rejection of the Women’s Protection Act of 2006, saying its provisions were not in line with Islamic injunctions. He added that the Hadood Ordinance dealt with all these offences and that Islam set procedures to determine crime cases of rape. About the sensitive blasphemy law, the CII chairman said it should not be amended and that the Pakistan Penal Code already had sections which dealt with sentences for those who misused any law of the land, adding that a judge could invoke those relevant sections to award sentences. There were speculations that some members of the council were of the view that a person making a false accusation should face death penalty because the words attributed to the accused were actually uttered by the accuser. Taking note of recent media discussion on the unconfirmed reports attributed to the CII, Mr Sherani said the council had unanimously decided that no member would comment on any decision of the council’s meeting unless the matter was elaborated and explained in a press release or press briefing by the body.
Peshawar church blasts affect sympathy for drone victims By Masood Haider and Anwar Iqbal UNITED NATIONS, Sept 23: The Peshawar blasts not only killed 83 Christians but may also have affected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s plan to raise US drone strikes during the UN General Assembly, diplomats say.. Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad told journalists last week that the prime minister is likely to raise this issue during the 68th session of the UN General Assembly scheduled from Sept 23 to Sept 29. The issue is already being discussed at other international platforms and a London-based media forum -- the Bureau of Investigative Journalism -- announced on Monday that it was recording the names and numbers of people killed in US drone strikes in Pakistan. Pakistan claims that the drones, meant for terrorists hiding in Fata, also have killed a large number of civilians. The United States denies the charge, arguing that the drones are highly accurate and only a few civilians have died in those attacks. Diplomats familiar with this issue say that Mr Sharif might have found some support in the world body for his position on the drones had Sunday’s terrorist attacks in Peshawar not happened. “Things have changed overnight,” said a senior diplomat, pointing out that after the blasts “people around the world would be more interested in hitting back {at} the Taliban than saving them from US drones.” Attacks like this, he argued, “also diminish whatever sympathy may have existed for the civilians victims trapped in the crossfire between the Taliban and the US drones.” Diplomatic sources at the United Nations say that while the prime minister may still raise the issue but “now it may just get a brief mention” in his address to the General Assembly on Sept 27. Last week, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Masood Khan, raised the issue inside the Security Council, calling for the cessation of these air strikes and seeking “urgent” talks to resolve the problem. SARTAJ AZIZ: And hours before the Peshawar blasts, Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs Aziz told reporters that Pakistan would raise the drone issue at various UN forums. Mr Aziz said Pakistan’s policy was clear that such strikes were “counter-productive” as they cause large numbers of civilian deaths and generate hatred among people. Pakistan had conveyed its serious concern to the United States over its drone programme, urging it to stop the strikes, he said. “Drone strikes infringe Pakistan’s sovereignty and violate international law,” Mr Aziz added. The Sharif government faces tremendous pressure from the PTI and other political groups on this issue and on opening a dialogue with the militants. Earlier this month, an all-party conference not only authorised the prime minister to engage the Taliban but also asked him to raise the drone issue at the United Nations. “The federal government should consider the possibility of taking the drone issue to the United Nation as drone attacks are a violation of International Law,” the resolution said.
More time sought for cantonment polls By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Sept 23: The federal government has gone back on a commitment it had made before the Supreme Court on July 2 to hold the much-awaited local government elections in all 43 cantonment boards by Sept 15. . Attorney General Muneer A. Malik, representing the federation, requested the court on Monday to extend its deadline for the elections till the last week of November. But a two-judge bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja was not amused by the federal government’s statement and said it was a breach of the undertaking it had given to the court. The court said it was exercising restraint but would duly record the government’s statement so that it could take action under the law, if required. The bench had taken up a petition filed in 2009 by former vice-president of the Quetta Cantonment Board Advocate Raja Rab Nawaz who had challenged the absence of local bodies in cantonment boards for 14 years. This is not the first time a request has been made for extension. On Jan 3, the apex court had set May 5 as the date for the elections — the day the existing set-up being run by military officers was to expire. Like the cantonment boards, the prospects of holding the local government elections in the provinces were also not encouraging. The Punjab government through Additional Advocate General Mustafa Ramday informed the court that it could not hold the elections until Dec 14 after Muharram was over. The Sindh government’s representative Mohammad Qasim said the elections would be held in the province by Nov 27. The court asked the representatives of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and the Islamabad Territory to submit by Tuesday written commitments about election dates. Referring to the elections in cantonment boards, the court regretted that the undertaking given on behalf of the government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had not been complied with. The attorney general said the government was considering to make some amendments to the Cantonments Local Government (Elections) Ordinance 2002 by incorporating qualification and disqualification clauses for the councillors of cantonment boards. The ECP and the defence ministry held meetings on July 4 and 13 and a draft law had been prepared and sent to the cabinet for consideration, he added. He said the proposed law envisaged a 25-member board half of which would be elected directly through the elections and the rest would be nominated by the station house commander, usually a serving brigadier, who also acted as president of the board. Mr Malik said that since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was of the opinion that the elections would be meaningless in the presence of 50 per cent nominated members and wanted a new regime, the matter had been referred to a special 12-member cabinet committee headed by Science and Technology Minister Zahid Hamid on Sept 10. The committee has been asked to submit its recommendations in 10 days. The AG said there was no lack of due diligence on part of the government and efforts were being made to hold the elections in the last week of November, especially when the delimitation of councils had been completed. The ECP’s additional director general (legal) informed the court that the commission had initiated paper work but it would need 60 clear days for holding the elections after the government made up its mind. The court observed that the reasons cited by the government for the delay in holding the elections were neither new nor unknown to the government at the time the earlier undertaking had been given.
Awaran bears brunt as powerful quake strikes Balochistan By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, Sept 24: Awaran and several other districts of Balochistan were struck by a massive earthquake of 7.7 magnitude on Tuesday afternoon, leaving at least 60 people dead, bringing down houses and buildings and causing widespread destruction. . The quake rattled vast areas, including Karachi and other cities and towns of Sindh and sending shockwaves up to Swat in the northwest. It triggered panic in Karachi and Hyderabad where people left buildings and homes and went out in the open. Officials in Quetta warned that the death toll in the affected areas was likely to increase because rescue workers were yet to reach many remote areas and the communications system had been crippled. Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch declared an emergency in Awaran and five other districts. Army and Frontier Corps troops were called in to carry out rescue and relief work. A large number of people were rescued from the debris of houses and the injured were given emergency medical aid by army and FC doctors and paramedics. “Over 80 per cent mud-houses have collapsed or have been badly damaged in Awaran,” Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad told Dawn, adding that casualties and losses in several remote areas had also been reported but rescue teams had not been able to reach those places till late in the night.The quake affected several districts of Balochistan, including Quetta, at 4.29pm and continued shaking the areas for about one minute, forcing people to rush out of their homes. Kunri area of Awaran district was the epicentre of the quake. At least four aftershocks of 5.6 magnitude were felt in most areas. Thousands of houses collapsed or were badly damaged in towns and villages of Awaran. Home Secretary Asad Gilani said 50 bodies had been retrieved and 150 people had been injured in Awaran. “The death toll may increase because the earthquake has caused massive destruction in Awaran and adjoining districts and rescue teams are yet to reach several remote areas from where reports of heavy losses are being received,” he said. Balochistan Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Mir Abdul Quddoos Bezinjo, elected from the Awaran constituency, claimed that the death toll was higher than so far announced by officials. According to sources, at least 11 people, including a woman and a girl, were killed in Kech district and over 20 houses collapsed in Dandar village of Hoshab teshil and near Turbat. According to local people, a leader of the Balochistan National Party-M, Munir Ahmed Mirwani, died in Awaran. The phone and road links between several areas and the rest of the country were severed, adding to the difficulties of the rescue teams. Awaran Deputy Commissioner Rashid Baloch said almost all houses and shops in the town and nearby villages had been destroyed or damaged. He said at least 19 people had died in the town, while reports of losses from remote areas were yet to be received. “We have launched a rescue and relief operation in the affected areas in collaboration with the army and Frontier Corps,” the official said. He said immediate supply of tents, food and medicines was needed for thousands of people rendered homeless. FC sources said a Levies camp in Awaran had also been destroyed. Local people said no building in the town, including those of hospitals, schools and government buildings, remained intact. “There is no proper place for providing shelter to the affected people,” local journalist Shabir Rakhsani said, adding that a large number of women and children were out in the open, waiting for help. He said that the local administration had provided some tents but they were not adequate because thousands of homeless people needed shelter. The FC said its teams were carrying out rescue and relief work in Awaran Bazaar, Bedi, Labach, Pirandar, Terteej, Jhaol, Mashkay and other areas of the district. Addressing a press conference in Quetta, government spokesman Mir Jan Mohammad Badini said Kech, Gwadar and Khuzdar districts had also been affected but Awaran was the worst hit. Provincial Finance Secretary Dostain Jamaldini said the governments of Iran and Turkey had offered to send relief for the affected people. He said the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and governments of Punjab and Sindh had also offered help. “On an offer made by the Sindh chief secretary, we have asked him to send two truckloads of medicines to areas of Awaran adjacent to Sindh,” he said. The Pakistan Army has dispatched two helicopters with food packets, medicines and other relief goods.
Island pops up off Gwadar By Faiza Ilyas KARACHI: The earthquake that struck parts of Balochistan and Sindh on Tuesday was followed by the emergence of an island off the coast of Gwadar. . “The island popped up soon after the earthquake. Our staff stationed in Gwadar has reported that the island is about one and a half kilometres away from the coastline,” Dr Asif Inam, the Principal Scientific Officer of the National Institute of Oceanography, said. “The island appears to be about 200 metres long, 20 metres high and 100 metres wide. But all this information needs to be verified scientifically. Detailed information will be available tomorrow when the staff visit the site and collect samples,” he added. An NIO team from Karachi will also visit the site this week. According to scientists, the Makran coastal belt is reported to have extensive reserves of frozen methane that exist in the form of gas hydrates (crystalline water-based solids physically resembling ice, formed under conditions of relatively high pressures and low temperatures) hundreds of metres below the sea floor. And whenever this highly pressurised gas finds a weak space to release some of its energy, a dome-like structure (island) is created within the waters or it emerges on the sea surface. “The space to release energy could be formed due to tectonic movements, creating some fractures and fissures in the strata. Sometimes, the structures do not come out of the water and so go unnoticed,” Dr Inam said. Explaining the topography of the area, Dr Inam said that it was an active seismic region where three tectonic plates — Indian, Eurasian and Arabian — were converging. “The area is required to be mapped in detail to ascertain the potentially hazardous parts. Besides, the area could be explored to overcome the energy crisis.” According to Dr Inam, the analysis of previously tested gas samples taken from the water column of the Malan island showed that it contained methane, ethane, propane and butane. All data pointed to the presence of microbiologically generated bacterial methane, excluding thermogenic gas. It’s the third time in 15 years that such a phenomenon has occurred along the Balochistan coast. Earlier, islands emerged in 1999 and in 2011 at a distance of two kilometres from the Makran coast near the point where the Hingol River drains into the sea. Both islands emerged without an earthquake and collapsed due to strong currents and winds. The same area witnessed an island’s emergence in 1945, following an earthquake.
Pakistan, UK to fight common threats By Iftikhar A. Khan ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: Pakistan and the United Kingdom worked on Tuesday to give a shape to plans for coping with shared threats in a more meaningful fashion and agreed to intensify efforts to combat terrorism, narcotics trafficking, organised crimes and illegal immigration.. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and British Home Secretary Theresa May signed a memorandum of understanding on ways of countering narcotics trafficking. The MoU recognises that illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs, precursor chemicals and the resultant money-laundering adversely affect security, health, economy and the general welfare of both the countries. It also stresses the need to strengthen international law-enforcement cooperation in combating narcotics trafficking and related crimes. Mr Nisar and Ms May also signed an implementing protocol under the EU readmissions agreement which will allow the continued dignified return of illegal migrants. The Chairman of the National Database Registration Authority and the UK Home Office’s Director of Returns signed a procedural agreement to allow biometric checks based on the Nadra database to fast-track the documentation of returnees. Under the project charter, Nadra will collect data of illegal Pakistani immigrants residing in the UK. A subsequent exercise of their repatriation is expected to help promote legal immigration, including that of Pakistani students. According to a joint statement issued after a meeting between Chaudhry Nisar and Secretary May, the two sides agreed to improve anti-terror cooperation, setting the vision for counter-terrorism cooperation to 2018. This will be formalised at the next round of Pakistan-UK National Security Dialogue. The two sides agreed that it was essential to address the root causes of terrorism. “Unless the drivers of radicalisation were tackled, terrorism would always remain,” the joint statement said. They decided to share expertise and details of projects to curb violent extremism. Ms May spoke about ways the British government used emergency coordination structures in response to crisis and how civilian agencies coordinated on a daily basis. Britain agreed to share expertise on ways of managing security on a day-to-day basis to keep citizens safe. The UK agreed to continue its support in tackling the scourge of improvised explosive devices, particularly public awareness campaigns, and to share expertise in safeguarding sporting events and aviation security. Ms May supported the initiative to set up immigration vigilance unit within the Federal Investigation Agency. The two sides agreed that there should be fast-tracked information sharing between the UK’s new National Crime Agency, Home Office and the FIA to prosecute the facilitators of migration crime. The UK agreed to assist the FIA in increasing its capacity to prevent illegal migration and gather intelligence to be used to prosecute visa agents. The two sides also agreed to explore the potential of reaching an agreement that would allow deportation of individuals suspected of terrorism. Ms May said the UK would unveil a new serious and organised crime strategy in October. The UK’s new national crime agency will become operational next month and work with the law-enforcement partners, the ANF, FIA and FBR, to combat the threat from serious, organised and complex crimes.She recognised the importance of steps taken by the PML-N government, particularly in formulating a national security strategy and new structures to coordinate military and civilian efforts. Speaking at a joint press conference, Chaudhry Nisar said Pakistan had an important role to play in the pullout of international forces from Afghanistan in 2014. He said the decision to hold talks with the Taliban had been taken in view of the ground realities at that time. Although subsequent developments were irritating, the policy could not be reversed because of an isolated incident, he said. He said the situation would be reviewed on return of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from the US and any decision for a change would be taken as and when required. He said it was too early to determine who was behind the church attack in Peshawar, but the government was looking at the matter very closely. “We will pursue them (assailants) and take them to task.” Chaudhry Nisar said those who had killed foreign climbers had been nabbed within six weeks. Ms May said Pakistan and the UK shared many interests and their relations were based on mutual trust and respect. She acknowledged that Pakistan had been in the forefront in combating terrorism and violent extremism and suffered more than any other country in the fight against terror.
Shells fired from Afghanistan kill two tribesmen By Our Correspondent MIRAMSHAH, Sept 24: Two people were killed and another was injured when one of the mortar shells fired from Afghanistan hit their house in North Waziristan Agency on Tuesday. . According to sources, eight shells were fired from the Nato’s Tarkhobi post in the Afghan province of Khost. One of the shells hit the house in tehsil Ghulam Khan, killing the two tribesmen and injuring another. They belonged to the same family. The house was damaged. AFP adds: An intelligence official in Miramshah, the main town of North Waziristan, confirmed that the mortars had been fired from the Tarkhobi checkpost in Khost province.
Drone use restricted: Obama By Masood Haider and Anwar Iqbal UNITED NATIONS, Sept 24: US President Barack Obama remembered the victims of the Peshawar blasts before 133 world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday and also announced that he had limited the use of drones in the war against terror. . “In Pakistan, nearly 100 people were recently killed by suicide bombers outside a church,” said Mr Obama in his address to the 68th session of the world body. The US president remembered the victims again while emphasising the need for creating a new and peaceful world. “A world where human beings can live with dignity and meet their basic needs, whether they live in New York or Nairobi; in Peshawar or Damascus,” he said. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was also among the audience as Mr Obama spoke and US television channels focused on Mr Sharif as their president spoke about the Peshawar blasts. Mr Obama noted that other nations often had conflicting expectations from the world’s sole superpower, some urging it to play a more active role while others asking it to stay out of their disputes. These attitudes, he said, had also had an impact on the public opinion in the United States where people were now demanding its government to reduce its involvement in world affairs. The United States, however, would stay involved wherever it was needed, as America’s absence from the international scene would pose a greater threat to world peace, he said. “For the United States, these new circumstances have also meant shifting away from a perpetual war footing,” he said. Besides bringing its troops home, the United States also has “limited the use of drones so they target only those who pose a continuing, imminent threat to the United States where capture is not feasible”, he said. In an indirect reference to the charge that the drones also killed many civilians, Mr Obama said that now “there is a near certainty of no civilian casualties”. Despite these concerns, he said, the United States would not shy away from fighting the terrorist and would continue its efforts to dismantle terrorist networks that threatened its people. “Wherever possible, we will build the capacity of our partners, respect the sovereignty of nations, and work to address the root causes of terror,” he said. “But when it’s necessary to defend the United States against terrorist attack, we will take direct action.” Mr Obama also said that his administration was transferring detainees to other countries and trying terrorists in courts of law, while working diligently to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The United States, he said, had also begun to review the way that it gathered intelligence, so that “we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share”. Mr Obama said his administration had worked to reduce America’s involvement in wars and conflicts, bringing back US troops from Iraq and taking steps to recall most of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year. Still, the world continued to face new threats as recent events in Kenya and Pakistan showed, he added. Al Qaeda continues to “pose serious threats to governments and diplomats, businesses and civilians all across the globe”, he warned. Convulsions in the Middle East and North Africa, he said, had laid bare deep divisions within societies, as an old order was upended and people grappled with what came next.
Zardari grieves over loss of lives in quake By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has expressed grief and sorrow over the devastation caused by the earthquake that hit parts of Balochistan and Sindh on Tuesday. . He also urged the PPP workers to help victims of the calamity. About 60 people died and over 200 others were injured when an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit Pakistan. A large number of houses were razed to the ground trapping scores of people under the debris. Farhatullah Babar, the spokesman for the ex-president said: “Former president is deeply grieved and shocked to learn about the earthquake and the loss of lives in Awaran [Balochistan].” Mr Zardari said the earthquake had once again brought into focus the frailty of human beings before the forces of nature. He said the federal and provincial governments and local administration must’ve had mobilised their resources in rescue, relief and rehabilitation of victims. Mr Zardari prayed for grant of eternal peace to the dead and courage to the bereaved families. “My heart goes out to bereaved families and my thoughts and prayers are with them in this hour of trial and tribulation,” the spokesman quoted the former president as saying.
Nust fines girls for wearing jeans, tights By Ikram Junaidi ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: The management of National University of Sciences and Technology (Nust) has made it mandatory for female students to wear ‘dupatta’ and put a ban on wearing ‘jeans’ in the premises of the university, according to sources. . The Nust’s management, however, has denied the report, saying that students have been instructed to wear ‘decent’ dresses. According to a notice pasted on the notice board of the university, 11 students have been fined because of different reasons, including smoking and eating in labs. As many as seven students have been fined for not wearing dupatta or wearing jeans and tights. A document signed by Nust’s Deputy Director (Administration) Abdul Nasir shows that some female students have been fined Rs500 to Rs1,000 for wearing jeans and tights and for not wearing dupatta. According to the document, RA, a student of BBA, was fined Rs1,000 for wearing jeans and SM, another BBA student, was fined Rs500 for wearing tights. Another five students — ZB, HA, AT, AB and SM — were asked to pay fines ranging between Rs500 and Rs1,000 for not wearing dupatta. All the students were checked on Sept 17 and were found without dupatta. According to a faculty member, Nust does not allow formation of academic staff association. Talking on condition of anonymity, he said no one from faculty members would comment on the issue. The environment in the university was very strict because all important administrative posts were held by retired army officers, he added. “Male and female students are not allowed to sit together and they are fined for violation. Teachers and students know that they will be fired and rusticated if they do anything against the will of the administration,” he said. Another faculty member who works in the Rawalpindi campus of the university said that top management of the university was liberal, but junior officers were very strict and they were running the university like a ‘military academy’. TALKING POINT: The Nust issue has become much talked about among the youth of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. They are sending messages on cellular phones to each other and posting their comments on social media networks. A student posted on Twitter: “There is a separate cafe which boys can go to after 5 and separate cafe for girls….. Hide conversation.” Another student Twitted: “Wow.. never had an idea Nust was the taliban markaz.. thank God I didnt submit fee there.” One student wrote: “Its the new Pro-Rector who is coming up with such awesome rules. It was bearable before.” Nust’s spokesman Irshad Rao was contacted through Public Relation Officer Syed Raza Ali, but he refused to respond on the issue. Mr Raza Ali told Dawn that he had seen the notice but he could not say anything about it because the management did not share such things with the media wing. “As far as I know the management has instructed students to wear formal dresses and in case of violation they are fined. The Media wing will look into it on Wednesday,” he added. Personal Staff Officer of Rector Col Mohsin said that students were allowed to wear any kind of dress. However, he added, students were not allowed to wear indecent dresses. “Shorts are not allowed in university’s premises. As far as Hijab is concerned, it is up to the will of parents,” he said. When he was asked about the notice of fines, Mr Mohsin said that he was not aware of it.
UK-based group releases list of drone victims By Our Reporter ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: A UK-based independent organisation launched on Tuesday a project aimed at identifying the victims of drone strikes in Pakistan and released its first list of over 550 victims — both civilians and militants. . The list, released by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on its website, contains the names of 295 civilians, 255 alleged militants (74 of them are classified as senior commanders), 95 children (counted in the civilian total) and only two women. The project, titled ‘Naming the Dead’, builds on the bureau’s two-year work tracking drone strikes in Pakistan and the number of people reportedly killed. In its research the bureau has found that at least 2,500 people, including 400 civilians, have reportedly been killed. But almost nothing is known about the identities of the dead. The Obama administration has claimed that drones are a highly precise weapon that target Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups, while causing almost no civilian harm. But it does not publish its own account of who it believes has been killed. The bureau’s journalists have revisited all media reports, court documents and other sources to compile data which identified 568 individuals by name. But an estimated four out of five drone victims are not named in the available sources. At the launch of the project, the bureau will publish case studies of 20 individuals — both civilians and alleged militants. Over the coming months, it will extend its research to add to the list names and biographical details of more individuals. The bureau expressed the hope that families and friends of those killed in drone strikes would come forward to corroborate, contradict or offer additional details to help build a full picture of the victims. “Reporting from Pakistan’s tribal regions is challenging and there are many individuals whose name is the only thing we know of them. Sometimes we only have part of a name,” says the bureau. “Casualty recording efforts such as ‘Naming the Dead’ are an important step towards avoiding future conflicts,” says Hamit Dardagan, co-director of the Every Casualty Campaign which calls for every death in conflict to be recorded. “Casualty recording is a way of recognising the humanity of people who have been killed, and making not just their death but also the manner of their death part of the public record, which is important if one is to prevent these kinds of deaths happening again.” Christopher Hird, managing editor of the bureau, said: “The bureau’s drones project has played an important part in helping to inform the debate about the use of drones in warfare. Until now we have concentrated on getting the most reliable numbers for those killed. But in the end this is about people — men, women and children; civilians and militants. “Naming the Dead aims to both put names to these numbers and also to give fuller biographical details of those who have died so that the public and politicians can better understand the complexity of what is happening on the ground in Pakistan.”
Rs320m Saudi donation goes missing, Senate body told By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: About Rs320 million reportedly donated by Prince Fahd Bin Sultan, the governor of the Tabuk region of Saudi Arabia, for construction of a transmission line in Balochistan is allegedly missing, prompting a parliamentary sub-committee to order a detailed investigation.. Fateh Mohammad Hassani, who presided over a meeting of sub-committee of the Senate standing committee on finance and revenue, ordered the probe by the ministry of foreign affairs and the Saudi embassy in Islamabad. “It should be made known to the people of Pakistan if the Saudi prince made a donation; who received the money; and where has it gone, because executing agencies are completely ignorant about the donation,” he said. Mr Hassani said the ministry of foreign affairs should investigate the matter and also get in touch with the Saudi ambassador. He said the governor of Tabuk had himself informed him (Mr Hassani) about the donation for laying a 150km transmission line in the Chhattar area.“Obviously, an honourable person like Prince Fahd could not be wrong.” He comes to the area for hunting every year. Mr Hassani’s repeated questions about the recipient of the donation, the banking channel used for the purpose, the account in which it was placed and the manner it was utilised, evoked response based on ignorance from the relevant authorities, including the project director of the Quetta Electric Supply Company, additional secretary of water and power ministry, Wapda chairman and additional secretaries of the planning commission. “Then where has this money gone? We need to know how this money went missing and reached whose pockets if you don’t have its record and have not utilised it,” he said. The committee was informed that upgradation of the transmission line for Dera Murad Jamali, Rojhan Jamali, Usta Mohammad and Jhal Magsi had been approved more than six years ago at a cost of Rs1.998 billion, but no disbursements were made even though sizable allocations were made for the project every year. The meeting, also attended by Humayun Khan Mandokhel, expressed serious concerns over lack of coordination and cooperation among the ministries of water and power and finance, the planning commission and Wapda, resulting in colossal losses to the exchequer in the form of cost overruns and loss of opportunity and economic benefits. The committee was particularly worried over cost escalation of Kachhi canal project from Rs31bn in 2006-07 to over Rs88.79bn at present. The project was originally scheduled to be completed by June 2014, but only 36 per cent progress had been achieved so far. Security situation in Rajanpur in Punjab and Dera Bugti in Balochistan were cited as some of the reasons for it. Wapda officials informed the committee that Darawat dam, Hingol dam, Winder dam, Naulong dam and Sabakzai dam were behind schedule because funds required by Wapda were not provided in time. Wapda chairman Ragheb Abbas Shah said Wapda had completed Greater Thal Canal project, Mangla dam upraising, Allai Khwar and Khan Khwar hydropower projects on time and raised liabilities for these projects but completion certificates had not been provided by relevant federal and provincial authorities. The sub-committee expressed dismay over non-completion of projects and non-disbursement of funds for projects in Balochistan announced with lot of fanfare as if a revolution was taking place in the province. It wondered why funds were not released for projects in Balochistan even though it was a good sign that schemes in other provinces were being timely completed. “If you don’t want to disburse funds or release Rs5m against Rs1bn, you better stop these projects because we cannot allow this wastage. With Rs5m funds for a project, you cannot do anything. This goes into waste. Stop this and focus on projects that could be completed,” said Mr Hassani. He said that due to non-finalisation of PC-4 (completion certificate) half of the country’s development budget was being wasted and nobody was being held accountable.
Quake left at least 328 dead, 300,000 affected By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, Sept 25: As desperate villagers in the districts hit by Tuesday’s powerful earthquake clawed through the wreckage of their homes and rescuers struggled to help thousands of people injured and left homeless, the Balochistan government said on Wednesday that about 300,000 people had been affected and 328 deaths confirmed in Awaran and Kech, but the toll might increase.. However, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said it would use its own available resources for the rescue and relief, despite offers for help by the United Nations agencies, international donors and some countries. “We have enough resources to cope with the situation that has emerged after the earthquake in Awaran and Kech, although international donors and some friendly countries have also offered their cooperation,” NDMA Chairman Maj Gen Mohammad Saeed Aleem said. He said the NDMA’s relief goods stock in Karachi had been transported to the two districts and was being distributed among the affected people through the army, Frontier Corps and local administration. About 1,500 troops and army doctors and paramedics continued rescue and relief work along with FC personnel. The provincial government has released Rs180 million for purchase of relief goods and the rescue operation. Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch is likely to arrive here on Thursday after cutting short his visit to London. Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad and the Commander of Southern Command, Lt Gen Nasir Khan Janjua, visited the affected areas and conducted an aerial survey to assess the damage. Rescue teams retrieved bodies from the debris of collapsed houses in various areas of Awaran and Kech, gave emergency first aid to the injured and took them to hospitals. They also provided tents, food, drinking water and medicines to the homeless. But rescue workers had yet to reach several remote villages where people were reported to be trapped under debris and thousands of women and children were among those sitting in the open after their homes had collapsed. The number of tents provided to the affected families turned out to be inadequate. The region faced a shortage of drinking water in hot weather because the water supply schemes had been damaged and pipelines broken by the quake. Reports reaching here said a number of bodies were yet to be retrieved from the rubble. “Five bodies of children have been taken out from and 10 others have been rescued alive from the debris of a mosque in Mashkay,” officials said. Many of the bodies were decomposed and a larger number of the injured had suffered fractures. While people held funerals and buried the bodies of their loved ones, there were reports that some of the victims were laid to rest in collective graves. Non-availability of water also caused difficulties in performing religious rites. Official sources said heavy destruction had taken place in Teerteej, Mangoli, Bedi, Labach, Pirandar, Jhao and Mashkay. “About 100 people died in the Teerteej area of Awaran district, the worst affected by the earthquake,” they said. The officials said 160 people had died in Awaran and 125 in Mashkay tehsil, while 43 deaths had been reported from Hoshab tehsil of Kech district. Awaran Deputy Commissioner Abdul Rashid Baloch said thousands of homes had been destroyed and some villages had cased to exist. The chief secretary told Dawn after visiting the area that teams of officials had been formed to assess the losses and the severely injured were being taken to the civil hospitals in Hub, Uthal and Karachi. Teams of the Pakistan Army and the health department were also providing emergency medical aid to the injured. Troops were sent from Karachi, Khuzdar and Quetta to Kech and Awaran for the rescue work. Five lady doctors from the army are also serving in the affected area. Six army helicopters are taking part in transporting relief goods from Quetta. Talking to reporters after arriving here on Wednesday, Maj Gen Aleem, the NDMA chairman, said the federal government and the army had given a free hand to the authority to avail all resources to carry out rescue and relief work in the affected districts of Balochistan. “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has offered me a ‘blank cheque’ to cater for the needs of the people of Awaran and Kech affected by the earthquake,” he said. He said an aerial survey carried out in collaboration with Suparco and the air force had revealed that massive destruction had taken place. He said Khuzdar and Bela would be the hub for the relief activities.Additional Chief Secretary (Planning and Development) Aslam Shakir Baloch said rescue teams were facing some difficulties in reaching remote areas because roads had been badly damaged by the quake. Addressing a press conference, Balochistan government spokesman Mir Jan Mohammad Buledi said the army and the Frontier Corps had set up their camps in the affected areas and their personnel and doctors were carrying out rescue and relief work. The additional chief secretary said the government’s first priority was to rescue the survivors and a plan for compensation and rehabilitation would be prepared afterwards. The Provincial Disaster Management Authority’s Director General Hafiz Abdul Basit said 19 trucks carrying food, tents and other items had reached the affected areas and 10 more trucks were being sent. He said seven truckloads of relief goods had been provided by the NDMA. Health Secretary Abdul Sabboor said 30 doctors had reached the affected areas and 25 ambulances were taking the injured to hospitals in collaboration with the Edhi Ambulance Service. The provincial finance secretary said a meeting had been held on Wednesday with officials of UN agencies and international donors who had assured the Balochistan government of their cooperation.According to Reuters, a journalist described scenes of grief and chaos in Awaran villages, saying survivors were digging rows of graves and picking through the debris. In the village of Dalbedi, the earthquake flattened some 250 houses, an AFP photographer said. Their simple houses destroyed, the villagers used rags, old clothes, sheets and tree branches to shelter their families from the sun. Farmer Noor Ahmed, 45, said: “Even our food is now buried under mud and water from underground channels is now undrinkable because of excessive mud in it due to the earthquake.” Mr Buledi, the Balochistan government’s spokesman, said over 300,000 people had been affected across Awaran, Kech, Gwadar, Panjgur, Chaghai and Khuzdar districts. “We need more tents, more medicine and more food.” “We will receive satellite images tonight and then we will be in a position to analyse the magnitude of the losses,” the NDMA chief said. To the south, on the beach near Gwadar port, crowds of bewildered residents gathered to witness the rare phenomenon of an island that the quake sent shooting up out of the sea. A navy team reached the island on Wednesday.“There are stones and mud,” navy geologist Mohammed Danish said, warning residents not to try to visit the island. “Gases are still emitting.”But a number of people had already set foot on the island, said the deputy commissioner of Gwadar district, Tufail Baloch. Water bubbled along the edges of the island, in what appeared to be gas discharging from under the surface, he said. He said the area smelled of gas that caught fire when people lit cigarettes. Dead fish floated on the water’s surface while local residents were visiting the island and taking stones as souvenirs, he added. Such land masses had appeared before off the Makran coast, said Muhammed Arshad, a hydrographer with the navy. After quakes in 1999 and 2010, new land masses rose up along a different part of the coast. Both of them disappeared into the sea within a year during the monsoon rain season. He said that in the area where the island was created on Tuesday, the sea was only about six to seven metres deep.
Nawaz says he is looking forward to meeting Singh By Anwar Iqbal and Masood Haider UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday that he was looking forward to his meeting with his Indian counterpart later this week and hoped that the talks would help improve relations between the two neighbours. . Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confirmed his plan to meet Mr Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Sept 29. “I will be very happy to meet him (Singh) and we hope to pick up the threads from where we left in 1999,” Mr Sharif told reporters at the UN building. In 1999, Mr Sharif had invited then Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Lahore and the visit, dubbed as “bus yatra” by India, raised hopes of a rapprochement between the two neighbours. An armed conflict in the Kargil region of Kashmir, however, dashed hopes for peace. Mr Sharif reiterated his resolve for promoting peace with India when reporters asked him to comment on the Indian prime minister’s confirmation of the Sept 29 meeting. In a statement issued before his departure for the US, Mr Singh said: “I also look forward to bilateral meetings with the leaders of some of our neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.” Mr Singh will meet US President Barack Obama in Washington on Sept 27 before coming to New York to address the UN General Assembly. Although the Pakistanis have not yet outlined the agenda for the Sharif-Singh meeting, Indian officials have said the issue of terrorism would figure prominently in the talks. Pakistani officials, however, underlined Mr Sharif’s commitment to improving ties with India, pointing out that despite a downturn in ties after LoC clashes, the prime minister had been pushing for a meeting with Singh in New York. Meanwhile, Mr Sharif continued his meetings with world leaders on his third day at the UN General Assembly, although he also caused speculations by skipping the US president’s reception for world leaders. President Barack Obama hosted his annual reception for world leaders on Tuesday evening before returning to Washington after a busy day at the UN. Although all eyes were focused on President Hassan Rouhani, as many expected him to attend the reception, some media outlets also noted that the Iranian leader was not the only dignitary who failed to show up. The Pakistani prime minister was also absent. The prime minister’s media team, when asked to explain why Mr Sharif skipped Mr Obama’s reception, said he had other engagements. Mr Sharif, however, did meet other world leaders and, according to Pakistani officials who briefed the media, the meetings focused on the country’s energy and economic needs. In his meeting with the Iranian president, the prime minister also discussed the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project, which was initiated by the PPP government. “The project is not stalled, it is going on,” said a senior Foreign Office official while briefing Pakistani journalists. “Cooperation in the energy sector serves both the countries.” He said the finance ministry was aware of the difficulties it might face in raising money for the project, which was opposed by the United States, and was working to overcome those problems. “It is our understanding that US sanctions do not apply to this project; this is our legal assessment,” said the official when asked if the project could trigger US sanctions on Pakistan. Prime Minister Sharif and President Rouhani also agreed that Afghanistan’s neighbours should work closely with the Afghan government and support an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led political process.
Taliban be allowed to open office for talks: Imran By Ashfaq Yusufzai PESHAWAR, Sept 25: PTI Chairman Imran Khan urged the government on Wednesday to allow Taliban to open an office for the peace dialogue to be held in accordance of a decision of the recently held all-party conference. . “If the government is serious about pursuing the dialogue process with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan it should allow them to have their own office like the one opened by the Afghan Taliban in Qatar,” Imran Khan told reporters outside the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. “If the Americans can allow the opening of office in Qatar to facilitate talks with the Afghan Taliban, why can’t we do in our own country,” he said. Mr Khan visited the hospital for the second time since Sunday’s twin suicide attacks on the All Saints Church and met the injured in different wards. He said he was surprised that while there were prospects of talks with the Taliban, acts of terrorism were continuing. How is it possible to negotiate, he asked, when terror strikes continued unabated. He said that although the APC had decided to go for negotiations instead of using force, so far no mechanism had been put in place for the dialogue. The government should demonstrate some seriousness and declare a ceasefire to pave the way for result-oriented talks and to establish peace in the country. Without holding talks with the militants, he said, it would not be possible to end terrorism. He warned that the war against terrorism would continue to haunt the people of the country if his suggestion for a Taliban office was not taken seriously. People could no more live with terrorism because it halted progress, he added. “Unfortunately, the church bombing in which innocent people were killed has been politicised by some politicians. It is shameful. We should stand by Christian brethren in these trying times,” he said. Mr Khan said people wanted peace and for that they had voted for candidates of his party. “We will make every effort to get rid of terrorism so that people can heave a sigh of relief.” He said that nine years ago there was only one Taliban group but now 35 groups were operating in the country.
Sami links peace with Taliban talks By Aamir Yasin RAWALPINDI, Sept 25: Maulana Samiul Haq, the chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-S) and believed to be mentor of Afghan Taliban, has advised the government not to abandon the process of dialogue “if it wants to restore peace in the country”. . He criticised Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan for his statement about reviewing plans for talks after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s return from New York. “The agenda of the federal government is unclear. Neither the talks have started nor the government has presented its conditions,” the Maulana said at a press conference here on Wednesday. Indirectly calling for release of detained Taliban in order to kick-start the ‘peace process’, he said the US had freed some detainees from Guantanamo Bay to advance the process of peace in Afghanistan. “There will be complete peace in the country in eight to 10 days if Pakistan abandoned the war on terror,” he said. “We could ourselves fight with Taliban for peace once the government stopped the so-called war on terror,” he said without elaborating. Criticising the centre’s plan for the talks, the Maulana regretted that he or the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had not yet been approached by the federal government for initiating the dialogue. To a question he claimed that he could bring the two sides on the table if approached by the government. He denounced a recent attack on senior army officers in Dir and the Peshawar church carnage and said that those were the acts of anti-Pakistan elements who wanted to sabotage the process of peace talks. About the militants’ claiming responsibility for the horrific attacks, he said the enemies of the country had done this to create confusion. He criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leadership for proposing an amendment to the blasphemy laws. He called upon law-enforcement agencies to launch a massive operation in Karachi against target killers and terrorists as ordered by the Supreme Court.
Shah wants parliament briefed on IMF talks By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: The Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khurshid Shah, criticised the government on Wednesday for keeping the parliament in dark on its interaction with the International Monetary Fund and said he would raise the matter in the assembly.. Informed sources told Dawn that Mr Shah informed the opposition parties about his ongoing consultation with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the appointment of new chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). Talking to reporters after presiding over a meeting of the joint parliamentary group of opposition parties, except the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Mr Shah said an adjournment motion would soon be submitted to the National Assembly Secretariat to seek a debate on the agreement the government had reached with the IMF. On the issue of talks with Taliban, Mr Shah said all political parties had mandated the PML-N government to hold talks with the militants and they wanted to give adequate time to the government. But he said that an unnecessary delay in the process would not be allowed.
Another two islands emerge off coast By Faiza Ilyas KARACHI, Sept 25: Following the emergence of an island on Tuesday off the coast of Gwadar, two others have emerged along the Balochistan coast, according to sources. . “The two new islands are located a few miles from Bidok and Bal, two villages along the coast of Ormara and Pasni. The information about the islands has been provided by local fishermen and tribal elders,” said Mohammad Moazzam Khan, a technical adviser to the World Wide Fund for Nature. “The two new islands also seem to have been formed due to the earthquake that hit the province on Tuesday. Detailed information will be available tomorrow when our technical staff will visit the sites,” Mr Khan added. Meanwhile, a team of the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) visited on Wednesday the island which emerged off the Gwadar coast and found methane gas being emitted from various spots. “The team has collected samples of rocks, water and sediment which will be analysed at the institute’s laboratory in Karachi. Another team will thoroughly examine the site in a few days,” said Dr Asif Inam of the NIO. He put the island’s size at 50 metres long, 20m wide and 10m above the sea level. The island, he said, was largely composed of mud and seemed to have emerged in a similar fashion as did Malan island in 2011. The new island was emitting pure methane that was used in households, he added. NIO Director General Dr Ali Rashid Tabrez said Makran region was seismically an active zone and the coastal belt was reported to have extensive reserves of frozen methane. “It’s common to see air bubbles at the surface of seawater along the coast. These bubbles are formed when gas is released on account of variation in sea temperature or any other change,” he said. According to Dr Tabrez, the reserves of frozen methane exist in the form of gas hydrates (crystalline water-based solids physically resembling ice, formed under conditions of relatively high pressures and low temperatures) hundreds of metres below the sea floor. “When this highly pressurised gas finds a weak space to release some of its energy, a dome-like structure (island) is created within the waters or it emerges on the sea surface. The space to release energy could be formed due to tectonic movements, creating some fractures and fissures in the strata,” he said. The island, he said, might collapse as happened before (in case of Malan island) and vanish in a few months because of strong wave action and gradual easing out of gas pressure. In reply to a question about exploiting gas hydrates for commercial use, he said there were few methods available for the purpose but research for a safe and cost-efficient technology was under way in many countries, including the US, Japan, Peru, Canada and India. “Japan is excited over the discovery of gas hydrates in its territory in recent years and has carried out successful experiments. It is hoped that an environment-friendly technology will be available within a year or two to extract gas from these reserves,” he said. He said Pakistan needed to carry out a survey of the reserves, adding that work on gas deposits had begun with the signing of an agreement with China this year. According to AFP, enterprising boat owners were doing a brisk trade ferrying curious sightseers to the island — dubbed ‘Earthquake Mountain’ by local people.
Opposition walks out over govt ‘apathy’ to quake By Raja Asghar ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: Despite its claims of being active on the ground, the government showed only dim interest in the National Assembly on Wednesday about Tuesday’s killer earthquake in Balochistan, provoking an opposition walkout and a scathing charge that it was insensitive to the disaster in a remote region. . It was after some procedural confusion and argument that the treasury benches endorsed an opposition-sponsored resolution that the house passed unanimously to express its “deepest shock” over the 7.8-magnitude quake which, according to a provincial government control room in Quetta, killed more than 300 people and injured over 400, mainly in Awaran district, and called upon the government to “expedite its rescue and relief efforts in the affected regions”. And then, seeing empty front ministerial benches in the house, Leader of Opposition Khursheed Ahmed Shah blasted the government for what he called its lack of interest in the people’s suffering. The protest walkout by all opposition parties, led by Mr Shah, came after the house reassembled following a break for Zohar prayer with hardly any minister present, and prompted a counter-charge by Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique, who came to the house later, that the opposition was playing to the galleries. It was amidst some chants of “shame, shame” from the opposition benches that Mr Shah noted the absence of most ministers from the house in his speech after the house passed the resolution and regretted the government’s “silence” on such a big disaster a day after its occurrence. “What the government is doing?” he asked and said it should have come with a statement in the house about the number of casualties and damage caused by the earthquake in Awaran and some other districts of Balochistan. “It is easy to come to power but it is very difficult to run a government,” Mr Shah said in his harshest remarks to date about the 114-day-old PML-N government and added that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, now in New York to address the UN General Assembly session, should have drawn world’s attention to the calamity. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed promised a detailed government statement to be made in the house on Thursday, although he said the federal government was in touch with the Balochistan government while the prime minister too had assured the provincial government of all possible federal assistance. The railways minister reacted mildly in his first speech to what he called “valid” criticism of the opposition leader about ministerial absenteeism — though he said at least seven ministers were present in the house when he was speaking — but he unleashed an outburst in his second speech after the opposition walkout, mainly targeting the PPP, accusing its previous government of brining torment to the country. PPP lawmakers did not return to the house after the walkout, though some others did, before the house was adjourned until 10.30am on Thursday.
Extortionists attack shop owned by Mamnoon’s nephew By Our Staff Reporter KARACHI, Sept 25: A complaint has been lodged with the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) that an ice cream parlour reportedly owned by a man said to be a relative of President Mamnoon Hussain came under gun attack on Tuesday night after he failed to pay extortion money.. Police said on Wednesday they were verifying the claim about the attack on the shop in the Aram Bagh area and owned by Abdul Mutlib, said to be a nephew of the president. They said the attack or demand for extortion had not been reported to the police station concerned. SDPO Preedy ASP Haider Raza told Dawn that after the attack carried out by extortionists at 8:30pm, he telephoned Mr Mutlib, who informed him that he had received the extortion chit. The officer said that Mr Mutlib had reported the incident to the CPLC. The ASP said when he visited the shop, an employee informed him that he had heard the sound of gunshot, but there were no signs of firing on the shop. He said other shopkeepers in the area did not confirm the incident. However, the ASP said, two policemen had been deployed at the shop for security. Meanwhile, CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy said that Mr Mutlib had reported the extortion complaint to the CPLC a few days ago. “We are working on it,” he added.
Afghanistan wants key role for Mullah Baradar in peace process By Iftikhar A. Khan ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: Syed Farukh Shah Faryabi Jenab, who is heading an Afghan parliamentary delegation, said on Wednesday that the release of Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar would be meaningless if he was unable to play a role in the peace process.. “We are not seeking Mullah Baradar’s handing over to Afghanistan, but he should be freed in real terms to make the initiative purposeful,” he said at a press conference at the end of the ninth round of Pakistan-Afghanistan parliamentary dialogue in Islamabad. The dialogue, facilitated by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, takes place alternatively in Islamabad and Kabul. Syed Jenab, who is Secretary of the Meshrano Jirga (Afghan Senate), said the presence of US combat forces in Afghanistan after the pullout of Nato troops in 2014 should not be a cause of concern for Pakistan. As a sovereign country, he said, Afghanistan had the right to develop relations with any country. “But the principle remains that the Afghan soil would not be used against any other country.” Talking to Dawn he said US troops would remain in Afghanistan under some agreement but in no way that would harm the interests of Pakistan. He said Afghanistan’s relations with India should also not worry Pakistan. He rejected a perception that India had more consulates in Afghanistan than in the US and UK put together and these would be used for activities against Pakistan. According to him, the number of Indian consulates in Afghanistan has remained unchanged since the days of King Zahir Shah, adding that Pakistan and India have almost the same number of consulates in his country. Syed Jenab said Pakistan and Afghanistan needed to fight together the menace of terrorism and extremism as they faced similar challenges. He and Senator Afrasiab Khattak, who led the Pakistani side in the dialogue, read out a joint statement. It said the participants underlined the need for more active cooperation for thwarting the nefarious designs of terrorist groups active in border areas. They agreed that the terrorist groups were attacking innocent citizens on both sides of the border and creating misunderstanding between the two countries. “Experience has proved that this challenge can only be met through honest cooperation between security institutions of the two countries.” Afghan parliamentarians observed that strengthening of democratic forces in Pakistan was a positive factor for promoting peace and stability in the region. They expressed the hope that the coming presidential and parliamentary elections in Afghanistan would strengthen democracy in their country. The participants were of the considered view that strength of the process of peace and democracy was interlinked. They said that although policy decisions were taken by the executive, parliaments in the two countries needed to play an important role by making proposals to the governments to improve relations and overseeing the governments’ policies in this direction.
Zalmai upbeat on Pakistan ties at UN NEW YORK: Afghanistan’s foreign minister was upbeat on Tuesday about his country’s often-acrimonious relations with its neighbour following Pakistan’s release of a former Taliban deputy leader, a move Kabul had long sought to spur peace talks with the Taliban. He was speaking at the UN General Assembly. . Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul said that the release of Mullah Baradar is the first signal that the new Pakistani leader, Nawaz Sharif, is keeping his promise made during a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai a month ago to cooperate with Afghanistan. Kabul has sought Mullah Baradar’s release since he was arrested in Pakistan in 2010 after holding secret peace talks with the Afghan government. Afghanistan viewed the arrest as an attempt to sabotage the peace effort. Mr Rassoul said that Mr Sharif’s primary aim is to revive Pakistan’s economy, and for that he needs to improve security, which requires working with Afghanistan in the fight against terrorism and extremism. “I’m more optimistic than in the past for the future of relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan,” Mr Rassoul told the Asia Society. “There’s been a lot of up and down in the past. I cannot be sure, but I have more hope now.”—AP
Militants urged not to obstruct quake zone relief work By Saleem Shahid AWARAN, Sept 26: Militants in Balochistan fired at two helicopters carrying federal ministers and the chief of National Disaster Management Authority in Mashkay on Thursday, prompting the government to urge the fighters not to target relief workers as they were a lifeline for thousands of people in distress. . Rescue teams, too, faced difficulties due to threats while tens of thousands of survivors of Tuesday’s earthquake waited for help in soaring temperatures and anger grew at the slow pace of government aid. Officials said the confirmed dead toll in Awaran and Kech had soared to 357 and 520 people had been injured. The helicopters that came under attack were carrying the federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions, retired Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural resources Jam Kamal Khan and NDMA Chairman Maj Gen Muhammad Saeed Aleem. Talking to reporters, Gen Baloch said militants fired at his helicopter when he was flying over Mashkay area to visit the earthquake-hit areas of Awaran along with Mr Kamal. “The bullets passed very close to the helicopters. However, we escaped the attempt on our lives and landed at the destination safely,” he said. He said he had been in the affected areas of Awaran and Kech for the past two days on instructions of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The minister said the earthquake had played havoc in Mashkay, where 200 people died after the roofs and walls of their homes collapsed on them. Other badly affected areas of Awaran included Mallar, Gashkor and Tarteej. He said he had received reports of death of about 400 people in Awaran and Kech. Gen Baloch said three battalions of the Pakistan Army had been moved immediately to the affected areas because the local administration could not cope with the calamity. “Massive destruction has taken place in the area, 60 to 80 per cent houses have collapsed or been badly damaged and thousands of people are sitting in the open in scorching heat,” he said. Only the army had the capability to carryout rescue and relief work on a large scale, Abdul Qadir Baloch added. He said the militants should avoid attacking rescue teams and putting hurdles in relief work. He said militant leader Allah Nazar should realise that the army and Frontier Corps troops had gone to the area to help those devastated by the earthquake.
Singh condemns attack, but says peace dialogue to go on SRINAGAR, Sept 26: Militants dressed in Indian army uniform stormed a police station and an army base in India-held Kashmir on Thursday morning, killing 10 in an attack the region’s chief minister said was aimed at derailing peace talks between India and Pakistan. . Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed the attack “barbaric” but, without mentioning Pakistan, said it would not derail efforts to pursue peace through dialogue. “This is one more in a series of provocations and barbaric actions by the enemies of peace,” Mr Singh said in a statement. “Such attacks will not deter us and will not succeed in derailing our efforts to find a resolution to all problems through a process of dialogue.” Mr Singh and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are set to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly for highly anticipated talks in the next few days. Meanwhile, officials in held Kashmir said three militants lobbed grenades and opened fire at the Hiranagar police station near the border with Pakistan, killing four policemen. They then hijacked a truck and drove to a nearby army base in Samba district where a fierce gunbattle with soldiers took place and Indian tanks were deployed, eyewitnesses and police said. “Four policemen and two civilians were killed by the militants in the attack on the police station,” police official Ashok Prasad said. Two other policemen and a civilian were injured. A senior army officer, who did not want to be named, said that four soldiers, including an officer, were killed in the gunbattle inside the army base. A witness said the militants targeted the cleaner of the truck as they fled the police station. “They asked him where the driver was. They then killed the cleaner and asked the driver to drive them off,” said the man, who did not give his name. While helicopters hovered overhead, a witness heard sporadic explosions and gunfire as Indian forces closed in, and eventually killed the gunmen who were holed up in a building. “All the three militants have been killed in the Samba army camp operation. Three army men, including a lieutenant colonel rank officer, are dead,” said army spokesman Rajesh Kalia. Just a day before the assault, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he would meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on the weekend. They are expected to discuss violence in Kashmir. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah alleged that the attackers had entered the disputed territory from Pakistan the previous day. Mr Abdullah told reporters the raid appeared designed to upset plans for a meeting between Mr Singh and Mr Sharif. “Given the history, timing and location, the aim is to derail the proposed meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart,” he said. “There are forces that are inimical to peace and want to derail any peace process.” India’s state-run television quoted Interior Minister Sushilkumar Shinde as saying the militants had entered from Pakistan. ‘INFILTRATORS’ KILLED: In a separate incident, the Indian army claimed it had killed at least a dozen militants from a group of 30 it alleged had crossed over from Pakistan into northern Kashmir. Lt Gen Gurmeet Singh said that operation was still going on. Immediately after the attack in Samba, politicians from India’s nationalist opposition party called for the cancellation of the weekend talks.—Reuters/AFP
Schoolgirl sexually abused, killed By Imtiaz Ali KARACHI, Sept 26: A 13-year-old schoolgirl was kidnapped, sexually abused and smothered to death. Her body was found on the Seaview beach on Thursday morning. . A student of class-IV and the only child to her poor parents, the girl was taken away by a woman from her school in Azizabad on Sept 24 on the pretext that her mother had fallen ill. According to police, the woman was an acquaintance of the girl. “We are investigating the case from three angles,” Karachi Central SSP Amir Farooqi said. First, he said, the woman reportedly wearing burqa must be familiar with the girl because she had told her that her mother was not feeling well. Second, the girl’s father received a ransom call on his mobile phone and the caller demanded Rs1 million for her release. The SSP said the girl’s father who sold ice cream received no further call. Third, the girl was sexually abused and this could be a possible motive behind her kidnapping and murder. SSP Farooqi said Azizabad police had registered an FIR under sections 365-B (kidnapping, abducting or inducing a woman to compel for marriage or sexual abuse, etc) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code on Sept 24 on a complaint of the girl’s father. Assistant sub-inspector of Darakhshan police station Mohammed Ramzan told Dawn that a passerby had informed the Seaview police post about the girl’s corpse on Thursday morning. The body was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for post-mortem. A senior medical officer said the girl had been subjected to “unnatural sexual offence” and death was caused by obstruction of air passage through her nose and mouth. Citing an official report, Karachi South SSP Munir Shaikh said the girl had been sexually abused and smothered to death. Inspector General of Sindh police Shahid Nadeem Baloch directed the AIG Karachi to ensure the arrest of culprits and submit a report in 24 hours. He also ordered police patrolling around the closure time of educational institutions.
SC suggests ordinance for holding LG polls By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The Supreme Court’s proceedings on Thursday on the local government elections issue indicated that the judges on the SC bench want the polls to be held on the basis of ordinances instead of waiting for the passage of a law which would take time. . Perhaps for that reason the three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry directed the federal and provincial governments to suggest alternative options to meet the constitutional requirement of holding the LG elections as early as possible. “We are of the opinion that the general public at the grassroots level must be allowed to participate in the democratic system which is only possible if they take part through their representatives in the local government elections,” the chief justice said while dictating an order. The provincial governments and the Islamabad Capital Territory are required to submit their suggestions on Thursday. “The governments have to make some stopgap arrangements, especially when the constitution gives a way out,” the court said, adding that the country had been without a local government institution for four years. The court regretted that the provincial governments were not cooperating and said the constitution was a living document and it would make its own way. “Democratic order must trickle down because democracy is by the people for the people,” the chief justice observed. Advocate General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Abdul Latif Yousufzai assured the bench that he would convey to the provincial government the court’s desire of holding the elections by promulgating an ordinance. But, he said the KP government intended to pass a law under which 957 union councils would be converted into 3,500 village councils. Each village council will represent 8,000 people. The move will truly decentralise powers. “The ground work has been completed but the delimitation process will take considerable time,” Mr Yousufzai said, adding that the concept would help curb terrorism and theft and other petty crimes. “That is the reason the KP government is reluctant to give a specific time for holding the elections,” he explained. The court praised the efforts being made by the KP government and said if implemented the concept of village council would help check militancy in the country. “The idea is good but the system should work,” the chief justice said, adding that it was a sign of success, especially when the province suffered the most because of terrorism. The Balochistan government assured the court that it would hold the elections by Dec 7. The Sindh government said it had initiated the process of delimitation and would likely hold the elections by Nov 27. The Punjab government had already stated that it would hold the local government elections on Dec 14. Referring to the elections in Islamabad Capital Territory, Additional Attorney General Shahkhawar said the federal government intended to pass a law which could conform to the laws adopted by the provincial governments. He cited a statement of Attorney General Muneer A. Malik that the cabinet had formed a committee headed by Science and Technology Minister Zahid Hamid to make recommendations on the law relating to the local bodies’ elections in cantonment boards and said the matter was before the committee. “Is this a joke or what,” the chief justice asked and said it should be under the defence ministry. “Because it involves a complicated science,” quipped Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, a member of the bench. The court decided to discuss in detail the law and other alternative options when it would take up the case on Oct 2.
Nawaz to meet Obama at White House on Oct 23 By Masood Haider and Anwar Iqbal NEW YORK, Sept 26: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will meet US President Barack Obama at the White House on Oct 23, US and Pakistani officials announced on Thursday. . The announcement followed a meeting between Prime Minister Sharif and US Secretary of State John Kerry in New York earlier in the day. “On Wednesday, October 23, President Obama will welcome Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan to the White House. The visit will highlight the importance and resilience of the US-Pakistan relationship,” the White House said. The meeting will also provide an opportunity to the two countries “to strengthen cooperation on issues of mutual concern, such as energy, trade and economic development, regional stability, and countering violent extremism,” the White House said. In a separate statement, a spokesman for the prime minister said the meeting between Mr Sharif and Secretary Kerry focused on rebuilding US-Pakistan relations after recent tensions, which sometimes threatened to derail this important relationship. The two sides reviewed the state of bilateral relationship and agreed to “intensify the engagements in the coming weeks and months to further expand and deepen bilateral cooperation in all areas,” the statement said. It was also agreed to convene meetings of the various working groups under the revived Strategic Dialogue mechanism. During the meeting the prime minister noted that improvement in security, revival of economy and overcoming the energy crisis were the key priorities of his government. He also emphasised that greater trade between Pakistan and the US would contribute to the economic prosperity of the people of Pakistan. Secretary Kerry extended a formal invitation to the prime minister from President Obama to visit Washington. He stressed that this high-level interaction would “provide the necessary impetus to move towards a long-term Pakistan-US engagement.” The prime minister was pleased to accept the invitation. At an earlier briefing, a spokesman for the prime minister told Pakistani journalists that Mr Sharif and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh were likely to “discuss a whole range of issues” when they meet in New York on Sunday. Both sides have now confirmed the meeting and the Indian prime minister has also rejected a suggestion from some opposition parties to cancel the talks in retaliation for a militant attack on Indian troops in Kashmir earlier Thursday. Asked to comment on an Indian official’s comments that Mr Singh would focus on the issue of cross-border terrorist attacks in his meeting with Mr Sharif, the Pakistani official said, “terrorism is as much an issue of concern to Pakistan as it is to India”. He said that this menace could “be dealt more effectively if the two countries cooperate” with each other. “All issues concerning India, Pakistan relations are important” and both sides should make efforts to resolve them. Emphasising the need for reviving the process of composite dialogue between the two countries, the official said that by talking to each other “we can serve our people better”. On Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Sharif also attended a meeting on education in Pakistan, hosted by former British prime minister Gordon Brown. Malala Yousufzai, who has become an international symbol for women’s education, also attended the meeting. Noting her presence, the prime minister said it was a great source of strength for Pakistan that one of its daughters had become a beacon of hope for others.
SBP props up rupee KARACHI, Sept 26: The inter-bank market witnessed the biggest-ever single-day fluctuation in the dollar price on Thursday after the State Bank injected $50 million to $60m into the system. . The greenback, which rose to Rs110.50 during the first session, lost Rs5 in one go to reach Rs105.50 following the central bank’s move.
SC wants incriminating evidence collected By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The Supreme Court wants collection by prosecution of incriminating evidence against the people involved in heinous crimes in view of a decision taken by the federal and Sindh governments on Sept 4 to launch a targeted operation in Karachi. . In a detailed judgment in the Karachi law and order case heard by a five-judge bench in the city, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry ordered the presiding officers of special courts to decide cases of criminals within a week by adhering to section 19 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 if these fell within the schedule of ATA as mentioned in the 1999 Sheikh Liaquat case. “The decisions so taken by such courts should also be communicated to in-charge judges of the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court,” said the detailed order issued on Thursday. The court said that what security and safety a citizen of Karachi could expect from police whose files/dockets were full of people accused of being involved in different cases. “One could well imagine why a city like Karachi is in the grip of criminals who are free to commit crime whenever and wherever they like when the documented/declared numbers of absconders are 33,665,” the order said. Prosecutor General of Sindh Shahadat Awan had informed the court that there were 110,549 absconders/proclaimed offenders in 27 districts of Sindh, including 33,665 in five districts of Karachi. Had the culprits been brought to book, it would have definitely reduced the crime rate, the order said. “The entire police force is answerable because their basic obligation is to protect citizens. “There is another fact which is required to be noted that 6,822 absconders/proclaimed offenders are involved in terrorism cases in Sindh out of which 1,486 are from Karachi,” the order said. It asked police to accelerate their efforts to arrest the absconders involved in ordinary crimes as well as terrorism during the Karachi operation. The court regretted that it had become hard for the citizens of Karachi to live a peaceful life.
Send books, not guns, Malala asks leaders UNITED NATIONS, Sept 26: With a maturity and poise that belied her tender years, Malala Yousufzai stood by world leaders on Wednesday and called for books not guns.. “Instead of sending weapons, instead of sending tanks to Afghanistan and all these countries which are suffering from terrorism, send books,” she pleaded. “Instead of sending tanks, send pens,” she urged, her hair modestly covered by a scarf as she took part in the first anniversary of the Global Education First initiative at the UN. “Instead of sending soldiers, send teachers,” Malala argued at an event attended by Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Croatian premier Ivo Josipovic. According to the UN, some 57 million children around the world of elementary school age are denied an education – and 52 per cent of them are girls. “This is my dream to see every child to be educated,” Malala told the gathering. “This is my dream to see equality for every human being.” “This is my dream to see peace everywhere in the world, in Nigeria, in Syria, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan.” “We want women to be independent...and to have equal rights as men have,” Malala said. “We believe in equality and to give equality to women is justice,” she added, receiving resounding applause. “We are here to find a solution for all these problems that we are facing.” UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed the teenager for “your courage and triumph” which he said “have inspired millions of people across the world.” Malala’s courage has already won her numerous awards, including the highest honour from Amnesty International, which announced she would be named an Ambassador of Conscience.—AFP
Wordy duel over quake relief jolts NA By Raja Asghar ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: As relief teams still looked for the dead and survivors from Tuesday’s earthquake in Balochistan, a wordy duel between government and opposition politicians about alleged lack of government seriousness in tackling the calamity jolted the National Assembly on Thursday. . And, in the most bitter confrontation in the present assembly’s life of nearly four months, the two sides talked of a proverbial test of the strength of each other’s arms, after some hard-hitting remarks from Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan against an opposition walkout on Wednesday while he gave details about quake losses and relief efforts. The remarks provoked a matching response from opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah, prompting Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to intervene to calm tempers. It was the use of the Urdu word “tamasha” (show) by the interior minister in describing Wednesday’s opposition walkout and speeches criticising most ministers’ absence from the house that the opposition leader seized on to protest against what he called “most painful, regrettable and painful” remarks from a senior parliamentarian. “If you call our speeches a ‘tamasha’ then we can show you a ‘tamasha’.” But tempers rose further after Chaudhry Nisar, asserting that he had used no un-parliamentary word in describing the opposition move a “tamasha”, said to the opposition: “Don’t threaten us. We are not the ones who will be terrified by threats.” And then, with the help of Urdu proverbs, the minister hurled a stinging sarcasm that Mr Shah refused to digest: “We are aware of their ‘zor-i-bazoo’ (power of arm). Ye bazoo meray azma’ay huay hain” (These arms have been tested by me). Mr Shah challenged the minister to go ahead “if you are so proud of your arms” and said: “It is not the first time in opposition [for us]. We have suffered and tolerated much in opposition. We have offered martyrdoms on streets and not just talked, hiding in corners.” The previous day’s walkout came after a unanimous adoption of an opposition-sponsored resolution calling upon the government to expedite relief operations, and the minister seemed angered by the move after the treasury benches had allowed the opposition to move the resolution while deviating from the usual practice of government moving resolutions. But the opposition had stormed out of the house after a Zuhar prayer break when only a few ministers were present, complaining of lack of government seriousness. The two sides also clashed over the number of ministers present at the time of walkout – Chaudhry Nisar putting the figure at seven but Mr Shah insisting that only the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N’s chief whip Sheikh Aftab and a couple of other ministers were present then. While the speaker called for a cooling of tempers, former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, vice-president of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), also criticised the interior minister for making what he called “very provocative” speech, which he said should have been milder, calling the opposition walkout on Wednesday as means to “wake up” the government after its “muted response” to the Balochistan earthquake. FIRE AT HELICOPTERS: While describing the government’s relief effort in Balochistan, the interior minister told the house that rockets were fired at some low-flying helicopters taking relief to an unspecified “politically disturbed” area and said that for this reason relief items would be dropped in those areas from C-130 transports planes. But he did not say if the rockets caused any damage.
PML-N leader shot dead in Khuzdar By Our Staff Correspondent QUETTA, Sept 26: Armed men gunned down Mir Habibullah Zehri, a local leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, in Zehri area of Khuzdar district on Thursday. . Sources said the gunmen attacked Mr Zehri when he came out of his house. “The attackers were on a motorcycle and opened indiscriminate fire when Mr Zehri came out of his home, killing him on the spot,” Levies Force sources said, adding that the assailants fled from the scene after the attack. The deceased was said to be close to provincial minister and PML-N Balochistan’s president Sardar Sanaullah Zehri.
Govt orders third party audit of Rs480bn paid as circular debt By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The government has ordered a third party audit of Rs480 billion given to independent power producers, generation companies and fuel suppliers to pay off circular debt.. Zargham Eshaq Khan, joint secretary of the water and power ministry, informed a sub-committee of the Senate standing committee on water and power headed by PPP’s Maula Bakhsh Chandio on Thursday that the third party audit by three chartered accountants had been ordered to address the perception of any wrongdoing. He said the circular debt would go up again to Rs240bn at the end of the current financial year because its major causes were still there. The causes include increase in recoverable amounts of distribution companies of Wapda, more line losses than allowed by the regulator, delayed charging of fuel price adjustment, non-payment of GST refunds by the Federal Board of Revenue and delayed receipt of tariff differential subsidy from the federal government. Mr Khan said that of the Rs480bn circular debt, Rs138bn was cleared through book adjustments in the accounts of public sector companies for clearing tax dues and debts. Humayun Khan Mandokhel, a member of the sub-committee, said that the money wasted to clear the circular debt was more than enough to finance 4,300MW Dassu hydropower project. During cross-examination, the sub-committee was informed that neither the audit of payments made to the IPPs had been conducted during the past five years nor any audit of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority was carried out during the period. The meeting was told that the payments had been made to IPPs, including Nishat Group of Mian Mohammad Mansha, and some members viewed it as a conflict of interest. Mr Mandokhel said that Mian Mansha was a close adviser of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and he also accompanied him on foreign visits, including a recent tour of China. The sub-committee directed the government to inform it in writing why Nepra had not audited the payments made to the IPPs over the past five years. Nandipur project: Senior officials of the ministry of water and power and the National Transmission and Dispatch Company informed the sub-committee that the nation suffered a huge loss of over Rs130 billion because of non-implementation of 425-525MW Nandipur project for more than five years.
PML-N's mandate is fake and bogus, says PPP's 'white paper’ Syed Irfan Raza ISLAMABAD, Sept 27: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Friday issued a detailed "white paper on the general elections" and termed the mandate given to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) "fake and bogus".. The report, consisting of 300 pages, pointed out "mass-scale" irregularities and rigging in the general elections.
PAF planes airdrop relief goods in Balochistan From the Newspaper KARACHI, Sept 27: A Pakistan Air Force C-130 transport aircraft successfully dropped relief goods in the earthquake-hit areas of Awaran in Balochistan.. A PAF statement said the C-130 aircraft carried a load of 20,000kg of edibles packed in eight containers. The relief goods comprised 20,000 packets of ready-to-eat meals.
Govt not serious in talks, says "TTP leader" Bureau Report PESHAWAR: A senior TTP leader has criticised the government and said it had taken no serious initiative so far for holding talks with his group.. Omar Khalid Khurasani is the chief of TTP's Mohmand Agency chapter.
Taliban office proposal dangerous, says Altaf The Newspaper's Staff Reporter KARACHI: Terming Imran Khan's suggestion to allow the Taliban to open an office for peace talks a 'dangerous idea', Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has questioned the significance of talks with the outlawed outfit if the Taliban are not a unified group. . In a statement sent to Dawn on Friday, Mr Hussain, without naming anyone, said: "There are some politicians in the country who maintain that the issue can be resolved by holding dialogue and some even suggest that the militants should be allowed to open an office for this purpose, thereby recognising them as a legitimate stakeholder."
Editorial NEWS
Proceed with caution: Empowering Rangers MORE debate is required before the federal cabinet moves forward with its proposal to enhance the Rangers’ powers in Karachi to give the paramilitary force the freedom to shoot suspects other than in self-defence. While it is important that the Rangers have the freedom to take action against militants, there are fair chances that giving the force unbridled powers may backfire. The realities of countering militancy in a vast urban sprawl like Karachi are different compared to fighting extremists in Fata, for example. There have been incidents in Karachi where the Rangers have fatally shot apparently innocent people; 2011’s Sarfaraz Shah case is fresh in the mind while this year at least two people — a taxi driver and a motorist — were shot by the paramilitaries when they reportedly failed to stop their vehicles.. This is not to say that the Rangers have killed or will kill innocent people deliberately; rather, the force is under tremendous pressure due to the difficulties of maintaining order in Karachi. A number of Rangers’ personnel have been killed in militant attacks in the city. So if given the freedom to shoot under such tense circumstances, the chances of mishaps occurring are considerable. Karachi’s geography must also be considered as firefights in the city’s congested localities will put civilians at risk. Hence, the cabinet should reconsider the proposal, or at least ensure that stringent safeguards are in place so that the powers to shoot are not misused. What the federal and Sindh governments can do where Karachi’s peace is concerned is look into the issue of how over 33,000 absconders are on the loose, with nearly 1,500 of them involved in terrorism cases. This staggering figure emerged during the Supreme Court’s proceedings on Friday. The Sindh police needs to explain how such dangerous men were able to get away, while the state must shed light on why no government department brought up the disturbing fact before the apex court pressed the matter. The Supreme Court should also examine how the individuals had been granted bail. The court was told that nearly 13,000 people wanted in different cases reaped the benefits of 2007’s National Reconciliation Ordinance. It appears that while the courts were pursuing Asif Ali Zardari’s Swiss case, thousands of criminal cases were put on the back burner. If the present operation is to have a lasting effect, all those on the run and those netted in recent raids must not be let off; they must prove their innocence in a court of law.
Miles to go: Pak-Afghan ties DIPLOMACY works. And politicians can and will play a role. The release of Abdul Ghani Baradar, aka Mullah Baradar, the former Taliban No 2, had been a long-standing demand of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and it is surely not a coincidence that his wish has been granted weeks after he visited Pakistan at the invitation of the Sharif government. Given the lows that the Pak-Afghan relationship has witnessed and the cutting remarks that have flowed in either direction over the years, the fact that the Pakistani and Afghan administrations can work together to achieve a result is a minor milestone, if not a miracle of some sort. The change in tone may be linked to the inescapable fact that time for a post-2014 Afghan settlement is running out quickly, or a late-stage maturity on both sides. Whatever the reason, it should be encouraged. For Pakistan, it is essential that the political leadership involve itself in critical foreign relations.. Now, to the less rosy side of reality. Time is short, in particular for President Hamid Karzai, whose successor’s election process will kick off shortly and culminate with a vote in April, and it’s unclear what if anything can be concretely achieved on the reconciliation front before next year, and perhaps even after. Thus far, the release of Afghan Taliban prisoners, if indeed they were prisoners, by Pakistan has not moved the reconciliation process forward much, all sides agree, whether speaking privately or publicly. Even at this stage, even when Pakistan has played a facilitating role — as in the case of the Doha office of the Taliban — the Afghan Taliban’s willingness to seek an Afghan settlement politically is in question. Then again, that is the slow and arduous task of diplomacy: to keep plugging away in even the most hostile and hopeless of environments to try and see where opportunities lie. For Pakistan and Afghanistan, another major hurdle to improving relations remains cross-border attacks — in both directions. Perhaps on that front progress can also be sought by both sides.
In the spotlight: New Pakistani films IN a coincidental but heartening confluence of events, recent weeks have seen the release of several Pakistani films covering a range of subjects, from the sports-drama story of Main Hoon Shahid Afridi to urban desperation in Zinda Bhaag and an exploration of the human condition in Lamha (Seedlings). Before this, locally made films that attracted attention for their relatively higher quality included Bol and Khuda Kay Liye, and yet to come is Waar. All this activity has left many talking about ‘resurgence’ in the Pakistani film industry. Is it?. Not really, not of the film industry. First, the bulk of the films that are named to support the ‘revival’ theory are independent productions pulled off by some creative and committed persons, and have no connection with Lollywood. In this, perhaps, can be found a significant reason for their higher quality and marketability. Yet the fact remains that their success at the box office does not mean that, for example, film studios that have turned into ghost towns will burst into activity again. Second, part of the reason why these films have attracted attention is that they have been good enough to be screened in the cineplexes frequented by the upper classes. How well they would do in the ordinary man’s cinemas at Lahore’s Abbot Road or Karachi’s M.A. Jinnah Road remains a moot point and should be put to the test. That said, the success of these films should be seen as an opportunity. Clearly, the talent required to put together a high-standard film is there. Effort and cooperation between Lollywood and the independents, as well as state support that could take the form of subsidised loans, for example, may lead to a turnaround. Pakistani film is in the spotlight; that could be used as a springboard.
Deadly ideology: Killing of churchgoers THERE are moments when the full force of the threat that stalks this land hits with a sickening intensity. Yesterday was one of those moments — a depressing, shocking, violent attack that made it apparent, as though a reminder was needed, of just how far this country has drifted from the ideals and principles upon which it was created. Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Pakistan is not dead, for Christians still congregated in Peshawar yesterday to celebrate the Sunday mass. But the suicide bombers who attacked the All Saint’s Church and killed innocent, ordinary citizens were trying to kill Jinnah’s Pakistan. If this country is to survive and emerge one day as an embodiment of its founding father’s ideals, there can be no room for extremists, terrorists and militants. There is truly an either/or scenario for this country: either the terrorists are defeated or the Pakistan that the majority of the country wants will be lost forever.. The targeting of Christians may seem to some as a new front being opened by the militants, but in fact it is logical progression of the extremist ideology. Be it other sects within Islam or other religions, the violent extremist wants to eliminate all others and produce a homogenous society in which only a particular version of Islamic interpretation rules over the people. The hatred and bigotry embedded in the extremist ideology is not just about foreigners, but also about the majority of Pakistanis themselves. Be it Shias, Ismailis, Barelvis, non-Muslims or anyone else deemed to be outside the pale of radical Islam as practised by the militants and terrorists, everyone is a target. Until that reality is absorbed by the country’s political leadership — that what confronts the country is a murderous ideology — there can be no real understanding of why Pakistan has been so wracked by violence. And without that understanding, there cannot begin to be a solution. For a week that began with the killing of an army general and ended with the murder of scores of Christians, the inevitable question is where does that leave the nascent dialogue process with the TTP? If dialogue was at the outset very unlikely to succeed, what chances of success are there now? Perhaps the most discouraging aspect about the dialogue process is the national political leadership’s abject surrender before the Taliban. Even yesterday voices were heard suggesting that the church bombing was an attempt to undermine the dialogue process. When deferring to the enemy trumps honouring your dead, what hope for peace, dialogue or anything of the like?
Signs of thaw: US-Iran ties IT has gone beyond Twitter and is official. President Barack Obama, said the White House spokesman on Friday, was “willing to have a meeting” with his Iranian counterpart if Tehran demonstrated its “seriousness” on the nuclear question. Coming in the wake of the relative improvement in the Syrian situation, a meeting between President Obama and President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the General Assembly session could profoundly affect the Middle East’s geopolitical ambience and lower all sides’ confrontational postures. The meeting is not certain, because there is an ‘if’ in the American affirmative, but the fact that both sides should indicate a desire to move away from decades of hostility — even brinkmanship — brings to fruition the hopes which the outcome of the Iranian election in June had aroused. The credit for this welcome development goes to the Iranian people, because they voted for moderation and rejected the extremism that had characterised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency for eight years. They had reasons to go for change, because the sanctions imposed by the West were hurting not the ruling elite but the people of Iran.. Will the move towards a détente succeed? There are difficulties in the way, there are hawks on both sides, and Iran has multiple centres of power. But spiritual leader Ali Khamenei’s support for the peace move could serve to strengthen President Rouhani’s domestic position. In contrast, former president Mohammad Khatami couldn’t press Iran’s ‘opening up’ because the reformist leader lacked the religious establishment’s support. This time, Ayatollah Khamenei was among those top Iranian leaders who greeted the Jewish community on Twitter on their new year. Equally important is President Rouhani’s declaration in an interview that Iran doesn’t want weapons of mass destruction, “including nuclear weapons”. This is a major shift in the Iranian position, and the US can help the Iranian leader silence his domestic critics by responding positively to the peace initiative. The West can win the Iranian people over to the cause of peace by lessening their economic hardships.
A necessary move: Campaign against polythene bags THERE are few things that blight the landscape more than the ubiquitous ‘shopper’. These non-biodegradable plastic bags are also a scourge for the environment, posing a choking hazard for birds and marine life as well as clogging waterways and sewerage lines. The havoc they cause is brought home to our cities and towns time and again but particularly so during the monsoons when rainwater meets choked drainage lines, leading to pools of stagnant water that are a fertile breeding ground for disease. It is therefore encouraging to see KP’s local government and rural development department take the initiative to cut down the use of polythene bags in the province by promoting useable shopping bags in their stead. Other provinces should take a leaf out of KP’s book given that environment is now a provincial subject. . The drive, which will begin with a selected area of Peshawar, largely depends on public cooperation to succeed. It includes a door-to-door sensitisation campaign and the display of banners highlighting the negative impact of plastic bags. Shopkeepers will also be urged not to stock plastic bags and to ask customers to bring reusable ones with them in which to carry their purchases. Imposing fines for non-compliance seems a distant possibility for the time being. While the intention underlying the campaign cannot be faulted, the authorities concerned may find that such a ‘softly softly’ approach will not achieve the desired results. Plastic bags are cheap and convenient and, like other bad habits of the kind, not easy to give up. Nevertheless, the issue will at least receive the attention it deserves and that could lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive campaign backed by necessary punitive action.
Poor response: Peshawar tragedy EVEN for a country where tragedy and savagery are now the norm rather than the exception, Sunday’s attack on Peshawar’s All Saints Church was a new low. For years now, citizens and law enforcement personnel have faced a tidal wave of violence and extremism, with no let-up in sight. Yet the helplessness of the citizenry continues to be matched by that of the state, both at the federal and provincial levels. The state has been unable to work out an adequate response mechanism or crisis mitigation measures that could reduce the extent of the suffering. Pakistan has effectively been in a state of war for years now. Unfortunately, in terms of organisation, the country seems to be taking matters as though it were business as usual — at a tremendous cost to the people.. If there is any doubt about this assertion, consider the systemic vulnerabilities exposed by the recent bombings in Peshawar. According to statistics, this year alone Peshawar division has seen more than 230 militant attacks. It would have been reasonable to expect that, through the years, the provincial administration would have evolved a set of workable strategies that included beefing up the capacity of government-run healthcare centres to ensure the timely deployment of ambulances as well as increased staff and emergency equipment. This would have been a most basic mitigation measure in an area beset by high levels of violence. Yet this has not proved to be the case. Sunday’s victims were rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital, but there were few doctors and nurses to attend to the crisis, nor was there any level of organisation — even though each time there is an act of terrorism in Peshawar, this is the first hospital to which the victims are rushed. True, this recent atrocity was perpetrated on a weekend when many doctors may have been on leave. But even so, the trajectory of violence demands that the city and its institutions be in a better state of preparedness. It is not just Peshawar, but other cities and towns as well that need to pay more attention to standards of preparedness in case of an emergency situation. Whichever shape a long-term solution to the extremist threat takes, there is little doubt that it will be some time before the present level of violence is brought down. At both the federal and provincial level, the state must improve its response and develop strategies that can save lives, while the citizenry too must be made aware of the dangers.
Reverse gear: Documentation of economy ONE step forward, two steps back. How else can the government’s retreat on what it had pompously claimed in its first budget to be the new steps to net the untaxed and under-taxed businesses be described? The budget seems to already have started unravelling even before the close of the first quarter of the present financial year. First, it was the IMF, which has significantly revised downwards the key budget targets for GDP growth, tax revenue collection, inflation, public development investment, etc. Now it is the government itself offering major concessions — monetary and procedural — to the businesses notorious for cheating the tax collectors. . The announced concessions may not have a drastic impact on the FBR’s revenue collection efforts as its chairman has claimed — let’s take his word for it. Nonetheless, many of these will hit the initiative to document the undocumented sectors of the economy and bring the tax evaders into the tax net. Some concessions will particularly affect the effort to implement the general sales tax in the value added mode, a requirement of the $6.6bn loan agreement with the IMF. True, the withdrawal of some tax measures, for example, imposition of withholding tax on the volumes of petroleum dealers, was necessary to remove procedural anomalies and provide relief to the affected. But what purpose will withdrawal of the condition of CNIC, NTN and addresses for retailers serve except to help the retail sector stay out of the government’s books? The new concessions have been given to “accommodate the demands of the business community despite the difficult financial situation” and prop up a business-friendly image of the ruling party, the PML-N. While the government is within its rights to keep its support base happy, it should not be done at the expense of the overall well-being of the economy. It can only be hoped that the new concessions to the business community will prove only a stumble (and not a leap) backwards for the economy.
Technology shows the way: Nadra uncovers malpractices TECHNOLOGY is an integral tool in keeping a check on electoral malpractices, as the results of a Nadra probe into rigging allegations in a Karachi National Assembly constituency have shown. A report filed by the regulatory authority has indicated that rigging took place in NA-258 during the May 11 general elections; the seat was won by a PML-N candidate. The authority was tasked with looking into the matter by an election tribunal after a rival candidate challenged the results. While many of the fingerprints on used counterfoils could not be checked because they were of poor quality, the investigations uncovered other apparent proofs of rigging. For example, thousands of counterfoils contained bogus CNIC numbers while people not registered in the constituency successfully managed to cast their votes. Among the more interesting revelations was the fact that up to 11 votes had been cast on a single CNIC number.. It is up to the election tribunal to order a re-poll in the said constituency; however the method used by Nadra to detect bogus votes and other irregularities can help resolve issues of contested election claims in other constituencies. The authority deserves credit for helping establish the facts. The method is based on technology and is hopefully tamper-proof. In fact, this should set the trend for future elections in order to make the electoral process more transparent and free from manipulation. Rigging claims were made by several political parties after the general elections and such methods can help clear the controversy and establish the truth regarding these claims. The Election Commission of Pakistan must look to technology to further improve the electoral process and hopefully, by the time the next polls come around electronic voting machines and biometric verification should be in place to reduce chances of vote fraud and ballot stuffing.
Glimmer of hope? Talks with the Taliban SLOWLY, very, very slowly, the slightest of cracks in the PTI and PML-N’s resolve to pursue talks come what may are beginning to appear. In the wake of the devastating, double suicide attack on the All Saints Church, the leadership of the two parties have begun to mumble, however softly, about who can be talked to and on what terms. Tragic as it may be that it has taken the death of a general and scores of Christians for the country’s frontline political leadership to understand that the state cannot and must not negotiate without a clear sense of what can and cannot be negotiated on, such realisations are perhaps a case of better late than never. And there is still a long, long run that has to be travelled before militancy can be defeated — or ended.. Until now, the problem with talks as proposed by the government and vehemently pushed by the PTI has been two-fold. First, why talk at all with violent, murderous thugs whose explicit political agenda and ideology is simply untenable within Pakistan as it is constitutionally and historically envisaged to be? That bigger question has unhappily been drowned out by the myriad confusions and conspiracy theories which have left society and the political leadership confused and unsure. Unfortunate as that reality is, perhaps another round of public negotiations with the TTP would draw them out into the open once again and make clear their agenda of violence and hate, as happened in Swat under the Taliban. And once that reality is clear to everyone — or at least no longer deniable by militancy apologists and sympathisers — it could help the state move decisively against the TTP. To reiterate, this is far from a welcome scenario, perhaps one that has been necessitated by the endless debate over whether this is our war or someone else’s. The other problem with talks, however, is the manner in which the government has gone about laying the groundwork for them. The TTP has virtually been legitimised by the political leadership, its sins against the Pakistani people scrubbed away and its outrageous demands treated as plausible starting points for dialogue. None of that is acceptable, at least if a meaningful version of peace is to be effected. Peace comes in various stripes, like the so-called peace and security of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the mid-90s. That cannot be the peace Pakistan settles for, and the sooner the political class here publicly accepts the fact, the better off the country will be.
Parliament, not CII: DNA testing MONDAY’S decision by the Council of Islamic Ideology not to have DNA testing in rape cases as primary evidence, as suggested by some, would have come as a disappointment to those who had expectations to the contrary. Giving the council’s final opinion on the matter, CII chairman Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani told newsmen on Thursday that even though DNA testing was a useful and modern technique, a court could only take it into account along with other material as “supporting evidence”. Evidently, the CII’s reformist camp led by Maulana Tahir Ashrafi failed to convince the majority in the CII that the results of a DNA test could be the sole basis for convicting a person accused of rape. The CII chief also rejected the Women’s Protection Act of 2006 and defended the blasphemy law by saying it should not be amended.. The deliberations among the CII’s learned scholars are useful up to the point that they highlight the pros and cons of a given issue and enlighten the public and the lawmakers from an Islamic perspective. But it should be remembered that the CII is only a recommendatory body, and its suggestions are not supposed to inhibit parliament’s lawmaking rights. The Zia-era Hudood and blasphemy laws are controversial because they were imposed by decree, and not legislated by a sovereign parliament. The CII does not accommodate the views of all segments of Pakistani society, and in the presence of a parliament composed of democratically elected representatives, the council is, in fact, of very little use. Where an issue requires consensus, it is the prerogative of parliament to debate and decide. Which means the National Assembly and the Senate have the right to legislate on the DNA issue even if they want to consider the CII’s stance. More important, all major religious parties are there in parliament, and, thus, there is no reason why one of the National Assembly’s special committees cannot discuss the issue and make recommendations to parliament.
Let off the hook: Maulvi Aziz acquitted THE state’s complacency when it comes to battling militancy and extremism on the legal front is well known. When extremists know they’ll be able to work the system in such a way that they can evade justice, they will only be further emboldened. Speaking of extremism, 2007’s Lal Masjid stand-off was a major turning point in this country’s history, when the militant threat confronting Pakistan was fully exposed. However, one of the major architects of the fiasco, Maulvi Abdul Aziz, chief cleric of Lal Masjid, has been cleared in all cases, with the last acquittal coming on Monday. Since 2001 the preacher had faced numerous charges, with cases of murder, kidnapping and abduction filed in 2007. It should be remembered that the Lal Masjid clerics, led by Abdul Aziz, were running a fiefdom within Islamabad, complete with ‘Sharia courts’ and roving bands of stick-wielding madressah student-enforcers. They had raided massage parlours and threatened shopkeepers in the federal capital, while in the build-up to the mosque stand-off law enforcement personnel were also killed and abducted. Yet the acquittals came about because the state failed to ensure protection for the witnesses; 60 turned hostile. When there’s no testimony, how can a case be built, especially when witnesses are intimidated by extremists?. The operation to retake the mosque was indeed botched by the Musharraf regime. But that is a different debate; the Lal Masjid clerics’ activities before and during the stand-off were crimes against the state, hence these crimes and the handling of the crisis should not be bundled together. The state must consider what sort of message such acquittals send. It appears that the government is indicating that it is OK to set up a parallel justice system, indulge in criminality and militancy and get away with it.
Inadequate response: Earthquake in Balochistan AFTER the devastating experience of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, and with the knowledge that Pakistan straddles several fault lines, it would have been reasonable to expect the state to lose no time in shoring up its defences against natural disaster. But the response to the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Balochistan on Tuesday has shown, once again, that like many other things in Pakistan, this was a vain hope. We have seen initiatives such as the establishment of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, the National Disaster Management Authority and its provincial subsidiaries, promises of developing early warning systems and articulating standard operating procedures at the lowest tiers of administration. But every time disaster strikes — in recent years different parts of the country have been devastated by earthquakes, floods and torrential rains — the emptiness of the promises becomes evident. Those affected are left clinging to their rooftops whilst the waters rage, or remain trapped in the rubble of their homes while the state goes into sluggish action.. The remoteness of the area affected by Tuesday’s quake has further hampered the speed at which rescue could be provided, though the army had, by the evening, provided some succour. Even early estimates show that tens of thousands of people have been affected, and a very large number of mud-built houses have collapsed. The death toll, which has already crossed the 200 mark and is likely to rise as the rubble is cleared, is not as high as it could have been. Yet while this may not be a catastrophe for the nation at large, for the victims it certainly is. Everything possible must be done to help these people now and in the months to come as survivors embark on the task of piecing together their lives and livelihoods. This tragedy also constitutes a chance for the state to reach out to the people of Balochistan, disenchanted as they are by the country’s lack of concern for their grievances. Meanwhile, we must ask how many times this country needs to be warned before it seriously sets about improving its infrastructure and capabilities in case of natural disaster, particularly earthquakes. While Islamabad has started enforcing earthquake-related building codes, the thought of such an event striking the high-density, vertically built Karachi, for instance, is frightening. There’s no escape from nature’s wrath, but one can be better prepared to deal with it. The only thing Pakistan seems to be doing, though — at both the federal and provincial levels — is hoping that it will be spared.
Counterproductive: Ban on the Brotherhood IT is doubtful that a court ruling can destroy a party that has survived 84 years of bans and repression. On Monday, an Egyptian court effectively banned the Muslim Brotherhood, ordered all its assets seized and asked the government to manage them. Even though the court ruling came in the form of a judgement on a petition by a lawyer, it is impossible not to detect the hand of the Egyptian army behind the judicial farce. The judge banned the organisation’s activities but made no specific reference to the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood’s political wing. It is unclear whether the extensive social welfare network linked to the Brotherhood will be affected. The judgement stands in sharp contrast to the position during Hosni Mubarak’s regime, which permitted the Brotherhood to continue political activity and even indirectly take part in elections while remaining outlawed officially. As rightly claimed by the FJP, Monday’s decision reverts Egypt to the status of a police state, nullifying the gains of the January 2011 revolution that overthrew the Mubarak regime.. By any standards, army chief Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has sabotaged democracy by toppling an elected government and arresting Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president. There is no doubt Mr Morsi made many mistakes, and the speed with which he moved to amend the constitution and assume special powers for himself alarmed the liberal sections of Egyptian society, but a military coup should not have been the solution. Sooner or later, the Morsi government’s failure to address Egypt’s enormous problems would have cost it the people’s sympathy. As examples elsewhere in the Middle East show, parties banned by the military re-emerge with greater strength through the electoral process. The Brotherhood will not only survive the ban; it will gain in strength. The only choice before the generals is to install a neutral regime and hold free and fair polls.
Rigid mindset: Dress code at Nust EVEN in the middle of the death and mayhem that struck Pakistan over the past few days, the news about the National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, fining students for what they wore has raised eyebrows. It shocked because dress codes at universities — though they exist in Pakistan and even at some places in the West — are controversial. Universities generally are expected to offer far more freedom to students than schools. Partly this is because it is universally accepted that those attending universities are young adults who are about to enter practical life, and secondly, because unlike schools, institutes of higher edu-cation are also supposed to encourage original thought. And it is generally accepted that free thought flourishes in the opposite of a regimented lifestyle. In a lighter vein, there is after all a reason why the popular story of how Isaac Newton discovered gravity involves him having bunked school and whiling away his time watching an apple fall from a tree.. But sadly universities in Pakistan do not aim for these goals. And with many managements hiring former military officials because they are seen as effective administrators, universities are focused on regimentation and not research and higher learning. (Nust too is known to be run by former military men.) This is the message that Nust is sending to the world and to Pakistan. Surely, a university should have better goals than monitoring its female students’ clothes. Even if for some inexplicable reason the university management felt the need to regulate what students wear, there is no need to publicly display their names and ‘offence’. Such public displays of morality will only lead to bad publicity and strengthen the perception that right-wing views are prevalent in Pakistan. Is this what Nust wants?
No durable solution: Rupee’s fall AFTER weeks of inaction and confusion, the State Bank of Pakistan intervened on Thursday to prop up the free-falling rupee. The step was taken when the rupee touched the historic low of 110.5 against the dollar. The intervention has helped stabilise the rupee at 106 to the dollar for now. But will this rescue attempt set a pattern and if the answer is in the affirmative, is this a sustainable, acceptable way of influencing the exchange rate? This intervention can be viewed as a violation of the $6.6bn loan agreement with the IMF. It is yet not clear if and how the bank’s action will affect Islamabad’s relationship with its last-resort lender.. As the rupee fell, initially, the depreciation was put down to declining foreign exchange reserves. According to one theory, the IMF loan would help stabilise the currency. It did not. The IMF conditions that bar the State Bank from supporting the rupee and force it to purchase dollars from the market to accumulate reserves created a supply gap. The lender’s refusal to frontload a chunk of the loan did not help either. Speculators jumped into the fray to make quick profits. The government’s decision to borrow $625m from commercial banks to boost the central bank’s meagre reserves of just above $5bn failed to reverse the rupee’s slide as official and private capital inflows were low. The rupee’s fall demonstrates the fragility of the economy. It also shows the confusion in the present finance management team. Fears that this sharpest depreciation of the rupee in recent years would end up fuelling already soaring prices thus eroding savings and incomes and putting greater pressure on the government’s weak fiscal position were something to reckon with, but even these could not compel the bank to take measures to arrest the slide. The Pakistani rupee’s future hinges on the government’s capacity to restore the market sentiment by discouraging unnecessary imports to reduce the dollar demand. This will send a message to speculators that the government is serious about defending the currency. Over the next six months, it will be required to move swiftly to recover unpaid PTCL privatisation proceeds, auction 3G telecom licences, obtain the promised funds from multilateral lenders and work for the early release of the outstanding Coalition Support Fund dues from the US. The pumping of State Bank dollars will only ensure temporary relief — the bank had to spend $3.35bn in the last fiscal to hold up exchange rates artificially. That is a prohibitive exercise. Repeating it will have drastic effects on the economy.
Sports held hostage: Quarrelling POA factions THE recent move by the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination to resolve the ongoing dispute between the rival factions of the Pakistan Olympic Association has come as a ray of hope for the beleaguered sports fraternity in Pakistan. The two-year-long POA saga has held hostage the country’s sports activities and brought Pakistan to the brink of losing its Olympic membership. The bitter rivalry of the two ex-army generals — Arif Hasan and Akram Sahi who head the respective POA factions — over legitimate authority to govern Olympic sports in the country has embarrassed the nation beyond words. It is unfortunate that even the International Olympic Committee’s repeated warnings to Pakistan, including the possibility of suspension, have failed to deter the warring factions while the PML-N government, quite inexplicably, has preferred to look the other way thus relegating the matter to the back burner.. The consequences of the ugly tussle have seen Pakistan deprived of participation in several high-profile events including the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where the hockey team won’t play, and the Islamic Solidarity Games that are currently being held in Indonesia. More importantly, the simmering row has affected the morale and performance of Pakistani athletes who had already been faring poorly in sports such as hockey, squash, tennis and athletics, both at home and abroad. Mr Hasan, whose POA is an established body that enjoys the backing of the IOC, has been extremely vocal about the unlawful practices of the rival faction whose officials recently stormed the Olympic House in Lahore. This was a deplorable act indeed. Mr Sahi’s group, on the other hand, has fiercely contested Mr Hasan’s prolonged stint as the POA chief, citing various clauses in the national sports policy. The IPC ministry has now decided to invite all stakeholders to find an amicable solution to the crisis. Though coming a bit late in the day, the move, if sincerely pursued, can be the first step towards turning around the country’s tarnished image in international sports.
Opening stand: Pakistani Taliban office BUT for Imran Khan’s ability to retain his all-round innocence long into his political career the scene would have been bereft of excitement. Without him flaunting his political philosophy, many of the simpleton jokes that are cracked today would have gone un-cracked and the laughs would have remained un-laughed. The latest spurt has been caused by Mr Khan’s attempt at creating greater political space for the Pakistani Taliban. On Wednesday he called for the opening of a Taliban office to facilitate a dialogue with the government. The suggestion opened the floodgates of ‘proposals’ of how the office should be set up and who should be setting it up: Imran Khan, who else?. Notwithstanding the general debate about the pros and cons of talks, from Mr Khan’s pro-rehabilitation position the suggestion is a practicable one. To begin with, considering the growing closeness between the two and considering that time is of the essence here, Mr Khan could allow the Taliban the use of a few PTI offices. That, among other benefits, would relieve party activists of their uncomfortable state where they are only half out of the closet. While it would be too much to expect the offices of the good Taliban to be used to bring the bad ones in line through the issuance of show cause notices and warnings of fines, this is an opening for solving the most thorny issue: those who agree to open an office would qualify for the ‘good’ label and the few choosing to not avail of this great rehab offer would be immediately identified. They would then be liable to the ultimate ignominy — a loud, direct slap on the wrist by Mr Khan who is so capable of administering it when he chooses to do so.
Overcoming distrust: Singh-Sharif meeting From the Newspaper IT was not unexpected, and the authorities on both sides of the working boundary should not have been caught napping. But luckily, the attack by unidentified militants on a police station and an army base in India-held Kashmir on Thursday failed to achieve its purpose, and the meeting between Nawaz Sharif and Manmohan Singh is still on. As on previous occasions, so now, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan getting together is in itself something to be grateful for. For Mr Sharif, a meeting with his Indian counterpart will be in line with the one theme he has been consistent about — improving relations with our eastern neighbour. That the Indian prime minister confirmed the meeting with Mr Sharif in spite of Thursday’s provocation shows his resolve not to surrender to the hawks in India. With a general election due, some politicians in India have adopted a hawkish line; Mr Singh's refusal to steer away from a conciliatory course, thus, deserves to be appreciated. He condemned the attack as "barbaric", but also said that such attacks would not "deter us".. So far, the Indian side has not blamed Pakistan for the raid — they have blamed infiltrators "from Pakistan". This is a welcome departure from past practice when, soon after an act of terror, as for instance in the case of the Samjhota Express carnage, Indian authorities would be quick to blame Pakistan. This time we can detect a more restrained reaction. But this does not lessen Islamabad's responsibility to be vigilant — and not only on the Kashmir border. Militancy in India-held Kashmir had been gradually dying out, with the struggle for resisting Indian occupation being led by urban youth. However, the new wave of militancy could see the trend reversed — the last few months have seen heightened militant activity, resulting in army casualties on both sides. The militants seem hell-bent on making every effort to stand between peace and South Asia and resort to any tactic to sabotage any attempt at reviving the peace process.
Slim chances of success: Deweaponisation drive From the Newspaper ACTING on Supreme Court orders, the Sindh government has launched a new deweaponisation drive, specifically meant to cleanse Karachi of illegal arms. The steps the Sindh administration is taking include verification of arms licences as well as the compilation of a database detailing the arms sold in the city over the past five years. Through a media campaign people have been advised to hand over their illegal weapons by Oct 11, after which the drive will be "strengthened". These are no doubt well-intentioned steps. The city is awash with weapons of all sorts, from pistols to grenade launchers, and everyone, from common muggers to members of religious and political groups to criminals associated with organised gangs, is well armed. But how successful is the government’s drive likely to be? For instance, it is a tad unrealistic to suppose that those involved in violence will turn in their arms when they learn of the government's campaign, even if the penalty for not doing so is severe — Karachi has seen several such deweaponisation drives that have borne few results.. A weapons-free society is possible if crime at all levels is tackled by an efficient, depoliticised police force, and the root causes of lawlessness in society are addressed by the rulers. In the meantime, to reduce the intensity of gun crime, what can help are targeted raids, backed by solid intelligence, to recover illegal arms as well as snap-checking by the law enforcers. There's also a need to find out and crack down on the source of the arms supply, to arrest those involved in gunrunning, and to break the back of networks supplying the city with illicit weapons. Once the supply lines dry up, criminals and militants will have a far more difficult time procuring the weapons needed for their deadly business. Along with the larger effort to tackle crime then, these steps, rather than asking those with illicit arms to turn in their guns, will be more effective in ridding Karachi of illegal weapons.
'Arming' communities: Attacks on polio teams From the Newspaper IT began as a narrative in pockets of resistance that many thought should not prove that difficult to counter, but it has turned into a sustained and violent campaign. Over the months, we have seen the anti-polio drive losing ground with startling rapidity, particularly in the northwest. Entire communities have refused to let the polio vaccination be administered to their children, and polio workers have been attacked and killed. Meanwhile, reports of children having contracted the crippling virus continue to surface with distressing frequency. Consider the fact that on Thursday, members of a polio vaccination team were manhandled and driven out of the Merozai area in Kohat. The workers were there as a result of the constitution of a special polio vaccination campaign that was launched in Kohat after a three-year-old child was found infected with the virus two weeks ago. Resistance to the vaccination is in fact on the rise in Kohat division, even though it is amongst the areas where populations are at relatively greater risk given their proximity to Afghanistan — which, along with Pakistan, is one of only three polio-endemic countries left in the world — and cross-border movement.. It is a troubling situation with no easy solutions. The state needs to provide greater security to polio teams, although there have been instances where even the presence of guards or policemen has not been enough to deter an attack. Perhaps, therefore, the state should change tack slightly: arm communities with the knowledge of what polio is. If sufficient desire is cultivated amongst people to have their children vaccinated, the extremists who carry out the attacks will be denied fertile ground from which to perpetrate violence. Attacking polio teams and resisting the vaccination are two different things, but they are not unrelated.
Columns and Articles
The unleashed watchdog By Reema Abbasi THE last week has been excruciating with reports pouring in about a five-year-old girl’s rape in Lahore; a 12-year-old’s in Faisalabad and another minor’s rape in Kasur.. But the coverage of the Lahore incident threw up another tragedy — the perverse culture of voyeurism and insensitivity in the electronic and regional press corps. From the moment this episode became breaking news, there was a deluge of savage reportage. On the first day, channels did not hesitate to disclose the victim’s name and neighbourhood and show graphic footage of her covered in a bloodstained sheet as she was carried into an ambulance. Ill-trained, excitable reporters shoved cameras in the faces of the victim’s grandmother and her shattered father to ask ‘how they felt about the rape?’ and ‘what they expected from the government?’ If this was not enough, her photographs were flashed on many channels throughout the night and then appeared in a section of the regional press the next morning. As the child battled for her life, seasoned anchors waxed eloquent about her uncertain future in the context of her low income, uneducated and conservative background. They used discriminatory terms such as dishonour for a sickening violation and suggested death penalty and public stoning to death as punishments for felons. The contrast with the mass absence of debate on empowering a victim’s family and on life sentences was painful, especially in an environment where there is raging pressure by commentators to retain the ultimate penalty. Ironically, members of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors have shied away from exercising their clout even where some of their own papers are concerned. While they seem to be aware of the all-pervasive insensitivity in the media, and have ‘appealed’ to publications not to portray cases of sexual abuse in a manner that humiliates the families of the rape victims, they appear unwilling to take action. Clearly, the time has come for the media to indulge in some introspection to develop a conscience. In this context, the rape coverage is a symptom of a malignant society. Hence, the debate on media ethics cannot be allowed to centre on an isolated tragedy. It has to address the core predicament, which is a media that is most eager to feed a voyeuristic social reality. The fact that there was negligible consideration for underage viewers or for the privacy that is the basic right of this child and her family is an illness in itself. Also, tragedy is not the stuff of Reality TV. Certain channels actually billed the sad footage of this misfortune as ‘exclusive’ to score in the ratings game. It seems investigative journalism, which brings to light corruption and political scandals to educate the public and castigate criminals, has been overshadowed by this ruthless hyperbole. The social media, primarily the domain of the educated and privileged, was not far behind in carrying forward this sensationalism. It may be important as a means of livelihood for scores, social survival and as a vehicle for the exchange of cultures, debate and information, but the race for ‘followers’ and fame overtook human courtesy with renowned personalities tweeting about the girl and the details of her state. At the risk of stating the obvious, no media can take on the role of police or jury. And callous reportage cannot be permitted in a fractured and bigoted society where it will ignite prejudice and social alienation. Such misuse jeopardises the bedrock of electronic and print journalism — the freedom of expression. Press freedom can only strengthen society, promote public justice and socio-economic growth and for that, the right to privacy has to be integral to the ideal of liberty. Perhaps this child’s case and subsequent outrage can now establish a critical area for the debate on media ethics and social justice to transform the coverage of crimes and law enforcement. Also, the public movement spurred by the recent case has to include the objective of compelling all media to recognise that their primary job is to empower the middle and lower classes and quell all machinations to stem dissent in the face of injustices. The latter is evident in the case of the families of the rape victims in Sanghar and Umerkot who claim to be under police pressure to drop charges. So, despite statistics showing Punjab as the province with the highest rate of excesses against women, rape remains a national curse. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan there were 113 registered incidents (hundreds are said to go unreported) of rape in Lahore in the period of January to August this year. Counteractive procedures cannot be prescribed until our wrecked medico-legal and forensics departments are provided with state-of-the-art facilities and professionals who are monitored by an impartial body to ward off political and social pressures. Justice should have been easy for this child of five as Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has already inaugurated the laboratory of his grand project, Punjab Forensic Science Agency. It cost a whopping Rs3 billion, and has a clear manifesto of speedy justice for the masses. Sadly, before this laboratory could prove its worth, its administrators have allegedly become controversial, questionable appointees. All said and done, being a society in transition, we are not ready for trials by media of either criminals or their victims as these pit it against personal dignity. The journey towards sensitivity for the citizenry and societal norms must begin with an insightful, precise treatment of events and people. In these sad times, this country cannot afford a diet of calamity fare. The writer is an independent journalist and columnist. reemafabbasi@gmail.com
Layers of complexity By Muhammad Amir Rana THE debate on peace talks with the militants is in a muddle. Much confusion surrounds the question of whether or not the government should engage in dialogue with the militants, and how it should behave if it does.. The militants do not get the same consideration. One reason could be the existing gaps in the scholarship on militants’ motives, operational capabilities and entrenchment in society. While the pro-peace talks group believes dialogue with the militants is the only viable option, the rival camp is not convinced. It asserts that the option of dialogue is not going to work and the government will eventually have to pursue other measures. Both arguments have their merits and flaws. But these cannot be effectively assessed without knowing the real strengths and weaknesses of the militants. An accurate assessment can help evolve rehabilitation strategies to reintegrate militants in society, which would be needed whether the choice is peace talks or use of force. In Pakistan, violent extremist groups can be divided into four broad categories on the basis of their ideological, operational and structural commonalities. The first category belongs to Kashmir-focused Pakistani militant groups, banned after 9/11. Most of these groups were transformed into charities or continued to operate under the cover of charities. These groups are also branded as classical militant groups. The second category consists of tribal militants including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-i-Islam, and the Gul Bahadur group etc. Sectarian militant groups form the third category while breakaway factions of the classical militant groups and reactionary groups of urban youth, which emerged after 9/11 in reaction to the US invasion of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s alliance with the international counterterrorism coalition, fall in the fourth category. The militant groups belonging to the latter category are ethnically non-Pakhtun and are also described as the Punjabi Taliban. Al Qaeda and other foreign groups based in Pakistan’s tribal areas are a separate category. In counterterrorism strategy, foreign groups are considered as catalyst factors that exploit the host country’s internal weakness through developing nexuses with local groups. The groups belonging to each category behave differently. Even though the groups existing within a distinct category have varying attitudes, they mostly remain confined to specific structural boundaries of their wider category. The classical militant groups and Pakistani Taliban have formal and strong organisational structures, as compared to the sectarian and Punjabi Taliban groups. Also, the former have more physical assets, which puts them at the risk of losing more as compared to the latter if the government decides to take strict measures against them. Interestingly, a non-state actor’s accumulation of more resources has two kinds of impact. With an increase in its physical assets, a militant group could try to reorganise its operational wings along conventional military lines as in the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon. At the same time its political stakes expand, putting constraints on the use of its operational wings. In our context, both Jamaatud Daawa and the TTP have the potential to develop along this particular pattern. However, it depends on how the state will conceive and respond to the threat that could emerge from this. A review of the behaviour of militant groups would suggest that well-structured groups based in urban areas behave differently to those in tribal areas. Urban-based groups avoid engaging in local conflicts and mainly focus on external fronts. One reason is their ideological entrenchment and support base in society. At the same time, these groups fear physical losses in case they get involved in local conflicts. However, this approach does not help them avoid internal differences. Small groups like the Punjabi Taliban and sectarian militant groups have nothing to lose as they have very fluid organisational structures with fewer human resources and less logistical dependence on major groups like Al Qaeda and the TTP. They continue fuelling the conflict with the help of allies in tribal territories. This is not unique to Pakistan; it can also be observed in Iraq, Yemen and Somalia. Will Pakistan consider this diversity of militant groups in its counter strategies? Can it isolate small terrorist cells from major groups before initiating peace moves? Or can these small groups be engaged in the peace process and peace deals be made with them? The probability is not bright. It is not because of their fluid structure but the nature of their nexuses with Al Qaeda and the TTP. Over time, the nexus of classical groups with Al Qaeda and other foreign groups has weakened. The classical groups support the Afghan Taliban but try to keep a distance from the Pakistani Taliban. Though they still have influence over individuals in the TTP and similar groups they cannot use it because of the TTP’s strong alliance with Al Qaeda. The TTP will give more importance to its relations with Al Qaeda because of its operational, tactical and logistical linkages with foreign groups. Small terrorist groups have identical strong bonds with Al Qaeda, which indicates that Al Qaeda remains in the driving seat. The probability of Pakistani militants disengaging from Al Qaeda depends on how the state can weaken the bond. Can this objective be achieved through talks or will a full-scale operation be required? This is a complex situation, where the scope of success of both talks and the use of force is difficult to measure. One critical challenge in the aftermath of either initiative will be the militants’ rehabilitation. Does the state have any plan of reintegration of the militants? After the successful military intervention in Swat, the state launched a rehabilitation programme in 2010. The rehabilitation centres have released more than 2,000 former militants, but thousands are waiting to be rehabilitated. Across the world, rehabilitation programmes are expensive and slow to produce results. Experts propose broader political approaches for reintegrating militants in society. Counterterrorism scholars consider the negotiation process a viable option to neutralise the militants’ moral, ideological, political and tactical strengths. Through negotiations the nexus within different categories of the militants can be weakened and their support bases neutralised, but all depends on the government’s approach. The writer is a security analyst.
The talks confusion By Cyril Almeida IT’S the trickiest of juggling acts the boys are trying to pull off right now: nudge along talks with the Afghan Taliban; reject talks with the TTP.. Why? Is it all a house of mirrors or just the convoluted logic of good Taliban/bad Taliban? The so-called prisoner releases — are the Afghans prisoners or honoured guests or reluctant sanctuary-seekers or something else altogether? — seem to be the easier half of the riddle: the boys don’t want to be seen as spoilers. Nobody really knows what will happen in Afghanistan post-2014, but everyone, including the boys here, are convinced that Pakistan will be blamed if reconciliation isn’t given a serious shot. And the boys don’t want to be blamed. Not yet anyway, because ultimately the policy will be laid bare and if it’s the same ol’, same ol’ — control of Afghanistan via Taliban proxies to keep India out — blame will surely be heaped on. But that’s for some other year. Right now, reconciliation is the game in town and the boys want to play too — or at least be seen to be playing. TTP is trickier, the aversion to talks, that is. To understand it, down the rabbit hole we must go, exploring options and possibilities and why the boys may be thinking what they are thinking. The take-it-at-face-value explanation: having fought the TTP for years, having understood what they stand for, having seen the damage they can wreak, having absorbed what they want to do to Pakistan, the boys know that talks are futile and force the only meaningful option. The boys like this explanation. It casts them as the heroic defenders of the country, the men on the side of right in a time when everyone else is too weak to stand up and be counted. And after one of their own was taken out by an IED this week, the boys have been hawking their preferred explanation ever more urgently. Could there be another, less noble, less charitable explanation though? After all, boys will be boys and few boys are like our boys, right? One theory is time. Nudging talks along with the Afghan Taliban right now doesn’t mean that anyone expects anything to happen anytime soon. It seems impossible that any deal can be sealed before the Afghan presidential election next April. What’s that got to do with talking or not talking to the TTP right now? Talks means more space for the TTP now and less space for the boys later. Better to further degrade the under-pressure factions of the TTP now and go into the Afghan-settlement phase with the TTP problem under control than to allow the TTP to recover during a talks/deal phase and then have to deal with the double headache of coaxing the Afghan Taliban into an Afghan settlement while simultaneously pressuring them to distance themselves from their TTP friends. The boys, according to this theory, have only so much capital — control, influence, take your pick — with the Afghan Taliban. That capital would be better spent on working out a post-2014 arrangement for Afghanistan than trying to keep the Afghan Taliban away and apart from a still-powerful TTP. Wriggle a bit further down the rabbit hole, amp up the scepticism, and the no-to-talks theory becomes darker. The boys, according to this dark theory, know that eventually a deal will have to be done with the TTP. There is no military solution, no final solution, just some hope that a lid can be kept on the militancy box. But to cut a deal now with the TTP would force into the open what the world has long suspected of the boys, that whether it be out of cowardice, fear or sympathy, the boys love the Taliban. And that would look terrible, especially with an Afghan settlement yet to be achieved. The boys a) don’t want to look bad and b) still believe the real prize is Afghanistan. So no to talks with the TTP, not now at least. Beyond a point though, the endless theorising misses the point. Nothing is clear because the army isn’t clear, and the army isn’t clear because the army is divided. Two anecdotes will suffice. Gen K, on a condolence visit to a soldier’s home, was told of how Taliban suicide bombers and fidayeen attackers are rumoured to get high on drugs before an attack. The point being made was that the Taliban are madmen on drugs. Gen K quietly replied, religion can be a drug too. A chief who seems to get what the problem is — surely, there must be hope then, right? But there is a flip side. To build the case that the TTP is as bad as bad can get, the less-visible, more-powerful boys drew up a list of several thousand names. Against each name, a sponsor was listed: CIA, RAW, NDS, Mossad, etc. These folk aren’t Taliban, the case was made, they’re mercenaries, paid agents of the enemies of Pakistan. The real battle that has to be fought is among the boys themselves. The ones who get it, who understand the problem, exist. But so do the other kind, the ones who’ve drunk the koolaid of jihad and are drawn from a society that has lurched to the right. And because one side is bold and insistent and the other timid and hesitant, we’re left with the strangest of juggling acts before us: talk to some, whack others. The writer is a member of staff. cyril.a@gmail.com Twitter: @cyalm
Stuff and nonsense By Hajrah Mumtaz OVER in America, curriculum reform is under way, with 45 states having adopted the new Common Core curriculum standards; implementation is to start soon.. Common Core focuses on developing students’ analytical and computer skills, but it omits from its pages one particular skill: cursive writing, or as children in many Pakistani schools used to call it, “joining handwriting.” Could the skill that has for centuries reigned supreme in the world of learning be on its way out? Under the Common Core standards, American schools are not forbidden from teaching students the skill of cursive writing, or asked to discourage it in any way. They can still teach it if they like. But, if they want, they can divert to other topics and skills those long hours and several years students spend in practising and perfecting the techniques of correctly and aesthetically looping an ‘o’ or attaching a ‘q’ to an ‘e’. The shift has outraged some, but many people see the wisdom of it too. In a digital world where the word, pinned down in physical form, is increasingly the domain of keyboards, the point of having to learn cursive writing is indeed questionable. It’s not that children won’t learn to write, after all: already, the estimations are that a lot of people, especially younger ones, are increasingly printing when they write rather than using cursive. And in any case, writing by hand is for many becoming the skill invoked for grocery and to-do lists; any meaningful writing usually gets done on a computer now. Not teaching students cursive handwriting as a matter of course doesn’t mean, obviously, that eventually the skill will die. Like calligraphy, it is bound to carry on as an art form. And in any case, that day will be a long time in coming. One fact certainly means that cursive will continue to feature in curricula in many countries: the rate of computer usage amongst their citizens. For Pakistan, for example, it is a very long time away. Nevertheless, those that are opposed to the move make the argument that this will result in contributing to the dumbing down effect for which school systems (in various countries) are already being criticised. But that’s just silly. There was a similar reaction when modern electronic calculators started being mass-marketed and students started gaining access to them. People said that children would not learn to do sums in their heads, that over- reliance on the technology would lead to the loss of the skill. That clearly didn’t happen. Those with no leaning for maths found their lives easier; those with interest in it specialised and took the field ever further. The skills that each individual finds useful, survive. Those who have filled out examination-sheets in longhand will remember the exercise of having to count the words manually; many developed a knack for looking at a handwriting-filled page and coming up with a reasonably accurate guess. Well, the computer does it much faster, and many can look at a typed page and give a reasonably accurate length for that too. This brings to mind an interview that Isaac Asimov gave to Bill Moyers back in 1988, just after Prelude to Foundation had been published. The three-part series is fascinating, for Asimov was much, much more than the science fiction writer that he is primarily remembered as, but in terms of learning. Bill Moyers asked, “Can we have a revolution in learning?” Asimov’s answer: “Yes, I think not only that we can but that we must. As computers take over more and more of the work that human beings shouldn’t be doing in the first place — because it doesn’t utilise their brains, it stultifies and bores them to death — there’s going to be nothing left for human beings to do but the more creative types of endeavour. “The only way we can indulge in the more creative types of endeavour is to have brains that aim at that from the start.” He carried on to envision that “once we have computer outlets in every home, each of them hooked up to enormous libraries, where you can ask any question and be given answers, you can look up something you’re interested in knowing, however silly it might seem to someone else. “… [G]ive everyone a chance, in addition to school, to follow up their own bent from the start, to find out about whatever they’re interested in by looking it up in their own homes, at their own speed, in their own time, and everyone will enjoy learning.” As for modern internet, visions of what such a computer or system might be are found in several of Asimov’s novels, but asked on this occasion by Moyers to imagine what such a teaching machine might look like, he said: “I find that difficult to imagine. “… But I suppose that one essential thing would be a screen on which you could display things, and another essential part would be a printing mechanism on which things could be printed for you. And you’ll have to have a keyboard on which you ask your questions’ although ideally I would like to see one that could be activated by voice. You could actually talk to it, and perhaps it could talk to you too. …” That would bolster the argument that the shape progress takes is the only shape that it could have taken, the logical, most profitable way forward. Or, conversely, once an idea is dreamed up — by sci-fi, for example — others set about making it come true, recognising the possibilities. Either way, what form humanity’s words are recorded in must of necessity change with technology. It isn’t important how it’s recorded, what’s crucial is what’s being said. The writer is a member of staff. hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com
Unconditional talks? By Babar Sattar IS it not extraordinary that the prime minister and the federal government assume they possess legal authority to hold unconditional talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terrorists? . Our Constitution and related legal principles do not endorse such assumption. The prime minister and parliamentarians have all sworn an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. It is a settled principle that the authority vested in state functionaries is the authority delegated to them by the people and must be exercised as a sacred trust within limits prescribed by the Constitution. The distinction between acts of an individual and those of state functionaries is as follows: a private citizen is free to do what he is not prohibited by law to do, while a state functionary can only do what he is explicitly authorised by law to do. What this means is that while the TTP, that doesn’t recognise our Constitution, can elect to engage in conditional or unconditional talks with the state, the state and its representatives are bound by the framework of the Constitution and do not have the luxury to discuss terms of peace that travel beyond it. This raises key questions: can the state accept the continuing existence of the TTP as an armed group even if it agrees not to attack citizens, officials and state property? Can the state relinquish its obligation to uphold fundamental rights across Pakistan, including within tribal areas, or delegate its responsibility within a specified region to a non-state actor such as the TTP? Can the state release undertrial or condemned prisoners on the TTP’s demand as a confidence-building measure? Can the state make a pact with the TTP even if it refuses to recognise the legitimacy of our Constitution? Article 256 of the Constitution is unambiguous: “No private organisation capable of functioning as a military organisation shall be formed, and any such organisation shall be illegal.” The TTP is not just capable but has been functioning rather effectively as an organisation fighting and killing our security forces. It is proscribed under the anti-terror law and cannot be allowed to exist as such in view of Article 256 unless it disarms and relinquishes violence. The TTP giving up arms and violence thus must be a condition for a peace pact. There is a widely held false belief that our tribal areas fall beyond the writ of the Constitution. While this might be true in practice, it is not so in principle. Article 247 does make special administrative arrangement for Fata by ousting the jurisdiction of the high court and the Supreme Court and delegating the authority to legislate in relation to such areas to the president. But the Constitution neither curtails the application of fundamental rights to tribal areas not relieves the state of its obligation to uphold such rights. The inalienable right to life, property, liberty, dignity, equality and due process guaranteed to citizens residing across Pakistan applies equally to citizens living in the tribal areas. Even if the courts have not so far exercised judicial review powers to scrutinise regulations promulgated by the president in relation to the tribal areas, they don’t lack such jurisdiction. Simply put, the president wields no legal authority to promulgate regulations for administration of tribal areas that contravene enumerated fundamental rights or other provisions of the Constitution. What this also means is that in the name of peace the state can’t cede control of North Waziristan or another tribal area to the TTP or leave the protection of guaranteed fundamental rights to the will and grace of the terrorists. It is important to understand that our form of federalism is inclusive and cooperative. Islamabad or Lahore or Karachi cannot decide that no citizens from tribal areas will travel or settle down in these cities. Article 16 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of movement to everyone. Short of ceding territory and allowing the creation of a Taliban emirate as a new state, the government cannot hand over to the TTP an autonomous area within the tribal belt to administer in accordance with its own whims and wishes, whether in the name of the Sharia, tribal custom, tradition or peace. Given our constitutional structure, it will not be possible to prohibit the movement of men and arms from such an area to the rest of Pakistan, not to mention the ideology of intolerance, hate and violence. Further, the Constitution doesn’t permit any government, whether local, provincial or federal, to adopt or practise any law or custom that contravenes fundamental rights. So, for example, the state cannot allow the TTP to prohibit girls from getting educated as barring them will breach Article 25(a) that mandates the state to educate all children between ages five to 16, and also Article 25, being discrimination on the basis of sex. The TTP’s allegiance to the Constitution thus has to be a condition for a peace pact. Regarding the release of prisoners, our criminal law states that no prosecution against an accused can be withdrawn except with the court’s permission. Thus undertrial prisoners cannot be released at the government’s discretion. However, once a court finds someone guilty, the provincial government has the authority to pardon the convict, and so does the president. But to state the obvious, laws provide for imprisonment of those who have established through their conduct that they are a threat to society if let loose. What rational basis would the state have to pardon hardened terrorists who retain the urgent resolve to revert to their murderous ways if set free, like those who escaped from Bannu or D.I. Khan jails? Crime is not a private matter between two individuals or an individual and the state. It is an offence against society, and in prosecuting and punishing the criminal the state acts on the society’s behalf. Thus, a de-radicalisation programme and continued monitoring of terror suspects will have to be a precondition for an amnesty scheme in the interest of society’s safety. The futility of talks with terrorists and misdiagnosis of our terror problem notwithstanding, the position that the government can engage in talks unconditionally is simply untenable. The writer is a lawyer. sattar@post.harvard.edu
Small window of opportunity By Moeed Yusuf PRIME Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Manmohan Singh will likely meet in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. . We have already been told that there won’t be any major breakthroughs. That the meeting is taking place is said to be a big enough deal. But is it? Or will this go-slow approach force us to lose the most promising window of opportunity to make progress? There is little doubt that Prime Minister Sharif is sincere in his overtures towards India and in his stated eagerness to patch up. But Pakistanis feel that India is already in election mode and the relatively weak Manmohan Singh government would not be able to take any bold decisions over the next year. Indian colleagues tend to concur. At the same time, as the recent tensions along the Line of Control have reminded us, neither prime minister seems to have control in terms of preventing such incidents or curtailing the jingoistic reactions that follow. This equation does not augur well for the future of India-Pakistan ties. Hopes that the two sides will gain momentum gradually — read after the Indian elections — are premised on a misreading of the likely national and regional developments over the next year or so. First, the Pakistani prime minister’s honeymoon period will long be over by the time we get past the Indian elections. Without any forward movement during the interim, voices opposed to rapprochement will find greater space to raise Sharif’s political costs for pushing ahead on the India front. Already, there is a growing sense among government circles in Islamabad that the prime minister is being put on the back foot by what is perceived to be lack of enthusiasm on the Indian side. Second, the Indian elections can easily throw up a dispensation that is far less inclined to show leniency towards Pakistan. I have recently conducted interviews with members of the Indian intelligentsia and gained some insights on this question: virtually all say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s personal obsession for improved India-Pakistan ties is unlikely to be replicated. In fact, the election result may produce an outcome that is worse than just losing an ardent supporter of India-Pakistan peace. Given that Congress’s position is weak, pundits are pointing to one of two outcomes as most likely: a Narendra Modi-led government; or a relatively weak third front with the backing of either the Bharatiya Janata Party or Congress. Irrespective of how one sees Modi adapting to realities as his country’s leader, his rise to the top is certain to create obstacles on the bilateral front. The reason: the perception of him as a deeply communal and anti-Muslim individual. The Islamist right in Pakistan will have a field day bashing any political government that ignores this reality. Even if Modi moderates his views as prime minister, Islamabad will find it hard to be as forthcoming as it could be with a Congress government; and if his ultra-right rhetoric continues, Islamabad may even find it politically untenable to engage, period. A weak third front, on the other hand, will present more of the present. We’ll hear that the Indian government is not strong enough to adopt a positive stance on Pakistan. The two sides will remain engaged and the positive rhetoric will continue but progress will be sluggish. Add to this the impending regional scene. Most relevant to the discussion here is the India-Pakistan competition in Afghanistan. The Pakistani security establishment remains wary of the Indian presence in southern and eastern Afghanistan. In the absence of any agreed arrangements for co-existence, an ugly proxy situation is all but certain. The next year is the most obvious window to find common ground in Afghanistan. With all its internal problems, Pakistan does not want another proxy war on its hands. India is rightly feeling vulnerable because it can’t compete with Pakistan in the absence of any hard security cover in Afghanistan — thus far provided by Isaf troops. If the two sides could decipher each other’s red lines in talks between their intelligence communities, they may find acceptable arrangements for coexistence. Failing this, they’ll be thrust into an ugly competition, with its attendant negative implications for the bilateral relationship. The forecast on terrorism is much the same. Over the past few years, the traditionally anti-India groups have either splintered to join the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan or have found an outlet to fight in Afghanistan. More cohesive ones like the Lashkar-e-Taiba seem to be less active than they were previously but have most definitely not given up their designs to target India either. Scary as this thought is, the most likely moment for a number of these outfits to consider reverting to their raison d’être will be in the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. With the excuse of fighting the infidel forces gone, the role of Punjabi fighters in Afghanistan is certain to diminish. And if we accept the all too obvious reality that the Pakistani state no longer controls all these groups, we are in for major trouble. Incidents of cross-border terrorism in India would all but ensure a regression in bilateral ties. India will ask that this be stopped. Pakistan will be unable to do so. We’ll be deadlocked on this issue yet again. There is no better opportunity for India and Pakistan than the next 12-15 months to fast-track progress. In fact, it may well be the only realistic window available. Availing it, however, requires bold decisions on both sides. India must match the Pakistani prime minister’s enthusiasm to strengthen his hand domestically. New Delhi must avoid making politics an excuse for lack of progress. Pakistan must move on the MFN and also speed up the Mumbai investigations, legal impediments notwithstanding. Meanwhile, both sides must sincerely and jointly interrogate all untoward incidents like the one on the LoC. Petty, tit-for-tat mindsets that dictate for now won’t cut it. The writer is South Asia adviser at the US Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.
Empowering women through LG By Asma Afzal Shami THE decentralisation of governance is now the preferred option in an increasing number of developing countries. . However, political scientists advocate that its basic premise, ie making government more responsive to the needs of the people, would be negated if the participation of marginalised groups such as women is not ensured. They also stress on the utility argument that, as women have different interests which cannot be addressed by men, it is essential to increase the percentage of women who are elected to office. This complements Anne Phillips’ theory of the Politics of Presence ie if there is a substantial number of women in an elected body, its men will be more willing to tackle women-related issues. However, as women face difficulty in getting elected on general seats, use of a female quota is considered an acceptable fast-track strategy for bridging the gender gap in politics. As to the ‘size’ of this quota, Tremblay and Steele have deduced that 30pc is the threshold that needs to be crossed for women to have substantive representation. These thoughts have been mirrored in the report of the Women’s Rights Committee 1976, chaired by Yahya Bakhtiar, which concluded that the shortage of women in Pakistani politics could only be overcome if 25pc seats were reserved for women at the local government level “as this would give them the confidence and motivation to participate in politics at the higher level.” Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid’s Commission of Inquiry for Women in Pakistan, August 1997, agreed with this but recommended increasing this quota to 33pc, considering this as the minimum requirement for empowering women to participate in decision-making. Yet, these recommendations were not put into practice till Gen Musharraf introduced his devolution plan of 2000. Although its overall concept and his motives for instituting it were severely criticised, his initiative of reserving 33pc seats for women in each tier of local government, particularly the decision to fill these at the union council level through direct elections, was a giant step towards the political empowerment of women at the grass-roots level. However, this raised three specific apprehensions among civil society. My views are based on extensive field research for my PhD thesis on the Political Empowerment of Women in Pakistan, involving visits to selected local bodies in all provinces, focused group discussions with 594 local women and individual interviews with 153 women councillors and nazims during 2004-8. First was the apprehension that not enough women would be coming forth to fill the 33pc seats reserved for them and yet 89pc of women’s seats were filled in 2000-1 and 97pc in 2005. Credit for this must go to the Aurat Foundation that galvanised civil society into launching a national ‘Citizens’ Campaign for Women’s Representation in Local Government’. Second was the apprehension, caused by a patriarchal mindset and the religious orthodoxy in our society, that the presence of thousands of women councillors in the local bodies would lead to a moral breakdown in society. Interestingly, while the religious elements initially vehemently resisted the participation of women in the 2000-1 polls, by the time the elections entered their second phase even the Jamaat-i-Islami fielded a large number of candidates for the women’s reserved seats. Similarly, after an initial period of settling down, the presence of such a large number of women instilled an element of civility amongst their male colleagues. The third apprehension cast doubts on the ability of women councillors, the majority of whom were illiterate and belonged to the lower class, to achieve anything meaningful. However, my research introduced me to a brave new world in which many of them had distinguished themselves by the quality of their service delivery. This was best reflected by Karman Bibi, a councillor whom I interviewed in Mirpurkhas. Her rationalisation for spending her share of development funds was: “If the road is not built people will still find a way to somehow reach home. But if the school is not built for girls, my daughter will stay uneducated the way I am, the way my mother was before me, and the way her mother was before her — believe me it is such a meaningless life.” Many such stories have been chronicled by UNDP, Pattan and Aurat Foundation. Even more encouraging were their achievements in the realm of social work. The National Commission on the Status of Women’s Study on Local Bodies System and its Impact on Women, 2010, describes how, despite the initial male hostility, these women councillors earned recognition as role models for helping local women benefit from the zakat committee and Baitul Maal, arranging school admissions, obtaining medical help, getting identity cards, accompanying them to thanas and even mediating in family disputes including violence against women. My own research, besides highlighting similar trends, also unearthed an unintended spin-off, ie ordinary women were facilitated in coming out of their homes — albeit in the company of these ‘females of authority’ — thus becoming relatively more independent. This was akin to the empowerment of women, both the electorate and the elected. Therefore, I strongly recommend that the provisions regarding women contained in LGO 2001 must be retained, but with two amendments to the law. Firstly, the presence of 33pc women members should be mandatory for constituting a quorum. Secondly, the vote of 33pc women councillors should be necessary for the passage of any bill. By ensuring the relevance of the women’s point of view on all issues, these amendments would greatly enhance the political empowerment of women at the grass-roots level. The writer is an independent researcher. asmaafzalshami@gmail.com
A toxic narrative By Zahid Hussain IMRAN Khan startles us with his philistinism each time he speaks on the issue of terrorism. His narrative on violent militancy in the country and the prescription to end the menace is dangerously simplistic. Not surprisingly he is seen as the most strident of apologists for the Pakistani Taliban.. He attributes the killing of thousands of Pakistani men, women and children by the terrorists solely to the blowback effect of the US drone strikes and the war in Afghanistan. For the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief the unconditional surrender of the Pakistani state to the Taliban is the only way out of the bloody conflict. His demand for a ceasefire in the aftermath of the killing of Gen Sanaullah Niazi by the militants is a glaring example of his muddled thinking on critical security issues. A day before the militant attack in Upper Dir, the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ordered the army troops to pull out of Malakand. Such a senseless move without a strong civilian security and administrative system in place is tantamount to handing back the control of the area to the group involved in last week’s killing of the regional commander. The party has also endorsed the Taliban demand for withdrawal of the army from the tribal areas. With this approach there is nothing to wonder about which side of the fence Imran Khan is on. What is most dangerous, however, is that Imran Khan’s perilously flawed narrative has influenced the national discourse. Those views were reflected in the all-party conference (APC) resolution earlier this month that has virtually legitimised militancy by declaring the extremist group a stakeholder in the peace process. A non-starter from the outset, the so-called peace initiative endorsed by the APC has not yet taken off the ground, mainly because the Taliban have upped the ante sensing the government’s weakness. The resolution, aptly described as a “document of surrender”, has however further muddled the nation’s resolve to fight violent militancy and religious extremism. A weak-kneed response by the government to the latest killing of senior army officers fighting on the front line has widened the difference between the civilian and military leadership. Gen Kayani’s statement that the military would not bow to the Taliban’s demands marks a clear departure from the placatory tenor of the APC resolution. It also reflects the growing frustration within the military ranks at the ambivalence of the national leadership on the problem that presents the greatest threat to national security and the unity of the country. Nothing can make the militants happier than a procrastinating political leadership unable to stand up to the grave national security challenges. In order to fight terrorism and violent militancy more effectively it is imperative to dismantle the toxic narrative that is being propounded by the likes of Imran Khan and also taken up by the PML-N government. Firstly, it is a false argument that the rise of militancy and sectarian violence is solely the blowback effect of US intervention in Afghanistan and the drone strikes in the tribal region. The roots of militancy are much deeper in Pakistan and while the war in Afghanistan may have only fuelled it further, it is certainly not the cause. Most militant groups involved in terrorist activities and those fighting the Pakistani forces operated for a long time under the patronage of the country’s security establishment waging jihad in other countries. Many of them had a close nexus with Al Qaeda and it was a matter of time before they turned their guns on their erstwhile patrons. Imran Khan and others who blame Pakistan’s support for the US war in Afghanistan for the conflict are either naïve or twisting the facts to give legitimacy to the militants’ violence. The truth is that under a UN Security Council resolution Pakistan had no choice but to side with the US after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We should not forget that Imran Khan supported Gen Musharraf’s decision at the time. Again it is a false argument that militancy will cease if Pakistan dissociates itself from the US-led war in Afghanistan. Firstly, how is Pakistan a part of the US war? In fact, the country has often been accused of supporting the Afghan Taliban insurgency against the occupation forces. Secondly, the US now plans to pull out its forces from Afghanistan by the end of next year and it is in the interest of Pakistan to facilitate a political settlement in the war-ravaged country. Does Imran Khan want Pakistan to side with the Taliban fighting the foreign troops in Afghanistan? Yet another fallacy is that the Pakistani Taliban’s militancy is in retaliation to the US drone strikes in the tribal regions. There is no empirical evidence to prove this contention. For sure the drone strikes violate Pakistan’s sovereignty and must be stopped. It is also true that the civilian casualties have some serious political implications. But to link the militancy to the Predator strikes is certainly an exaggeration. To put the record straight, only six drone strikes were carried out from 2004 to 2009 and except for the Damadola incident there had not been any collateral damage reported. But most terrorist attacks occurred during that period targeting civilians as well as the security personnel and the installations. Most of the tribal agencies and Malakand division in KP had fallen under Taliban control. Peshawar was virtually under siege and militants had advanced to the areas close to the capital Islamabad. It was only after the military operations that the state was able to re-establish its control over those areas. So to say that the military action did not work is an extremely flawed argument. In fact, the peace deals had allowed the Taliban the space to reorganise themselves. The latest move for unconditional peace negotiations will have the same effect. Imran Khan’s toxic narrative only helps the Taliban and other militant groups that have declared war against the state. What is at stake is the future of democracy and the stability of the country. The writer is an author and journalist. zhussain100@yahoo.com Twitter: @hidhussain
Militancy’s steady progress By Arifa Noor IN a country plagued by terrorist attacks that have claimed the lives of leaders, ordinary people and the more vulnerable citizens, each tragedy is painful and emotionally draining. . But every new attack proves that the emotional exhaustion is finite while the anger and outrage is not. Sunday was no different. The reaction to the attack on innocent worshippers and especially those from the Christian community was intense and quick and continued all throughout Monday. Protests, statements of condemnation and anger — it was all there. But in the midst of this anger, it was still possible to note how unusual the target of the violence was. The Christian community has a number of crosses to bear as it tries to live and breathe in Pakistan — the attack on Joseph Colony and the minor girl in Islamabad who was accused of blasphemy are recent reminders of the harshness of their lives. But since 2002, they have generally been spared the wrath of the Taliban who have focused their righteousness on ordinary Pakistanis (regardless of sect and religion), state installations and the Shia community in particular in recent years. But that first year that Pakistan witnessed suicide attacks it was this very community that was under attack. The first was a church in Islamabad’s Diplomatic Enclave, which was then followed by the shooting at a school in Murree and a chapel in Taxila. A detailed report in Herald later said that the attacks were the work of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) veterans under the banner of Jamaat-ul-Furqan. The Jamaat was said to be a splinter group of the Jaish led by former Haraktul Ansar and JeM commander, Abdul Jabbar. It was argued back then that the attacks were a reaction to the invasion of Afghanistan — the aim was to punish the West. The Christian community perhaps was just ‘collateral damage’ — the word ‘perhaps’ is used because in those days, the militants’ groups were not savvy enough to designate media spokesmen and the attacks were not succeeded by statements providing explanations and neither did enthusiastic members of the Taliban write public letters to their targets pointing out the error of their (the survivor’s) ways. And now 11 years later, a church has been targeted again and with horrendous results. It seems inexplicable. But studied against the general expansion of terrorist attacks in Pakistan and the general progression of militant groups, there is some method to the madness. The targets of the militants in Pakistan have widened with the passage of time. After the ‘Western’ targets, it was retired Gen Pervez Musharraf who was attacked — he was seen as the villain who had caused Pakistan’s U-turn on Afghanistan and forcibly aligned Pakistan with the West. But within months, other military officials began to be targeted. In 2004, the Karachi corps commander escaped an attack that was also carried out by Jundullah. Its activists, as pointed out in news reports and investigations, were once associated with Harkatul Mujahideen (a decade ago most of the notorious militant groups were either sectarian ones or those who were involved in Kashmir). The militants were realising that their enemy was not limited to an individual or an institution. They had expanded the list of those they saw as enemies and hence were taking their ‘war’ to all of them. By the next year, even civilian cronies of the regime were no longer safe — while campaigning for his election to parliament, prime minister apparent Shaukat Aziz also had a close brush with a suicide attacker. The reasons for this expansion are two-fold. One is the diffusion of power in the polity the militants see as their ‘enemy’. This is of course based on the assumption that the attacks are carried out by people who aim to influence the government’s policies and/or attitudes. And this stands true even of religious militants who see the war as one between good and evil where their job is to destroy the ‘evil’. And if government policy is not being decided by an individual, then the attacks too will be carried out against more than one man. In a democracy, the targets become multiple while ordinary people are attacked and killed to pressure the government and spread the perception of the state’s inefficacy. But the second, perhaps more important, reason from the Pakistani perspective is splinter groups. Historically splinter groups have always led to further violence as the younger and more extreme members tend to break away from their more cautious leadership. In Pakistan this splintering has been part and parcel of militancy since the beginning — regardless of the militant groups’ relationship with the state. JeM, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and many others were formed by men who disagreed with their leadership. The conflict with the state has only hastened and intensified this process. Many of those who have written on the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have pointed out that Hakeemullah Mehsud who took over once Baitullah Mehsud was killed was far more ruthless. A similar phenomenon was witnessed in other countries where a state crackdown eliminated the senior leadership of militant groups who were then replaced by their younger, less experienced and more reckless colleagues. The Algerian civil war is a classic example. In the short term this leads to more violence. This is partly what Pakistan is experiencing. Like the initial suicide attacks in 2002 and some in 2004, this attack on a church too has been claimed by a relatively unknown organisation. On the other hand, some journalists in Peshawar are saying that the TTP spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid has said that the TTP was not aware of who had carried out the attack while others are saying that these reports are not credible. But the fact that a relatively unknown spokesman has claimed the attack reflects the loose structure of the organisation. Nonetheless, this attack is a loud and clear foreboding of more, indiscriminate violence. War or talks, whatever we decide on, the end will not come quickly or quietly. The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Islamabad.
Awaran bears brunt as powerful quake strikes Balochistan By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, Sept 24: Awaran and several other districts of Balochistan were struck by a massive earthquake of 7.7 magnitude on Tuesday afternoon, leaving at least 60 people dead, bringing down houses and buildings and causing widespread destruction. . The quake rattled vast areas, including Karachi and other cities and towns of Sindh and sending shockwaves up to Swat in the northwest. It triggered panic in Karachi and Hyderabad where people left buildings and homes and went out in the open. Officials in Quetta warned that the death toll in the affected areas was likely to increase because rescue workers were yet to reach many remote areas and the communications system had been crippled. Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch declared an emergency in Awaran and five other districts. Army and Frontier Corps troops were called in to carry out rescue and relief work. A large number of people were rescued from the debris of houses and the injured were given emergency medical aid by army and FC doctors and paramedics. “Over 80 per cent mud-houses have collapsed or have been badly damaged in Awaran,” Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad told Dawn, adding that casualties and losses in several remote areas had also been reported but rescue teams had not been able to reach those places till late in the night.The quake affected several districts of Balochistan, including Quetta, at 4.29pm and continued shaking the areas for about one minute, forcing people to rush out of their homes. Kunri area of Awaran district was the epicentre of the quake. At least four aftershocks of 5.6 magnitude were felt in most areas. Thousands of houses collapsed or were badly damaged in towns and villages of Awaran. Home Secretary Asad Gilani said 50 bodies had been retrieved and 150 people had been injured in Awaran. “The death toll may increase because the earthquake has caused massive destruction in Awaran and adjoining districts and rescue teams are yet to reach several remote areas from where reports of heavy losses are being received,” he said. Balochistan Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Mir Abdul Quddoos Bezinjo, elected from the Awaran constituency, claimed that the death toll was higher than so far announced by officials. According to sources, at least 11 people, including a woman and a girl, were killed in Kech district and over 20 houses collapsed in Dandar village of Hoshab teshil and near Turbat. According to local people, a leader of the Balochistan National Party-M, Munir Ahmed Mirwani, died in Awaran. The phone and road links between several areas and the rest of the country were severed, adding to the difficulties of the rescue teams. Awaran Deputy Commissioner Rashid Baloch said almost all houses and shops in the town and nearby villages had been destroyed or damaged. He said at least 19 people had died in the town, while reports of losses from remote areas were yet to be received. “We have launched a rescue and relief operation in the affected areas in collaboration with the army and Frontier Corps,” the official said. He said immediate supply of tents, food and medicines was needed for thousands of people rendered homeless. FC sources said a Levies camp in Awaran had also been destroyed. Local people said no building in the town, including those of hospitals, schools and government buildings, remained intact. “There is no proper place for providing shelter to the affected people,” local journalist Shabir Rakhsani said, adding that a large number of women and children were out in the open, waiting for help. He said that the local administration had provided some tents but they were not adequate because thousands of homeless people needed shelter. The FC said its teams were carrying out rescue and relief work in Awaran Bazaar, Bedi, Labach, Pirandar, Terteej, Jhaol, Mashkay and other areas of the district. Addressing a press conference in Quetta, government spokesman Mir Jan Mohammad Badini said Kech, Gwadar and Khuzdar districts had also been affected but Awaran was the worst hit. Provincial Finance Secretary Dostain Jamaldini said the governments of Iran and Turkey had offered to send relief for the affected people. He said the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and governments of Punjab and Sindh had also offered help. “On an offer made by the Sindh chief secretary, we have asked him to send two truckloads of medicines to areas of Awaran adjacent to Sindh,” he said. The Pakistan Army has dispatched two helicopters with food packets, medicines and other relief goods.
Two faces of terrorism By Mahir Ali THE terrorist atrocities perpetrated in Peshawar and Nairobi on the weekend were dissimilar but not exactly disconnected.. For one, both were explicitly directed against non-Muslims. The dozen or so men who stormed into the Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital reportedly queried potential victims about their faith before singling out their victims. Outside the All Saints Church in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa capital, no such interrogation was deemed necessary. The pattern of the Nairobi siege has been compared with the Mumbai rampage of 2008. The suicide bombings in Peshawar, on the other hand, resemble the targeting of Shia imambargahs and Ahmadi places of worship. In both cases, however, commentators purportedly representing the perpetrators have harped on the theme of foreign military intervention as a primary motivational factor. The Somali militia Al Shabaab, which has claimed responsibility for the Nairobi carnage, has said it was a response to Kenya’s military role in neighbouring Somalia, where a ramshackle regime in Mogadishu barely survives in the presence of troops contributed by the African Union (AU). The Shabaab militia, though, has a particular beef with Kenyan forces, which have collaborated with local warlords to substantially restrict its remit. In Pakistan, it was initially reported that the Junoodul Hifsa, which is linked to the local Taliban, claimed the responsibility (subsequently denied by the Taliban). Reportedly, it said it had been provoked by the American drone strikes in the tribal areas — without elaborating, obviously, on the connection between the All Saints churchgoers and the CIA’s Predators, because there is none. Sadly, but not altogether surprisingly, Imran Khan, whose party wields provincial power in KP, chose to implicitly harp on the same theme, while also linking the attack to elements opposed to the prospect of peace talks between the Taliban and the government in Islamabad, without specifying who he had in mind. It is intriguing that the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) reportedly denied involvement in the attack, but in itself it proves nothing. It is hardly a secret, after all, that groups loosely affiliated with the Taliban pursue relatively independent agendas, so even if the TTP is not being entirely disingenuous, it is perfectly conceivable one of its associates may have decided to commit mass murder without clearing its plans with the TTP hierarchy. It may well also be the case that whoever authorised the unutterably vile act was indeed determined, inter alia, to thwart any sort of peace process. If so, they are likely to have been pleased by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s indication from London that in the wake of the monumental tragedy, conciliatory talks were off the agenda. Perhaps he felt he had little choice. After all, many sensible voices in Pakistan oppose negotiations with dedicated killers as pointless, and arguably irresponsible. After all, in any civilised state, some things must be non-negotiable. Such as the sanctity of life. Talks ought not to be written off completely as long as there is the slightest chance that they could lead to a modus vivendi that does not entail submitting to obscurantist blackmail. But given that the prospects of successful negotiations are incredibly slim, is there a Plan B in place? A dozen years after the 9/11 backlash, has the notion sunk in that Pakistan and terrorism cannot indefinitely coexist? Pakistan cannot, surely, want to lapse into another Somalia. The lessons are tangential, no doubt, but ought not to be ignored. The African state fell into disarray following the ouster of Siad Barre in 1991, and was overrun by competing militias under rival warlords, a trend that UN and US intervention in the mid-1990s — including an ill-fated contingent of Pakistani peacekeepers — singularly failed to arrest. A semblance of stability was eventually restored by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which fell short of a satisfactory solution, but temporarily brought peace to Mogadishu by sidelining the warlords. Its nomenclature alone may have sufficed, though, to provoke a disastrous US-backed Ethiopian invasion, which led to the ascendancy of Al Shabaab, which had until then been a relatively minor component of the ICU. There have since then been competing factions within Al Shabaab, which affiliated itself with Al Qaeda a few years ago, with Somali nationalists — who primarily opposed a foreign presence on their soil — lately weeded out by the votaries of global jihad, who have attracted adherents, including British and US-born Somalis, from across the world. Both Al Shabaab and the Kenyan authorities claim that the Westgate terrorists were a disparate bunch in terms of nationality. The vast area Al Shabaab once controlled within Somalia has also been shrinking, largely because of military operations by Kenyan and other AU forces in collaboration with warlords whose loyalties are easily bought. What’s more, its leadership and ranks have lately been depleted by a vendetta against nationalists averse to the agenda of global jihadism. The militia is likely to have been aware that the shopping mall it targeted in Nairobi is Israeli-owned, but it appears Westgate was chosen because it is magnet for Westerners as well as the Kenyan elite. Its ruthlessness inevitably made the world pay attention. And Kenya, whose president and vice-president have both been implicated by the International Criminal Court in the violence that followed elections five years ago, has received offers of additional support from the UK, US and Israel. Pakistan and Somalia are very different entities but, although it is clear that US intervention has not had a salutary effect in either case, stemming the bloodshed in both cases deserves more concerted engagement at a local level than, most tragically, has hitherto been the case. mahir.dawn@gmail.com
Fall of the rupee By Ishrat Husain WHY is the Pakistani currency depreciating so rapidly vis-à-vis foreign currencies? How can this trend be arrested? What is the future outlook for Pakistan’s currency? These questions must be addressed in a dispassionate manner. . Economic theory has many explanations for relative currency movements. The simplest one is that if country X records the inflation rate at 10pc per annum while country Y’s is only 2pc, the bilateral exchange rate of country X should result in depreciation of 8pc vis-à-vis country. Hardly any country has economic ties with only one country. Therefore, a trade-weighted exchange rate is used where weights correspond to the relative share in trade with each country in a given basket. The US dollar dominates the multilateral basket as oil payments and other trades and services are settled in US dollars. Given that the latter is the dominant currency, the relative inflation differential between the US and Pakistan becomes a significant determinant of exchange rate movements. Trade is not the only component of foreign exchange transactions. Workers’ remittances now equal more than 50pc of merchandise exports. Current account balances should be examined for explaining currency movement. A surplus current account implies Pakistan has become a net exporter of capital to the rest of the world. It can either use this surplus to invest in foreign portfolios or allow its companies to invest directly in other countries. For a poor country the best bet is to add this surplus to the country’s foreign exchange reserves. The current account is, however, only one part of balance of payments, the other is the capital and financial account. When foreigners bring in their net investment — foreign direct investment or portfolio — or the country borrows in foreign exchange these accounts become positive. The current account surplus along with this positive balance in the capital account means that the country has more foreign exchange than required. The exchange rate then starts appreciating and we get fewer rupees for each dollar. An appreciating exchange rate makes our exports non-competitive and imports cheaper. Thus in the next round our current account balance will turn into a deficit to be financed by capital inflows. The exchange rate will start moving towards its previous level. But if the current account remains in deficit and capital balances are negative (FDI and portfolio inflows in Pakistan have fallen from 3pc of GDP to negative during the last five years) then the demand for foreign exchange exceeds the supply. This excess demand can only be met by drawing down foreign reserves. In 2012/13 the reserves declined by 44pc largely due to repayment to creditors. The rupee has depreciated 17pc since then despite the State Bank losing about $3.5 billion of reserves defending the currency. We faced a similar situation in 2008. Foreign exchange reserves are a barometer of the country’s external payment capacity. Adequate reserves give a sense of confidence to those engaged in the business of import and export. Once the reserves start moving downwards, the exporters (suppliers of foreign exchange to the inter-bank market) withhold their earnings (they are obliged to surrender the foreign exchange within 90 days) from the market expecting they will get a higher rate in the next few months thus causing a shortage of dollars in the market. The importers (those who demand foreign exchange from the same market) rush to book their orders to hedge against future depreciation. The speculators also jump in. This increases the overall demand for dollars in the inter-bank market. As the exchange rate on any particular date is determined by the supply and demand of foreign currency available in the market the excess demand, relative to the short supply, results in depreciation. This creeping depreciation alerts others and even housewives begin to convert their savings from rupees into dollars. The self-fulfilling prophecy is realised, and reinforces negative market sentiment, and the rupee-dollar parity keeps going down. Additional rupee liquidity in the banking system pumped by the State Bank to finance fiscal borrowing helps the holders of foreign currency as they can now retain their positions in the inter-bank market. In case the State Bank chooses to intervene in the market either by making outright payments for some lumpy imports or purchasing dollars in the forward market it has to run down its reserves. Unless these reserves are recouped their declining level will lead to the same consequences as in the case of the inter-bank transactions. How can this trend be arrested? In the short run, the market sentiment needs to be reversed by a substantial infusion of foreign exchange or the expectation of such infusion. The present government that enjoys favourable market sentiment has tried to break this vicious cycle by negotiating an Extended Fund Facility with the IMF to essentially pay off future instalments of the IMF loan. It’s also negotiating some quick loans worth $6bn with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank. If the government fulfils its obligations for tranche releases and the programme is kept on track, it is possible that the reserves may be replenished to safe limits. Market players will thus be assured that they can sell or buy foreign exchange at a stable rate. Precautionary excess demand and speculative activity will thus gradually be reduced and the inter-bank market would be at or near the equilibrium point and the pace of depreciation will assume normalcy. So the future outlook for Pakistani currency will squarely depend on the policy performance of the economic managers — how well and swiftly they can restore market confidence through timely measures. If the fiscal deficit is not reduced and continues to be monetised by high-powered money, the reserves remain precarious, supply shortages continue and inflationary pressures persist. This will put pressure on the exchange rate which will move along a downward adjustment path. Should the government seriously implement the reforms it has committed itself to, the outlook may improve. Any semblance of drift, indecision, backtracking or political expediency during the implementation stage may once again derail the economy from the prescribed path. The writer is a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan.
A crisis of laws By Rafia Zakaria ARTICLE 20 of the Constitution is related to the freedom to profess religion and to manage religious institutions.. In the relevant part, it says, “Subject to public order and morality: a) every citizen shall have the right to profess, practise and propagate his religion; and b) every religious denomination and every sect thereof shall have the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions.” Article 36 further goes on to establish the protection of minorities, saying: “The state shall safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of minorities including their due representation in the federal and provincial services.” Further articulations lay out more protections against discrimination in hiring, in educational institutions, and the like. These provisions exist and yet, as we saw this past weekend, Pakistan’s religious minorities are probably some of the most vulnerable populations in the world. Sunday’s attack on the All Saints Church in Peshawar killed over 80 people and injured more than 130. It was gruesome even in a country where such attacks are not unusual. It challenged the very basis of the constitutional provisions cited above and made a mockery of the idea that minorities in Pakistan, be they sectarian or religious, enjoy any sort of equality. Not only are those who are not Muslim targeted by militant groups, a million instances of everyday discrimination, from blackmail to false allegations of blasphemy, hound them in their existence as Pakistanis — though Muslims too are far from immune to these violations. The vast chasm between the realities of life and the constitutional and legal provisions governing those realities is not limited to minorities. Women are another beleaguered lot in Pakistani society, facing similarly tremendous gaps between what is promised them and what they endure. Equality, freedom from harassment, a stop to killings in the name of honour, education, representation at every level of government are all things that have at one point or another been promised and even legislated on. Few, as everyone is aware, have been implemented. The condition of Pakistani women, largely illiterate, routinely harassed and denied even basic security against bodily harm and sexual assault, is probably one of the worst in the world. Against this context of helplessness, it has become difficult to estimate the value of legislatively led reforms as a means of change. Take specifically the example of the Women’s Protection Act. This legislation, which was passed in 2006, included amendments to existing criminal law. It accomplished the task of bringing the crime of rape back under the Pakistan Penal Code, addressing the legal loophole that left rape victims vulnerable to prosecution under the provisions of the Zina and Hudood Ordinances. Four years after the passage of the legislation, in December 2010, the Federal Sharia Court declared that Sections 11, 28, and 29 of the Women’s Protection Act were unconstitutional, in that they took away the “overriding effects of the Hudood Ordinance of 1979”. The court ordered that these sections not be effective after June 22, 2011. With the matter now in appeal before the Sharia appellate bench of the Supreme Court, the Women’s Protection Act stands — at the moment. What its future will be remains a moot point. Last week the Council of Islamic Ideology also opined that some provisions of the Women’s Protection Act were not in line with Islamic injunctions. Saying that Islam sets out provisions for criminal procedures, the Council was also against the use of DNA as primary evidence across the board in all rape cases. The CII’s conclusions came after some internal opposition, with media reports suggesting that there were scholars within the council who held dissenting views. The fact remains, however, that efforts to undermine progressive legislation on women’s rights have been made. In a democratic polity, campaigns for the passage of just and equitable laws, particularly those that protect weaker groups, are the basis of promoting social change and enforcing equality. In the case of religious minorities, the laws exist but are not enforced. In the case of women, laws that were passed have seen opposition. In light of these examples, the failure to enforce existing laws that protect religious minorities and the opposition to new laws that would protect women both suggests a society where the law has become redundant. In light of this, advocacy around legislative initiatives — demanding more laws or better laws or enforcement of laws in Pakistan — appears to be a futile endeavour. Laws that exist but do not fit an exceedingly narrow version of Pakistani identity mean absolutely nothing, in that there is no hope of their enforcement. Impermeable to the changes that can be affected by legislation, Pakistan exists despite laws, or beyond them, following instead a brash unwritten code of mass populism rather than legislated prerogative. In other, less dismal days, this article could have ended with an exhortation for the new government. It would have counted down the hundreds of horrific cases of sexual assault, the most recent in the country’s imagination being that of a young child. These ordinary retaliations, in Pakistan, seem to be the strategies of another time, when the very basis of consensus — of the Constitution — was not so contested. In the Pakistan of today, the arguments and agitations can no longer be for new laws or better laws. Instead, the country needs to revisit that original basis of consensus, and ask whether it still applies and if it means anything at all. The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy. rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
The sound of music in Kashmir By Jawed Naqvi REMEMBER the cult song made famous by Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music? The hills are alive with the sound of music? . And she, who was one with nature in a verdant Austrian landscape, crooning the memorable lines in a riveting long shot at the start of the movie? That was the image, not Nero’s fiddle, which came to mind when Zubin Mehta and the Bavarian State Orchestra caressed Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No3 in Kashmir’s Mughal-era Shalimar Bagh recently. Mughal Emperor Jehangir, who crafted the fabled Samarqand-patterned garden, the venue of the concert, would have approved. The love of music his father, the great Akbar, had cultivated into a veritable state policy would have rubbed off on the son. Indian classical music is constructed along cyclical beats, while its Western cousin, barring jazz perhaps, takes the linear path. With my ears trained for glides and scales of Indian music, I couldn’t help detect the suit of seven notes intact in a sargam-like exploration at the very start of the Beethoven composition. It picked up gently as if Kesarbai Kerkar was practising the full notes of Raag Yaman, as Indian singers often do, before starting her concert. I haven’t heard Kesarbai’s Yaman though, and would be indebted if someone will point to a link or a CD. It must be rare if it exists. A couple of years ago Delhi’s Sangeet Natak Akademi had released a warped recording of her Shuddh Kalyaan, although the label described it as Shuddh Bhopali. Anyway that is the closest I have come to hearing a Kalyaan group composition in the legend’s voice. But I am straying, and you could blame it on the effect music can have on anyone of us. How I wish the perpetually glum leaders of the Hurriyat Conference too had strayed into Shalimar Bagh on Sept 7. Instead, they sulked in a corner, or as many corners as the fractious separatist group now occupies. Who cares who organised the Zubin Mehta concert or why? Whether a devious German ambassador had plotted it, as my friend Ravi Nair, the tenacious human rights activist wrote, or Indian agencies planned it to show the world that life had returned to normal in the perennially bludgeoned region. A good music concert should never be opposed, much less shunned. What would be the difference between the Kashmiris seeking to stop Zubin Mehta’s musical tribute to their homeland and the right-wing Hindu zealots who periodically tear down art exhibitions and history books across much of India over one excuse or another? Should Kashmiris stop rejoicing, having families and singing because of Indian occupation? Is that the vision its valiant fighters for independence have? The vilest criticism I have heard of the concert is that it was a Zionist conspiracy to subvert Islam in Kashmir, a reference to Zubin Mehta’s association with Israeli musicians. Such critics would surely have felt small had they heard the maestro speaking at the heavily fortified venue. He all but apologised for the way his show was projected for politics rather than to spread the joy of music. Mehta confessed he would have preferred to play in a larger stadium for the ordinary people, Kashmir’s Hindus and Muslims sitting side by side. And he promised to do so very soon. His other dream, he told The Hindu in an interview, was to play in Ramallah, in occupied Palestine, for the Palestinian audiences. There was a backhanded compliment for India here, and Hurriyat grumblers should note it. He told The Hindu he was happy that India had refrained from building Israel-like settlements in Kashmir. Did someone detect how the loaded comment delineated India’s status in Kashmir? Mehta patronises the group Hand in Hand in Israel to encourage Jewish and Arab children to mingle, to share each other’s cultures. He wants Jewish children to learn to speak Arabic, the way nearly all Israeli Arabs speak Hebrew. These were not comments from a pro-occupation rabid ideologue masquerading as a musician but the yearnings of a sensitive mind. Mehta’s unorthodox views were equally evident when he praised Richard Wagner’s contribution to Western classical music. Wagner, as we all know, is largely shunned as anti-Semitic, not least because Adolf Hitler patronised him. But the artist in Zubin Mehta was enthralled by Wagner’s music. And that’s how the Kashmiri dissenters should learn to regard Zubin Mehta instead of being obsessed with his surmised politics. A veritable paradise that has ever so often become a living hell for its inhabitants — that’s how Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah described the venue of the maligned concert. Could Syed Ali Shah Geelani, one of the most senior leaders of Kashmir’s struggle against the Indian army’s depredation of his land, question that description? I expected Yasin Malik, at least, another veteran opponent of Indian rule in Kashmir, to show up, if for no other reason than for the fact that his wife is a gifted and sensitive artist from Pakistan. Artists in Pakistan are not safe from narrow-minded critics, and Sadequain was not the only sufferer in the right-wing assault against art and artists in Pakistan. Is it possible that the self-styled liberators of Kashmir have themselves been so Talibanised that they harbour and spread scorn for music? Kashmir is rich with music of its own even though the local sample presented to start Mehta’s evening did not represent the best talent it has. There was a phase in Kashmir’s turbulent history when Indian forces targeted a famous minstrel from the Valley, took away his rubaab and handed him a gun. They trained Kuka Parray to use Kalashnikovs and explosives to target his own people. Would it not be better if Parray had stuck to expressing his point of view through his art, as Zubin Mehta does? Or as Maria Von Trapp did, in Nazi-occupied Austria? The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi. jawednaqvi@gmail.com
The enemy within By I.A. Rehman FEW incidents of terrorism have caused such large-scale outpouring of grief, anger and shame as the massacre in the Peshawar church last Sunday. But will this outrage awaken the Pakistani people to the urgency of dealing with the cancerous growth in their body politic of which the attack on the old church was only a symptom?. As has often happened in such situations, various parties are busy denying responsibility for mass murder in the church. The Taliban say they are not involved and they do not believe in killing innocent people. The Muslim ulema argue that no true Muslim can commit such horrible excesses. For one thing, the people know better. And for another, considerable confusion has been created by those who own their black deeds and those who always deny them. If these denials are taken seriously even the most efficient detectives might fail to track down the culprits. In any case the search is unnecessary as the list of suspects is quite short. First, it is impossible to completely delink the Peshawar incident from the ongoing debate on parleys with the militants besieging the state of Pakistan. Apart from the many unarmed citizens who oppose talks with the militants on the latter’s terms, there are elements in Pakistan, many of them occupying key positions in the country’s politico-religious parties, that would wish the position of the government of Pakistan to be weakened further so that the challengers’ ideological victory can be guaranteed. At the same time, there may be elements in the militants’ ranks who would like to delay the talks with Islamabad till its surrender becomes irreversible. Then, the possibility of factional tussle within the pro-negotiation camps on both sides cannot be ruled out. Who should have the decisive voice in the negotiating teams on either side and who should be recognised as the best interlocutors on the other side are issues that can cause serious conflicts. Such wrangling could torpedo the talks altogether. Any of the elements identified could have launched the assault on the church. Secondly, there is reason to suspect the sectarian terrorists who have been targeting both non-Muslim communities and minority Muslim sects for quite some time and who seem determined to convert the entire population to their exclusivist creed. Some of these elements have been on the security forces’ radar for a pretty long time and the latter’s disinclination to proceed against them is one of Pakistan’s most painful enigmas. Both the militants operating in the northern parts and the sectarian terrorists operating practically throughout the country derive strength from the theocratic assumptions with which the original ideals of Pakistan are being replaced. Their shared objective is to pull down the state’s democratic structure, its judicial order, its education system and install in their place devices and values of their own choice. There should be no mistake about the identity and objectives of these elements — they are not fighting the state of Pakistan for any of their rights, they want to usurp the right of the entire people of Pakistan to choose their institutions of governance through democratic means. More dangerous than terrorist attacks is the systematic exploitation of the people’s religious sentiments for instigating violence and hatred against the minorities. The militants have been using the religious card with considerable skill. The result is the creation of an environment that is becoming increasingly hostile to the religious minorities and smaller Muslim sects. Everybody knows of the migration of hard-pressed non-Muslim Pakistanis from Balochistan and the Sindhi non-Muslims’ grievances regarding abduction and forced conversion of their girls, and kidnappings for ransom. In Punjab, especially Lahore, new groups of professional Ahmadi-baiters have emerged over the past few months. They are instituting all kinds of cases against the Ahmadis, encouraging land grabbers to seize their property and pushing policemen to demolish structures resembling minarets at Ahmadi prayer houses. The number of Ahmadi victims of targeted killing is on the rise. Some loose talk in a TV show is enough to petrify the powerful Punjab government and persuade it to malign and strangulate a widely respected school for including a book on comparative religion in its courses. The main source of strength for both categories of the anti-state bands is their (and their political patrons’) success in presenting themselves as soldiers of Islam. The people have been divided between those who are fighting alongside the US-Nato forces and those who are defending Islam. Maulana Sherani who heads the Council of Islamic Ideology has just proclaimed that those who support Nato may go on (unsuccessfully) fighting the Taliban. What he means is that anyone who opposes the killers of Pakistani soldiers and generals and the organisers of suicide bombing missions is a stooge of Nato. It is this pernicious stereotyping of the militants/terrorists and the defenders of the Pakistani citizens’ right to democratic governance and rule of law that paralyses the custodians of power in Islamabad. They may have recognised the seriousness of the threat militant extremists pose to them but they are yet to draw up a strategy to counter religious militancy and abuse of the Islamic concept of jihad. The all-party conference that was staged in Islamabad did not even scratch the core issue — the use of religious slogans to justify murder of Muslims and non-Muslim alike and to spare neither mosques nor churches. What the government must realise is that every concession they offer the militants will worsen the plight of the religious minorities, with women and democratic-minded citizens not far behind them. Pakistan will never be able to protect its integrity and defend its citizens’ lives and properties unless it begins to tame the monster of intolerance it has so thoughtlessly reared.
State and racket By Khurram Husain MAYBE there’s a simple answer to this question, but where does the business community get its clout with the state in Pakistan?. What is the source of business power in this country? In advanced democracies you can see business power articulated through a complex system involving flows of money, and control over discourse and research and development, and the purse strings, usually controlled by large contributors to their campaigns, of the aspirants to high office. But in Pakistan, aspirants to high office often have their own purse strings, and the business community mostly prefers to stay away from the public discourse, except for those in the speculative trades whose work depends on manipulating perceptions. I used to think that the power of the business community comes from its proximity to political power, but there are far too many instances that contradict this simple formulation. The recent election in the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, for instance, has seen yet another resounding victory for a group that can hardly be described as cosy with the political leadership anymore. And Karachi’s business community, represented in the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry, aren’t exactly on the warmest and cosiest of terms with the political leadership. When the budget was announced in June, chambers across the country were dismayed to find in it certain documentation measures that they had been resisting for years. But only the Karachi chamber dared raise its voice against the measures, describing them in an angry press conference as a massive setback for the business community because they would raise the cost of doing business for those who were already documented. Exactly how that was worked out can be left aside for the moment. When I asked around among the Karachi business leadership why the other chambers were silent, they all said that the Punjab business community was terrified because of their proximity to Mian Sahib. None wanted to be branded a troublemaker so early in the new government’s term, yet they all shared the sense of disquiet being loudly expressed by the Karachi traders. Of course, eventually the traders got their way. According to reports, most of the documentation measures have been withdrawn, leaving the state on bended knee before the informal sector all over again. Documentation can wait, but revenue cannot. The power tariff hikes are still in place, and the hike in the GST rate is still there. A few vested parties — like GST applied on natural gas purchased by CNG station owners — have managed to wriggle out of a few revenue measures imposed on them, but by and large the revenue interest of the state is not being negotiated away, yet. So where did the business community summon its clout to get the documentation measures withdrawn? Why does the state repeatedly surrender to the hue and cry the business community is able to make regarding documentation? Ask the business leaders themselves, and they’ll tell you it’s because of the persuasive power of their argument. The measures in question, they argue, are designed to impose a cost on any transaction between a documented party and an undocumented one. But the latter refuse to pay this cost, and the former cannot do business without them, so the cost ends up being borne by the documented party anyway. This makes the whole exercise counterproductive and the cost ends up being attached to a documented party, dissuading others from entering the net. On the other hand, ask somebody who has held high responsibility in the finance ministry, and they’ll tell you the business community has enormous nuisance value due to their ready willingness to ‘go over the head’ of the finance minister at the drop of a hat. They’re very effective at cultivating allies within the bureaucracy, and playing one minister off against another. “Best to keep them on your side,” you’ll be told, “because they can make a lot of hue and cry and drown out your other initiatives and work.” Some of this nuisance value was on display during the so-called reformed general sales tax debates, which were purely rhetorical exercises on the surface, and pretty much transactional beneath the surface, where it counts. It’s what then finance minister Hafeez Shaikh referred to, in an angry speech on the house floor, when he said that the big guys are protecting their interests in the name of the little guy. Big capital is able to get its way the old-fashioned way. Stories of an SRO for the auto sector, and an extraordinary cabinet meeting for instance, are reminders of that Marxist description of the state as the “executive committee of the bourgeoisie”. Except in this case the imposition of the SRO and its subsequent repeal were both the handiwork of the same state. This forces us to ask: who is pulling whose strings? Likewise, the state was able to leave the fertiliser manufacturers gasping for their vital feedstock gas, but was unable to bring the resultant price spiral of urea under control, in spite of mobilising the coercive powers of the excise department. The state has withstood the ferocious ire of the manufacturing sector when it raised power tariffs in August, but it cannot stand firm before the myriad armies of the shopkeepers when it comes to early closures of shopping plazas as an energy conservation measure. Examples are legion of the state’s inability to rein in private vested interests, but the fact is that the state remains the ultimate guarantor of the rentier incomes that drive our economy. From the shopkeeper selling smuggled goods, to the manufacturer evading taxes, to big industry coddled behind cartels and protective measures — almost all incomes earned in this country owe themselves to rackets underwritten by the state. It’s puzzling therefore to see the state persistently show weakness in some areas like documentation measures, unless of course the rackets that are threatened in some way feed into the political process. 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
Sacred or profane? By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar THE wretched of the earth are given the name because their lot never seems to improve. So it is for the hapless communities of Awaran and Kech districts in southern Balochistan, whose already hard lives were devastated by a massive earthquake this past Tuesday. . That nature chose to bare its most destructive face in the same region that has for the last few years been the epicentre of a low-intensity war between separatists and the state surely makes the horrific experience even more difficult to bear. The army chief went on record for the second or third time some time ago as saying there is no military operation ongoing in Balochistan. In a country where most ‘restive’ regions are effectively designated no-go areas by the state, a large majority of ordinary people tend to take such statements made by our rulers at face value. Baloch nationalists, along with other segments of Baloch society, are part of the minority that disputes the official narrative. In principle, a democratic political dispensation allows even those who challenge the ‘majority’ opinion to openly air their dissenting view. In this country, formal democracy has provided little respite to those who want to tell the ‘other’ side of the story in Balochistan. To the extent that there is acknowledgement in mainstream political and media circles of the ongoing conflict in Pakistan’s biggest — and crucially, most mineral-rich — province, the major protagonists of the militancy are caricatured as ‘sardars’. In recent times, the names of Bramdagh Bugti and Harbyar Marri have been bandied about regularly. Both Bramdagh and Harbyar do indeed have political struggle in their blood. The former is the grandson of the late Nawab Akbar Bugti while the latter is a son of the reclusive and still influential Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri. They are undoubtedly central figures in the current phase of the Baloch national movement. But some might argue that they have already been upstaged. While the two heirs to the Bugti and Marri political dynasties predictably generate most of their support from the central regions of the province that are home to their respective tribes, there is increasing evidence that the insurgency’s heartland has shifted south and into an eco-social zone that is far less ‘tribal’ than the prototype to which most of us have been exposed. Kech district — also known as Turbat — was part of the ‘Makkuran’ princely state throughout the British colonial period, whereas Awaran was separated from Khuzdar district approximately two decades ago. While hereditary landlords and ‘sardars’ have remained a feature of the social and political landscape of Awaran, a landholding elite is conspicuous by its absence in Kech. It is in this decidedly ‘non-tribal’ context that the Baloch national movement has thrived in recent years. Much has been made of the ascension of a ‘middle-class’ chief minister to the provincial throne over the past few months. Dr Abdul Malik Baloch’s history and politics are indeed a welcome change from the elite merry-go-round that has been patronised by the security establishment in Balochistan for most of the post-colonial period. It is not only in the electoral realm, however, that the ‘middle class’ has come to the fore. Fate would have it that the new chief minister’s political trajectory is remarkably similar to the man who is arguably at the top of the ‘most wanted’ list in Balochistan at the present time. While Bramdagh Bugti and Harbyar Marri might have the more historically compelling political credentials, Dr Allah Nazar Baloch now has claims to being the symbolic leader of the separatist movement. A medical doctor by training — as is the chief minister — Allah Nazar hails from the Mashkay tehsil of Awaran district. The chief minister and Allah Nazar were in the Baloch Students Organisation as well as for a time in the Balochistan National Movement before they eventually parted ways. Both proudly celebrate their non-elite backgrounds, and, as it turns out, both are now competing for the loyalties of the people of southern Balochistan. Prior to the general elections in May, Baloch nationalists claimed that targeted bombings had taken place in and around Mashkay and other parts of Awaran. As I have already pointed out, the security establishment continues to deny that any military action has taken place in Balochistan in recent times. These contradictory claims notwithstanding, there is no doubting that Allah Nazar and his comrades are considered serious ‘national security’ threats. The men in khaki who continue to dominate major decisions in Balochistan would gladly avail any opportunity presented to them to get their hands on Awaran’s most famous (notorious?) personality. A natural calamity may just be that opportunity. The earthquake has left no structure standing in Awaran and large parts of Kech. The Frontier Corps along with regular military personnel have been empowered to spearhead the relief operation. Of course, the military has been at the forefront of numerous such efforts in the past, so there is nothing extraordinary about the fact that it will again be leading the line. Yet it would be naive to say that a great deal more is not at stake than just who is coordinating the relief effort. For the moment we do not even know the extent of the death and destruction that has taken place. It remains to be seen whether our holy guardians provide media persons access to the area so that news about both the damage and relief efforts enters the public domain. Whatever happens, the people of Awaran and Kech have been dealt a bitter blow. Perhaps it is true after all that there is a divine plan for Pakistan. Those who believe themselves to be ordained to defend this fortress of divinity should bear in mind, however, that the Baloch jury has yet to be convinced of the sacredness of the cause. The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Extreme myopia By Faisal Bari IN the land where thousands of Sufis are buried and thousands are alive, where scores of Sufi orders thrive, where the likes of Buddha, Nanak and Ram have walked, where millions of lovers of wisdom have lived and died, the government of a province says we cannot teach comparative religion to our children in schools. And this at a time when we are under siege from those for whom tolerance is anathema. . We live in multilingual, multicultural, multi-religious societies. We have overlapping identities. How can we allow privilege to one identity and, more importantly, how can we limit our children from knowing how others live and why they live the way they do? Comparative religion is not about comparing religions to decide which is better. That would indeed be a ridiculous course and no school would be daft enough to do something like that. Comparative religion is about the history of religions and people, the beliefs of people, their answers to some of the biggest questions humans face and how their answers help them make sense of the world around them. How can our children not be allowed to know this? There are parents, clearly, who feel that knowing about other religions and their beliefs might make their children lose their own beliefs. Is that a realistic fear? Especially when our children are raised in an environment steeped in their own religion and the rituals that go with it. Should our children, when they are mature enough — and Grade 7 and above is surely that — not know about the beliefs of people in the same society? The quality of our journalism, especially television journalism, is a good reflection of where we are and the direction in which we are headed. After the blast outside the church in Peshawar one person on TV said something to the effect that ‘safai karney walon ka safaya ho gaya (the cleaners have been swept away themselves). Television talk shows in Pakistan are reflections of poorly done Jerry Springer shows and Mubashir Lucman is one of the worst offenders. Clearly the state is scared. It is willing to talk to people who are killing our compatriots every day, but they want to ban the teaching of comparative religion. One need not say more about their knee-jerk reaction. But how far will this banning exercise go? Should we stop teaching philosophy because a lot of Western philosophy tackles some of the basic tenets of religions and takes a lot of concepts from Christianity? Will the Greeks make sense to us if there is no understanding of their mythology? Reading the Greeks was not a problem for Imam Ghazali and Ibn-i-Rush’d, why should it be an issue for us? Or is it living faiths we have a problem with? Can anyone understand Bishop Berkeley’s Treatise on Principles of Human Knowledge without understanding the notion of God that he worked with? Even the discussion of miracles in David Hume requires some understanding of the Christian doctrine. Should we stop teaching literature for the same reason? Are writings of non-Muslims kosher? Is Shakespeare OK? What about the teaching of history? How will we make it halal or kosher? How do you teach history without talking of the beliefs of people and what they lived and died for? Can we talk of the advent of Islam without talking about some of the pagan practices that were prevalent in the Arabia of the time? Can the Muslim encounter in Spain or India be studied without the relevant facts about these countries, their indigenous populations and their religions and cultures? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Is this what we are protecting our children from? I am glad I got my education at a different time. Right now the focus seems to be on one school. But the reported provincial order against the teaching of comparative religion seems to be a more general one. Will the school in question fight the order in court? They are a commercial organisation. They might not, even if they are convinced of the merits of their approach, be able to take on the government. Will parents of the students who would like their children to know about other religions, belief systems and ways of being, be able to help? Will a group of parents go to court? If the provincial government continues to insist on the ban, will concerned citizens step forward? The courts might be regarded as myopic or fearful, but it is incumbent on citizens to fight for their rights and every inch of turf has to be fought for. Otherwise, the scenario would be as Maurice Ogden sketched it in The Hangman: “For who has served more faithfully Than you with your coward’s hope?” said he, “And where are the others that might have stood Side by your side, in the common good?” “Dead!” I whispered, and amiably “Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me; “First the alien then the Jew. I did no more than you let me do.” Beneath the beam that blocked the sky None before stood so alone as I. The Hangman then strapped me, with no voice there to cry “Stay!” for me in the empty square. The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.
The prince in the lead By Asha’ar Rehman A NOTIFICATION reported to have been given when none was needed. One denial issued that did everything but deny.. Sections in the media on Tuesday revealed official designs to give ‘massive’ powers to Hamza Shahbaz Sharif to run the affairs of government in Punjab at the head of a committee. There was a clarification the next day which refuted the establishment of any committee; only a unit was being formed to run ‘public affairs’ in Punjab, and a unit, as everyone knows, does not have the prohibitive status of a committee and thus a unit should not raise eyebrows. It was more an occasion for the public to bow their heads in respect of yet another graduation of an heir. This was the season of sneak previews showcasing future kings. Only days earlier, there were somewhat suppressed celebrations to mark the coming of age of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the fireworks that must accompany a royal 25th birthday put on hold for the right, auspicious moment. Now it was the turn of Hamza Shahbaz, a year shy of 40 and already empowered sufficiently, to go one decisive step further on the power path ordained for the chosen. The Sharifs are not known to be too ostentatious with their celebrations in public anyway. They are more concerned their orders are heard loud and clear and obeyed. Hamza was already considered powerful enough to have his orders obeyed without the seal of a notification. Therefore that some kind of an arrangement had now to be worked out to formalise his role exposed the impeccable Shahbaz government to some speculation for once. The formalisation of the alternate command might have been thought necessary as protection against some overzealous investigator somewhere who took rules more seriously than convention. The “[n]ephew of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif … will now be acting as a ‘deputy chief minister’,” read one report announcing the notification. It empowered Hamza “to issue instructions to district administrations for development and other projects”. “Hamza will also resolve differences between public representatives and the government officers. He will help provide basic facilities to ordinary citizens and give his recommendations on summaries forwarded by provincial departments in the Chief Minister House. “Hamza will mobilise relevant departments, elected members, civil society and government resources in the wake of natural calamities and other emergencies,” the firman was quoted to have said, further authorising the rising star of the Sharif family “to hold meetings at the chief minister secretariat”. The report said: “Copies of the notification have been sent to the chief secretary, inspector general police Punjab, all provincial secretaries, all divisional commissioners, all regional police officers, all district coordination officers and all district police officers and all other concerned asking them to comply with the orders of Hamza.” That appeared to be quite a comprehensive transfer of power, and the latter clarification which accepted that a group had been set up under Hamza did little to detract from its impact. It only betrayed that the government was not too sure if it had done the right thing here and wanted some protection. Even before the government issued the clarification, a Facebook page designated as officially belonging to Hamza Shahbaz did flash the news about his empowerment at the head of a committee. It did not acknowledge the existence of a notification but was not shy of celebrating the capping of a sequence of events that portrayed Hamza in charge of many affairs that could only have come into his hands through delegation by his father, the chief minister. The people of Punjab had almost accepted Hamza Shahbaz as their new chief minister amid his father’s vows to give up the office post-May 2013 election. Shahbaz had publicly presented himself for the post of the water and power minister, a declaration that went well with his reputation as a politician who loved to take up challenges. He was dubbed as the best administrator in the country and the job of turning around Pakistan’s energy sector required nothing but the best. The heir apparent meanwhile was scaling new heights as now an experienced parliamentarian and a leader that PML-N workers had come to recognise while both Nawaz and Shahbaz dealt with other urgent matters. On the eve of the election Hamza was considered to be a ‘sure’ winner in his constituency in Lahore over and above Nawaz and Shahbaz, both of whom were likely to face tougher competition from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf nominees for seats in the assemblies. He was ready to work authoritatively on his own. That trend continued post-election even as Shahbaz Sharif was prevailed upon to mind his old post in Punjab and entrust the critical water and power ministry to Khwaja Asif who was later joined by Abid Sher Ali as state minister in an apparent step to energise the ministry. Still, one theory cast Shahbaz as a possessed scientist who was working on a secret device to deliver his country and his people from darkness — vindicating his pre-election pledge of quickly ending the energy crisis. But most disturbing were the rumours that the workaholic chief minister may have been forced to delegate more and more because of limitations imposed by his health. It is all about who is more visible and there were many explanations why, at certain points in time, Hamza would be more prominent than Shahbaz. Previously it would usually be Shahbaz taking up these high-profile assignments but now he was content with making statements and that too not with the frequency or ferocity of the past. Punjab has space for Shahbaz and Hamza and anyone else who is allowed to join in. Plenty of room for Mariam, Salman and other willing family members to contribute. If they could be out there to secure an election, securing a province and a country is a bigger cause. The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
The BJP woos Muslims A.G. Noorani NOT long ago, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the office of India's prime minister, famously refused to accept a skullcap that was offered to him by a Muslim.. Now the BJP freely distributes skullcaps and burqas to Muslims who attend Modi's rallies. They must look Muslims on TV screens. The BJP is out to target Muslims months ahead of next year's general elections.
Back to Bollywood Irfan Husain THERE'S a scene in many Bollywood and Lollywood movies where the comic actor pretends to threaten the muscular villain while whispering to a friend who is holding him not to let go. . I am reminded of this familiar sequence every time Gen Kayani proclaims that the army can sort out the Pakistani Taliban, provided the political leadership gives him the green light. Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif says he will do whatever the other political parties want him to do.
Terms of surrender Abbas Nasir STARTLING disclosures are being made about the mode of talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as a result of the decisions reached at the all-party conference (APC).. The government may have chosen silence simply because the prime minister has been less at home and more abroad after that assembly of political leaders gave him its backing to initiate a dialogue with the terrorists to stem the tide of terrorism battering the country.
Europe's global role Shada Islam FINALLY, the 'suspense' is over, Angela Merkel has been re-elected German chancellor for the third time, eurozone economies are beginning to show tentative signs of fragile recovery and bigwigs assembled at the United Nations General Assembly in New York are trying their best to make the world a better, more peaceful place.. What better time to engage in another debate on Europe's 'global role', standing and influence in today's extremely complex, rapidly changing, globalised world?
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this mailing list, please fill the form located at: http://www.dawn.com/alerts
DAWN Media Group, Haroon House, Karachi 74200, Pakistan	Copyright © 2013 Pakistan Herald Publications (Pvt.)Ltd.