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National News

Legal wrangles hit Nacta’s revival

Malik Asad

ISLAMABAD: Reservations shown by senior officials of the interior ministry and intelligence agencies over the government’s plan to restructure the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) have jeopardised the revival of this key organisation.

Because of the internal and external opposition to the process for Nacta’s revival, at least three petitions have been filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) over the last couple of months.

In the petitions, officials of the interior ministry have challenged the appointment of a junior officer to a key post in Nacta, the transfer of its command from the prime minister to the interior ministry and merger of the National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) into the authority.

The intelligence agencies, the sources said, are also against a complete dissolution of the NCMC and shifting its responsibilities to the authority. They seem to be reluctant to pass on classified information to Nacta — an autonomous body — instead of the NCMC, which is still a subsidiary of the interior ministry.

The NCMC is a domestic intelligence assessment and management institution. Established in 2001, its objectives included building efforts towards counter-intelligence, counter-proliferation, and counter-insurgency as well as assisting the government at all levels of command in managing intelligence.

After the government unveiled its National Internal Security Policy (NISP) earlier this year, the revival of Nacta was also part of its efforts to count terrorism-related threats.

The policy recommends complete overhaul of Nacta, whose board of governors would be led by the prime minister and will include the interior minister, chief ministers, directors general of ISI, MI, IB and FIA, the defence, law and finance ministers, all the chief secretaries and inspectors general of police.

Besides the capacity building of the criminal justice system, police, civil armed forces and other law-enforcing agencies for border management, a key institution to be called the Directorate of Internal Security (DIS) would be established under Nacta to coordinate the intelligence and operational work of all civilian and military agencies to effectively counter terrorism.

Initially, Nacta was formed in 2009 but remained dormant due to lack of resources. Last year, the government introduced the Nacta Act in order to strengthen its efforts for countering terrorism.

Restructuring of Nacta again came in the limelight after the government unveiled the NISP and allegedly made some controversial appointments to head the strategic body.

In the petitions filed against the decisions of the federal government a petitioner, Javed Iqbal, an assistant director in Nacta, challenged the notification of transferring the body from the prime minister’s secretariat to the interior ministry. The petitioner alleged that the transfer of Nacta from the PM to the interior ministry “is a worst example of colourable exercise of powers by the authority and is also against the principle of natural justice, fair play and equity”. According to the petition, under the Nacta Act passed by parliament the authority can only function under the direct supervision of the PM and it cannot be transferred to the interior ministry through an executive order.

Another petition has challenged the appointment of Nacta’s national coordinator. According to the Nacta Act, an officer of “BPS-22 or equivalent might be appointed” as national coordinator of the authority.

The government, however, on Jan 3, 2014 appointed Amir Ashraf Khawaja, a BPS-20 officer, as national coordinator. Mr Khawaja, the petition alleges, further appointed a BPS-18 officer as director general/chief of staff to the national coordinator, which is a BPS-20 post.

A senior official of the interior ministry said that in such circumstances where junior officers have been assigned senior positions and the senior officials working in the NCMC are offered to work under juniors, uncertainty among them is understandable. “In such circumstances one can guess the fate of Nacta and the government’s seriousness in countering terrorism”, he said.

Danial Gillani, a spokesman for the interior ministry, when contacted said that the reconstruction of Nacta is being done in accordance with the plan. He said that the NCMC is being abolished but its officials might be adjusted in Nacta.

Regarding appointment of junior officials to senior positions and transferring the control of the authority from the PM to the interior ministry, he said “since this matter is pending before the court I cannot comment”.

Afghans defy Taliban threat, vote in big numbers

Mahvish Ahmad

Voters began to trickle in as soon as poll stations opened their doors in Kabul at 7am on Saturday. Yellow-vested police officers and khaki-clad Afghan soldiers stood guard in front of polling stations, cordoning off many of the capital’s entry and exit points, and tightly regulating its streets.

It was a day that had everyone on the edge of their seats. The Afghan Taliban had threatened to attack voters and polling stations. Voters, it was feared, might not turn out to cast their ballot. But as the day progressed, the spectacular attacks that everyone thought might rock the election, turned out to be few and far between.

And early reports suggested that voters turned out in record numbers: seven million out of 12 million eligible voters, a whopping 58 per cent, cast their ballot, according to the election commissioner.

“We need a president who will bring us peace and growth. And we are not afraid of anyone,” said Sayeda, a 27-year old voter at a school-turned-polling station in Kabul. As the morning turned into afternoon and evening, pictures began to circulate of voters lining up in long, winding queues that would snail around the corners of schools and community mosques.

They would wait until they, too, could dip their fingers in the invisible ink that was meant to stave off fraud and double-votes, and the dark blue ink that would allow them to mark off their choice of a candidate on the blue sheets issued by the election commission.

Global and local media celebrated the high turnout, calling the election “landmark” and “historic”. They congratulated Afghans for “[braving] fear[s] of violence [and fraud]”.

“Afghan hope prevails”, The Guardian said as polling stations opened. And, Afghanistan’s TOLO news channel announced that “Afghans and non-Afghans alike celebrated the day as an overwhelming success”.

A handful of attacks took place, but were far from the major operations that the state and its allies had feared. Dozens of reports trickled in about minor roadside bombs and attacks on polling stations, police and voters.

In the eastern province of Kunar, two voters and 14 Taliban militants were killed, and an additional 14 people were wounded. Rahmatullah Nabil, the head of the National Directorate of Security, called the elections a “slap to the faces of the terrorists.” And the largely peaceful election prompted officials from the election commission to congratulate the Afghan security forces for a job well done.

ANALYSTS COUNSEL CAUTION: “We have a good reason to be happy. A lot of things that could have gone wrong did not go wrong. High-profile attacks did not take place. And, it is clear that we witnessed a good turnout. But we need to give the election count a few days,” says Fabrizio Foschini, a researcher at Afghanistan Analysts Network.

As the day progressed, the election commission announced that an additional 211 polling stations would be closed throughout the country primarily because of security concerns, raising the total number to 959. Many of these polling stations were concentrated in areas like Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, potentially taking the vote away from voters living in insecure and remote parts of the country.

Preliminary reports trickling in from journalists and election observers suggest that one of the other major challenges was a shortage of ballot papers. Polling centres started running out of ballots in areas including Kabul, and provinces that stretched from northern Takhar, north-eastern Badakhshan, eastern Paktia, and south-western Nimroz.

Some journalists and observers have celebrated the shortage as an indication that too many Afghans wanted to vote. But other analysts caution that the shortage needs to be looked at closely, and could have been a strategic attempt at disenfranchising blocs of voters supporting some candidates rather than others.

“Let us wait and see what happens. There will be allegations of fraud that need to be looked at closely, and fears persist that some voters have been deliberately disenfranchised,” says Foschini, as the election commission reported receiving 200 complaints at the time that Dawn went to print.

Campaign fails to broaden tax base

Mubarak Zeb Khan

ISLAMABAD: The PML-N government’s talk of bringing the rich into the tax net has failed to produce any noticeable results in the nine months of current fiscal as only a few hundred people have filed their returns on a voluntary basis.

In its first budget, the government announced that it was launching a project to broaden the tax base.

Later under a two-pronged strategy, 100,000 potential taxpayers were included in the list of taxpayers this year and an incentive package was announced for those who are on tax rolls but have not filed returns for the last five years.

The outcome of both the schemes is negligible and unnoticeable. This week’s compliance reflects poorly on the tax enhancement drive.

But one should not blame people as nowhere in the world they happily pay taxes. It is an effective tax department which makes it happen. Apparently, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)’s tax drive is like old wine in a new bottle.

Campaign for broadening tax base: Around 75,000 notices were issued by the FBR to tax defaulters from July last year to March this year, but only 6,500 people have so far filed tax returns on voluntarily basis.

Data compiled up to Feb 28 shows the dismal performance of the tax enhancement drive. The revenue generated through the drive is in a few millions.

The National Database and Registration Authority has identified more than three million potential taxpayers, who have luxury houses in posh areas and multiple banks accounts and frequently visit foreign countries, but do not pay taxes.

The data was shared with the FBR and verified by officials working for the project.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has chosen the easiest target of 100,000 people to bring them on the tax roll by the end of June.

A target achieved by the FBR is issuance of notices to around 75,000 people until March. But more than half of the notices could not be delivered to the recipients.

Reasons given for the failure in notice delivery include incomplete or incorrect addresses and people’s migration and refusal to receive the notices.

Actually, the FBR is hiding the facts and quoting higher figures of delivered notices.

A member of the FBR, Riffat Shaheen Qazi, who was removed from the post of spokesperson for the bureau a few months ago, said that she was punished for providing information about the performance of the bureau to reporters.

The delivered notices also indicate low level of compliance.

FBR spokesperson Shahid Husain Asad told Dawn that the bureau had issued 81,000 notices to people. However, he did not tell that how many of them were delivered and how many recipients had paid taxes.

Mr Asad agreed that no effective outcome of the project was possible until there was a fear of enforcement and audit among people. Currently, both are missing in the tax machinery of the country.

But contrary to the outcome of the drive, the FBR had received 26, 740 new returns and Rs356 million tax under a similar campaign in 2010-11.

Under the scheme, the government focused on affluent people who neither had national tax numbers (NTN) nor filed income tax returns by Nov 2013.

Under the scheme, only 2,600 people filed their returns on voluntarily basis until Feb 28, 2014, when the scheme came to an end. The revenue that came with the returns is less than Rs200m.

As a result of this poor compliance, the FBR extended the scheme until April 30.

Issuing tax numbers will not help the FBR in broadening the tax base because there are more than three million people who have already been issued NTNs but only 840,000 of them have filed their returns this year.

Incentive Package

The government launched the incentive scheme to bring affluent people on the tax roll from Jan 1, 2014. It will continue until June 30.

The FBR has no record about the scheme aimed at whitening of black money by investing in industry.

The spokesperson said data about the investment scheme would be compiled by the end of December, when people would file their returns.

He said at least one and a half year was required for an industrial undertaking but the returns to be field by of this year would mention details about the investments made under the scheme.

The government has offered exemption from penalties, surcharges, audit and questions about the source of income under the schemes.

Tax expert Dr Ikramul Haq attributed the poor compliance to the FBR’s inefficiency and said it had failed to make those having taxable income to pay tax.

He said the schemes were not well planned and had not been effectively monitored.

He said that FBR officials had become advisers of the effluent people in evading taxes. “Pakistan is case of tax revolt.”

What is more troubling is the fact that the ranks of taxpaying people seem to be shrinking every year. Statistics show that 1.44m people filed their returns in 2011. But in 2013 there were only about 840,000 taxpayers whom the FBR could trace at their homes or workplaces.

In 2010 1.7m tax returns were filed in the country. Does this mean that the missing numbers are imaginary taxpayers?

A comparison shows that only 0.4 per cent of the population pays taxes in Pakistan, against 4.7 per cent in India, 58 per cent in France and 80 per cent in Canada.

In the last nine months of current fiscal, FBR has witnessed a tax shortfall of over Rs130bn.

Instead of making efforts to increase revenue, successive governments have taken loans from the IMF and other lending agencies to pay interest on previous loans. During last year’s election campaign, Nawaz Sharif criticised the PPP government for taking loans from the IMF and pledged to take no loan from it after coming to power.

But now his finance minister is building up the country’s reserves on loans from donors and ‘gifts’ friendly countries instead of increasing the country’s exports and revenue.

Investigators collecting information to verify UBA claim

Munawer Azeem

ISLAMABAD: Investigators are collecting details to verify the United Baloch Army’s claim that it carried out Wednesday’s explosion in Islamabad’s fruit and vegetable market in which 24 people were killed and 122 injured.

The interior ministry has already rejected the outlawed UBA’s claim.

Officials privy to the investigation told Dawn on Thursday that provincial police departments, especially of Balochistan, and Frontier Corps had sought record of UBA’s criminal and terrorist activities.

They said militant outfits had different methods of operation and their profiles, available with intelligence agencies, would help police investigate the deadly incident.

“Although the UBA was not found involved in any terrorist activity in the federal capital, its claim is being taken seriously,” one of the officials said. He added that earlier four men belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army had been arrested by the Islamabad police for their alleged involvement in fighting against the army in Swat, Buner and Bajaur.

His attention was drawn to a statement by the interior ministry that the UBA was not involved in the Sabzi Mandi bomb blast. The official said investigators were not aware of it.

The investigation was in early stages and, therefore, the involvement of any outfit could not be ruled out, the official said, adding that the focus was on the UBA because it had claimed responsibility for the attack. Because of the claim the investigators are looking for those Baloch who run fruit business.

The officials said the terrorists who were behind the blast could be traced because it had been established that the bomb was detonated by remote control. They said explosive devices were detonated through different gadgets, including mobile phone.

The man who had detonated the bomb was near the area and he could be identified through geo fencing of mobile numbers, the officials said, adding that data about the mobile phones functional in and around Sabzi Mandi were being collected. The status of the injured is also being verified.

The officials said police had arrested 10 suspects in Qaboola and three in Vehari. The arrests were made following the identification of a mini-truck which was believed to have brought the crate containing the explosives, they said, adding that the men were guava farmers, traders and transporters.

Twenty-five people were picked up in Islamabad on suspicion. The officials said Sabzi Mandi traders had spotted them roaming suspiciously at the time of the blast.

The investigators are probing whether the explosive device was brought in the truck or someone had placed it among fruits.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences turned down a request by police and the capital administration to conduct internal autopsy of every victim of the blast. The vice chancellor of the university informed police that internal autopsy on 24 bodies might take three to four days and there was a shortage of manpower, officials said.

They said the request had been made in view of the complications faced by police while investigating the suicide attack on the district and session courts in Islamabad. Because of the external autopsy on the body of the additional district and sessions judge who was killed in the attack, the investigators found it difficult to ascertain whether he was killed by attackers or his gunman.

AFP adds: The interior ministry rejected the UBA’s claim that it carried out the bombing at Subzi Mandi.

“Initial investigations have revealed that the United Baloch Army has no links with yesterday’s attack,” a spokesman for the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. “Accepting responsibility by this organisation for the blast is not only surprising but ridiculous.”

A senior official in Balochistan said he shared the interior ministry’s scepticism about the UBA claim. “Baloch groups don’t have the capability to strike outside Baluchistan. Even in Balochistan they are restricted to specific areas where they carry out their attacks,” he said.

Power shortage leads to 12-18 hours of loadshedding

Ahmad Fraz Khan

LAHORE: With mercury inching towards 40 degrees Celsius in most parts of the country and water discharge from two major dams reduced because of low irrigation requirements, electricity shortage shot to 6,000MW on Thursday, forcing authorities to resort to 12 to 18 hours of loadshedding.

According to officials of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco), all the determinants turned nasty for the sector’s managers in the last two days.

Describing the bleak scenario, they said water discharge was reduced, the temperature shot up and power plants of 2,700MW capacity were closed because of fuel shortage.

In addition, two long-term problems were refusing to go away. The bills’ recovery was stuck at only 86 per cent for the last several months, adding almost Rs300 million per day to the outstanding amount.

On top of that, the government had delayed subsidy payment. Of the Rs32 billion dues, the government had cleared only Rs10bn about 10 days ago, leaving a deficit of Rs22bn. Over the last 10 days, another Rs8bn might have been added to the bill, taking the total close to Rs30bn mark.

“Because of these two factors, the power planners are unable to run the plants,” said a Pepco official.

Of the total thermal capacity of about 3,000MW, the company was able to produce only 1,350MW on Thursday. The contribution from the independent power producers (IPPs) was down to 6,400MW and hydel projects produced 1,700MW — amounting to about 9,500MW of total generation.

“Everyone, including the government, knows and acknowledges that it is going to be a tough summer,” said a former Pepco chief. Still, no one was interested in setting things right before the summer. The entire sector was being run on an ad hoc basis.

Over the past 13 months, the entire official focus had been on attracting investments in generation, knowing well that it was a long-term process. This in turn had taken official attention and planning away from the efficiency of the system.

The government had simply forgotten that efficiency improvement could partially solve the problem. So, the efficiency side had been ignored grossly.

In those 13 months, none of the 16 important companies of the sector could get a permanent head. Even the chiefs of departments who were appointed by the PML-N government got “ad hoc, additional or acting charges”.

If the government continued to pursue policies which created certain problems in the first place, how could it expect better results, wondered the former Pepco chief.

S. Arabia has no hidden agenda, says ambassador

Baqir Sajjad Syed

ISLAMABAD: Ambassador Ali Saeed Asseri, who remained Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Pakistan for nine years, is returning to Islamabad for a second stint.

Mr Asseri will succeed Abdul Aziz Al-Ghadeer who would be leaving after completing his tenure in a couple of months.

Talking to Dawn in his office, Mr Ghadeer described his over five-year stay in Pakistan as eventful.

Speaking for the first time about criticism in Pakistan of the $1.5 billion aid given by the kingdom, he said Saudi Arabia “had no hidden agenda”.

During Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud’s visit to Islamabad Saudi Arabia donated $1.5 billion with the condition that the source of donation should not be identified.

The opposition questioned the gift from the unidentified source and said that it was meant to make Pakistan change its Middle East policy, particularly on Syria.

“We stand with the people of Pakistan and have worked with all governments,” he added.

He stayed short of describing the debate over $1.5 billion gift as politically motivated, but reminded that the Saudi government had given bigger amounts to the PPP government during its five-year tenure.

Mr Ghadeer wondered why there was no criticism of the Saudi money in past.

He asked Pakistan’s political parties to cooperate with each other instead of becoming rivals.

In one of his first interviews after assuming the charge in 2009 the outgoing envoy had said that Saudi Arabia did not have any favourites in Pakistan.

Talking to this correspondent on Thursday, Mr Ghadeer said he worked with whosoever was in power for the sake of promoting bilateral ties.

ASSERI: Ambassador-designate Mr Asseri is currently posted in Lebanon as the kingdom’s envoy.

He had to leave Pakistan in 2009 following the then government’s claim of threats to his life from terrorists.

Mr Asseri, who himself is a counter-terrorism expert, never believed in those threats, but had agreed to moving out.

Mr Asseri was the author of a book — Combating Terrorism: Saudi Arabia’s Role in the War on Terror — in which he discussed the Saudi experience of fighting radicalisation at home.

PM underlines need for regional connectivity

APP

BOAO (China): Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called for a collective approach for addressing common challenges and laid stress on “enhanced connectivity for success”.

BOAO (China): Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called for a collective approach for addressing common challenges and laid stress on “enhanced connectivity for success”.

Speaking on Thursday at the annual Boao Forum for Asia on ‘Asia’s new future: identifying new growth drivers’, Mr Sharif said that trans-national roads, railways, oil and gas pipelines and institutions of higher learning would prove to be real drivers of growth for Asia in the coming years.

“We strongly believe that shared prosperity is the real prosperity,” he remarked.

Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang and other regional leaders were attending the forum.

Mr Sharif said the Boao forum had now become a globally recognised platform which reflected Asia’s views on economic issues.

Because destinies of the countries in the region were linked, Mr Sharif said, development could only be pursued through coordinated efforts.

He said maintenance of peace was critical to economic growth since security and development were closely linked.

For an interconnected global economy any armed conflict may be devastating. “Conflict prevention and conflict resolution should, therefore, be accorded high priority.”

Mr Sharif said ‘regional connectivity’ was the most important driver of growth for the developing countries of Asia. “We must strive for greater regional connectivity, particularly through roads, rails and sea lanes.

“As we all know, infrastructure development stimulates investment, provides job opportunities and connects billions of consumers.”

The prime minister also spoke about the decision taken by Pakistan and China to take a lead in creating regional communication links. “Jointly, we are pursuing our common dream of building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which will enhance economic and trade cooperation, promote economic integration and foster economic development of the two countries.”

The forces of globalisation, urbanisation and innovation are changing not only the destiny of Asia but also of the entire world.

Over the years, Asia has become a leading player in world economy, with some of its economies growing at twice the average rate registered in other regions.

The prime minister said China was a major stimulant to this remarkable phenomenon. “This remarkable growth augurs well for all of us.”

He termed investment in research, development and technological innovation as essential for Asia’s economic growth.

At a meeting on revival of the Silk Road, Mr Sharif praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for proposing the “visionary concept of the New Silk Road” last year.

He said reviving the road in “today’s world of passports, visas and intricate tariff manuals” required ingenuity both in terms of policy formulation and policy application.

Pakistan’s location supplements the potential of the Silk Road and enhances the scope of its revival. “Our geography links China and the New Silk Road to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

“This is the linear dimension of our relevance with the Silk Road,” he said.

Mr Sharif said Pakistan was on the confluence of China, the Eurasian land-bridge and the Middle East, placing the country near the three-pronged economic corridor between China, Central Asia and the Middle East. “This is the triangular dimension of our relevance to the Silk Road,” he added.

He said Pakistan and China were active partners in reviving the concept of Silk Road and added that work in this regard had already been taken up by new governments in the two neighbouring countries.

Mr Sharif said that in its first year in office his government had sought to improve governance and undertake sound economic policies. The liabilities in the power sector were cleared last year and the acute energy shortfall was reduced.

He said the government had embarked upon an economic rebuilding plan and also presented an austerity budget by cutting unnecessary expenditure, abolishing discretionary grants and minimising subsides.

The prime minister said that to increase the business footprint in the country, his government had formulated a deregulation plan which envisaged a greater role of private equity in all sectors.

He added that Pakistan welcomed investments. And investing in the country was like reviving the Silk Road.—APP

Former official speaks his mind against KP govt

Ismail Khan

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf may pride itself on achieving the seemingly unthinkable – bringing good governance to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and putting an end to political interference. But a letter addressed to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak by his now former chief secretary presents what an officer described as a damning indictment and charge-sheet of his rule.

Muhammad Shehzad Arbab, who relinquished his job as Chief Secretary on Tuesday, in his demi official letter to Pervez Khattak on March 11 cited several instances to highlight differences over key policy matters and questionable decisions.

In his letter; and Dawn has its copy, the ex-chief secretary recalled his appointment by the federal government on the recommendation of the PTI leadership “with a clear understanding that a reform agenda of its government focusing on transparency was to be implemented, and expeditiously”.

“I was always guided by the words of the founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, delivered on April 14, 1948, at Peshawar that it is (my) obligation to remain compliant with constitution and law. Hence (I should) not be obliged to be servile or unthinkingly submissive to political executive,” Shehzad Arbab wrote.

The officer was handpicked by PTI chairman Imran Khan to implement his party’s reform agenda with assurances of full backing and non-interference. But differences over key policy decisions, political interference and treatment meted out to officers, soon put him at odds with his political boss – Pervez Khattak.

Officials familiar with the tense, and often not-on-speaking terms, relationship between the two say Imran Khan had personally intervened to resolve issues, but a stormy meeting between Khattak and Arbab in Islamabad in presence of the party leadership, brought the matter to a head.

Mr Arbab wrote: “My endeavours to implement the proclaimed reform agenda was publically appreciated by the PTI chairman, but the strenuous efforts of my team soon fell casualty to political expediency.

“A wide chasm between the declared policy and practice became noticeable, giving rise to divergence of opinion on various issues,” he added. “Resultantly, senior officers who disobliged were humiliated openly, which disillusioned and disheartened the bureaucracy.

“Dejected at the disparaging and insulting treatment, a Capital City Police Officer tendered his resignation from service, which I did not forward,” the former chief secretary wrote.

“More disturbingly,” the former chief secretary wrote, “transfers are frequent and made on directives with no regard to tenure or competence. It was pointed out many a time that such a practice was against administrative discipline.

“An officer against whom inquiry was under way by NAB has been posted as Commissioner of a division,” he regretted. “Public representatives frequently intervene for transfer of officers/officials and there are numerous examples where officers have been transferred several times in a matter of months,” Arbab noted.

Highlighting some important cases, Shehzad Arbab drew the chief minister’s attention to a meeting held on Nov11 last year to discuss the Draft Rules of Business to provide a basic framework for governance. “The establishment secretary recorded the minutes of the meeting reflecting therein the decisions made, but the recorded decisions were changed. This was against official propriety,” he wrote. “Your good self was requested either to approve the minutes as recorded or convene another meeting to review the earlier decisions. Neither has been done which has created confusion and uncertainty among government functionaries.”

Referring to the inquiry report into the audacious Dera Ismail Khan jailbreak, the former chief secretary lamented that disciplinary action should have been taken immediately against those responsible for security lapse.

“But the file was held up in the Chief Minister’s Secretariat for about four months. And when it was returned, one of the officials was exonerated while action was ordered against the others.

“This was unprecedented as defence is offered by an accused himself in consequence of a charge sheet, leading either to his exoneration or penalty. The Law Department raised observations on this premature exoneration, but again the file is pending decision.”

The officer in question, who is currently the principal staff officer to the chief minister, was deputy commissioner of Dera Ismail Khan at the time of the jailbreak. The law department, officials said, had also sent in its opinion on the matter and pressed for action. A decision is still awaited.

Referring to the much-delayed appointment of the managing director for Bank of Khyber, Arbab noted in his missive that while KP held majority shares of the premier financial institution, the appointment of its chief executive had been put on hold unduly for a long time. The position of the MD is vacant since March 2003.

In his letter, Arbab also referred to the ongoing controversy regarding ex-secretary, Workers Welfare Board, Mr. Tariq Awan. He said that Mr Awan had manipulated a meeting of the WWB board without participation of its chairman and won a decision for his extension.

“Apart from having worked for over six years after superannuation, he happens to be a corrupt official to the hilt. The NAB has been investigating various cases of embezzlement and irregular appointments.

“Based on his illegal decision, he on his own assumed charge of the office of secretary. A summary was moved for his immediate ouster, but a decision has yet to be made while the individual is forcibly, and without lawful authority, occupying an important position,” he noted.

Officials said an earlier separate summary on the issue was moved to the chief minister to explain the situation, but instead of taking a decision, he returned the file to the law department for further opinion. The law department, officials said, vehemently opposed his re-instatement. The file is now again with the chief minister.

An aide said the chief minister was not pleased with Arbab’s missive and wanted to pay back in the same coin. “The chief minister thought the chief secretary’s letter amounted to a charge-sheet against his government,” the aide said.

Shiraz Paracha, spokesman for the chief minister, was approached to seek Mr Khattak’s version on Arbab’s demarche. He said he would call back with an answer if and when he got one. No reply came through.

The chief minister came up with a terse reply to the charges.

“(The) chief secretary’s letter is more like a charge sheet. This cannot be done by a bureaucrat. What he has said are all routine matters.”

He denied he interfered with posting and transfers, stating that everything was done with the chief secretary’s concurrence and consent.

“Ï could have put my foot down but I never did that,” he said. “Let the chief secretary say how many of those he posted out had completed their tenure,” he affirmed. “Ï discussed everything with him from A to Z.”

On rules of business, Pervez Khattak said after passage of the 18th Amendment, the rules of business were bound to change, but he charged that the chief secretary changed the minutes of the meeting.

On exoneration of the deputy commissioner in Dera Ismail Khan jailbreak, the chief minister said the officer did not have magisterial powers and was not required to visit the jail.

About the Workers Welfare Board secretary, the chief minister said he had asked the labour secretary to convene a meeting and “let them decide who they want to be the secretary”.

He also denied that the commissioner of Bannu had any NAB inquiry against him. “There are many other officers who were probed by NAB and they are still serving,” Mr Khattak added.

”Ï may write to the prime minister against him," the chief minister said.

Blast terrorises capital; 24 dead

Munawer Azeem

ISLAMABAD: Terror struck the federal capital after a break of over one month as at least 24 people were killed and 122 injured when a bomb tore through a fruit and vegetable market on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD: Terror struck the federal capital after a break of over one month as at least 24 people were killed and 122 injured when a bomb tore through a fruit and vegetable market on Wednesday.

Most of the victims were vendors and labourers form Fata and Waziristan.

The explosion took place at about 8.15am in an open area reserved for auction of fruits, at the western side of Sabzi Mandi. Over 12 mini-trucks and a few vehicles brought fruits from Okara, Arifwala, Pakpatan, Sharqpur and Kabirwala.

The auction started after Fajr prayers and ended at 7am, the police said. Later Arthis (commission agents) put guavas on sale in the middle of the open place and hundreds of vendors gathered to purchase the fruit. A large number of labourers were also there. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion and the area was littered with human flesh and blood and damaged crates.

“Apparently it was a remote-control explosive device planted in one of the crates of guava and the man who detonated it was believed to have been nearby,” a police official said.

The bomb, weighing five kilograms, was packed with ball-bearings and one-inch nuts and bolts. The explosion created a one foot deep and three feet wide crater.

“The blast was so devastating that a number of vendors and labourers fell unconscious. After regaining their senses they ran for safety,” an eyewitness said, adding that people started shifting the injured from the scene before police and rescue workers reached the area and joined them.

Omar Daraz, who had come to buy guava, told Dawn that he was bargaining with an Arthi when all of a sudden he heard a huge explosion. “The head of a labourer hit me and I fell on the ground,” he added. “I counted dozens of dead bodies.”

A police officer said the number of people killed might be more than 24 because a large number of labourers were Afghans, but they were not among the dead brought to hospitals. He said the Afghans might have taken away the bodies of their men because they were staying illegally.

Abdul Quyyom, a labourer, said: “I fell down after the blast and saw human flesh and blood all over the place.”

Police confiscated 12 mini-trucks which brought guava to Sabzi Mandi, the officer said. He claimed that explosive detectors started beeping during the scanning of one of the trucks which brought fruit from Sharqpur.

“It was suspected that the explosive was in the truck,” he said, adding that the driver of the truck had gone missing.

“Ten people, including eight traders, were picked up for investigation in connection with the blast,” the officer said, adding that these traders brought guava from different parts of Punjab. The other two people hailing from Sharqpur were injured.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters at the scene that an investigation was in progress and involvement of any group or sect in the blast was yet to be established. He said separate teams would investigate the incident. One team will investigate in the capital and the other in areas from where fruits were bought.

He said Sabzi Mandi was spread over an area of 25 acres and 200 to 300 vehicles brought edible items from across the country. “A manual search of the area and vehicles is not possible. Advanced technology is required for security of the area.”

The minister criticised the previous government, accusing it of purchasing four scanners for Rs1 billion. Two of them have yet to come. “The scanners only identify organic material, and not inorganic,” he said. Besides, they do not detect explosives.

In reply to a question, Chaudhry Nisar said the investigation would also determine if the groups opposed to peace talks between the government and Taliban were involved in the attack.

About the growing number of slums in Islamabad, Mr Khan said his ministry and the Capital Development Authority had tried in vain to remove them.

Assistant Inspector General Dr Sultan Azam Temuri told Dawn that teams had been constituted to investigate the incident. Two teams were sent to the areas from where guava was brought. Three teams are collecting details of the injured and the dead, including CNIC numbers, domiciles, fingerprints and mobile numbers. One team was interrogating suspects and collecting details from the traders and vendors of Sabzi Mandi.

A case was registered against unidentified persons. Dr Temuri said the Islamabad chief commissioner had also been requested to constitute a joint investigation team under the SP industrial area.

Sources privy to the investigation said investigators suspected that the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan could be behind the attack. It was based on a threat alert by intelligence agencies that the TTP was planning attacks on law enforcement agencies in Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta.

The place of the blast was located a stone’s throw from the Sazbi Mandi police station and a few kilometres from Police Line Headquarters.

The involvement of Taliban from Afghanistan’s Kunar province could not be ruled out, the sources said, adding that police had arrested four Afghan Taliban who demanded a ransom of Rs20 million from a trader of Sabzi Mandi. The trader was a close aide of a former prime minister.

They claimed that the Afghan Taliban were operating in collusion with TTP Mardan, adding that since the arrest, the trader had been receiving threatening calls made from a border area of Afghanistan.

Our Correspondent from Sheikhupura adds: Two of the people killed in the Sabzi Mandi blast belonged to Vern and Jhabran Mandi villages of Sheikhupura district. Nazeer and Waris Ali were said to be close relatives and running a fruit shop in Rawalpindi. They had gone to Sabzi Mandi to purchase fruits.

Meanwhile, Sharqpur police took into custody Jehangir Sheikh, in charge of a truck stand. According to police, 240 cartons of guava had been loaded from his stand.

Interior ministry rules out UBA hand

Iftikhar A. Khan

ISLAMABAD: Hours after the banned United Baloch Army accepted the responsibility for the terror attack in the busy fruit and vegetable market of the federal capital, the interior ministry surprised many by rejecting the claim.

An interior ministry spokesman said the initial probe suggested that the UBA had nothing to do with the blast. “Accepting responsibility for the attack by this organisation is not just surprising, but also ridiculous.”

He said an investigation by intelligence and security agencies had indicated that the blast had roots somewhere else. “Those responsible for it will be chased after completion of the investigation,” he said.

Analysts wondered what warranted the ministry to come up with the statement without waiting for completion of the investigation. They believed that a faction of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan might be responsible for the attack because there appeared to be a clear division among pro- and anti-talks groups of the Taliban.

The TTP condemned the blasts in the fruit and vegetable market in Islamabad and at Sibbi railway station and declared that such attacks were ‘haram’. TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said in a statement that attacks targeting innocent civilians were un-Islamic and illegal.

He said the oppressed people of Sindh and Balochistan were ‘brethren’ and termed state oppression against them a black chapter in the country’s history. He said targeting civilians in retaliation was also oppression.

The TTP spokesman said the involvement of a hidden hand, which wanted to punish the people of Pakistan for their love for Islam, could not be ruled out. “After their failure to overcome militant organisations, they resorted to such barbaric attacks to defame them,” he remarked.

He claimed that the blasts had been carried out by ‘secret powers’ in different cities, including Lahore and Peshawar, in the past in the name of TTP.

He said implementation of a ceasefire declared by the TTP had been acknowledged by the media. “The sane people of Pakistan know who was behind these attacks at public places.”

Saleem Shahid adds from Quetta: Mureed Baloch, a spokesman for the UBA, told newsmen in Quetta by telephone that his organisation was behind the bomb attack in the Rawalpindi-Islamabad fruit and vegetable market.

“Our organisation has carried out the bomb attack in fruit and vegetable market in the twin city in reaction to operations conducted by security forces in Kalat, Turbat, Panjgur, Mastung and other parts of Balochistan,” he said.

The UBA also claimed responsibility for the Jaffar Express bomb blast in Sibbi on Tuesday that killed 17 people.

Army still upset over ‘unfair criticism’

The Newspaper's Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD: Army generals are still upset for having been “unfairly criticised” by federal ministers.

The seething resentment in the military ranks was obvious as generals met for the corps commanders’ conference at the General Headquarters on Wednesday.

Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, who presided over the meeting, had earlier in the week publicly stated the concerns when he told peeved Special Services soldiers in Tarbela that army “will resolutely preserve its own dignity and institutional pride”.

Gen Raheel’s statement had effectively blown away the façade of civilian and military leadership being on the same page.

Although not stated in so many words and masked as “unfair criticism”, the anger is because of former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf’s trial on charges of high treason and what is being seen as his public humiliation by some ministers.

The generals are also said to be displeased with the manner in which the government has proceeded with the peace dialogue despite their reservations.

According to an officer who witnessed the proceedings of the Corps Commanders Conference, the intensity of the feelings on the issue remained high.

“The situation can be addressed only once there is realisation….,” a source said, indicating that commanders were finding the government indifferent to their complaints.

Unlike the media release on Gen Raheel’s comments in Tarbela, the matter was not reflected in the statement on the meeting at GHQ.

The army chief was quoted in the ISPR release as having commended his ‘men’ for their work despite “serious security and administrative challenges”.

He made these comments while reviewing the military deployments across the country on security, development and rehabilitation works in different parts of the country.

An ISPR spokesman said the corps commanders’ conference “undertook a comprehensive review of the prevailing external and internal security situation, especially along the Western border”.

“The issue of drawdown of Isaf from Afghanistan with its concomitant implications on the security situation along the bordering region was also discussed,” he said.

PTI criticises govt failure to protect people

Khawar Ghumman

ISLAMABAD: Short of demanding resignation of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf lashed out at the government on Wednesday for its abject failure to provide adequate security to the national capital.

In the wake of the deadly blast in the fruit and vegetable market, the PTI leadership issued a statement criticising the federal government in general and the interior ministry in particular for letting terrorists kill people.

The statement said: “Today’s tragic incident which resulted in the killing of innocent people sufficiently blew away the frequent claims made by the government about making the federal capital a safe city and exposed its sheer incompetence.

“If the government cannot take care of Islamabad, how come they can provide security to hundreds of millions of people living elsewhere in the country.”

Of late the PTI leadership, notably Imran Khan, has more than once praised the federal government for holding talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and also declared the peace process a success. But after the fruit market bomb attack it said that while enemies of the country had become active the government appeared to be sleeping.

Demanding a comprehensive investigation into the incident and arrest of the perpetrators, the PTI asked the PML-N government to wake up from its traditional laid-back attitude to make the country safe for people.

The PTI also expressed concern over the latest wave of terrorist acts and called upon the government to spell out measures it had taken following the announcement of its national internal security policy.

“How much more time the government intends to waste in controlling terrorism in the country.”

Pak Eurobond gets positive response

Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON: Multilateral donors and international markets have reposed tremendous confidence in Pakistan’s economic future, said Finance Minister Ishaq Dar as the country’s Eurobonds was subscribed three times over.

Speaking at the US Institute of Peace in Washington on Tuesday evening, the minister also said that the World Bank would provide $10 billion to Pakistan for development projects in the next five years.

In Islamabad, the Finance Ministry disclosed that a very positive response to Pakistan’s Eurobond enabled the government to raise $1 billion for five years and another $1 billion for 10 years.

The $1bn raised for the five-year tenure have a fixed rate of 7.25 per cent, 5.58pc over and above the benchmark five-year US Treasury rate. Another $1bn was generated through 10-year bonds at a fixed rate of 8.25pc, which is 5.56pc above the corresponding 10-year US Treasury benchmark rate.

According to the Wall Street Journal, almost two-thirds of the bonds went to US-based money managers.

The Pakistani delegation, which is in Washington for the World Bank spring meetings, claimed that the demand for the bonds indicated that Pakistani economy was improving and investors believed that this improvement would yield high returns for them.

The finance minister described the response as unprecedented, noting that “multilateral donors and international markets have reposed tremendous confidence in Pakistan’s economic future”.

Pakistani officials travelling with the minister hoped that the sale would also boost reserves and help Pakistan meet conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Last September, the IMF saved Pakistan from possible default by agreeing to lend it $6.7bn over three years. Pakistan has already received three tranches that total about $1.6bn.

Mr Dar hoped that Islamabad’s commitment to make best use of the country’s economic potential and growing international confidence in Pakistan’s policies would help sustain growth momentum in the years ahead. The government hopes to boost an estimated 4pc GDP growth rate to 6pc in the near future.

The minister told the audience that the World Bank would provide $10bn to Pakistan for development projects in the next five years. He said economic indicators in Pakistan had improved with 6.2pc increase in exports and 11pc increase in foreign remittances in the current fiscal year.

Mr Dar said economic growth rate was recorded at 4pc while the government had also been successful in curtailing fiscal deficit. Tax collections, he added, had also improved by 17pc.

The minister highlighted the government’s efforts to improve relations with India and assured New Delhi that Islamabad would reengage with it as soon as the new Indian government was formed.

Pakistan, he said, would work to offer non-discriminatory market access to (NDMA) India after negotiations with the new government following this week’s general elections.

“We have again got re-engaged with India in a very proactive manner in the last few month, in order to increase the trade between the two countries,” he said.

“The non-discriminatory market access is a new term we have coined for mutual expansion of the trade. We wish to minimise the negative list of both the countries,” Mr Dar said.

He said a government committee, headed by him, had reviewed the future roadmap of trade with India. “We have recommended to the cabinet and to the prime minister that this NMDA is to be proactively followed,” he said.

In his address to the US Institute of Peace, a think-tank, Mr Dar said: “Whosoever they elect let me assure you, the spadework is there, Indian establishment knows the entire detail. So as soon as a new government in India is sworn in, we will be happy to re-engage the Indian government on this subject”.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently deferred a decision on this issue.

Mr Dar said it was the PML-N, lead by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which triggered the process of dialogue with India way back in 1999.

The minister said the PML-N government also engaged the Congress government but later decided to wait till after the elections and negotiate these issues with the new government in New Delhi.

17 burn to death in train blast at Sibi

Saleem Shahid

QUETTA: At least 17 people, two women and four children among them, burned to death and over 45 were injured in a powerful explosion in a carriage of a Rawalpindi-bound train at the Sibi station on Tuesday.

The outlawed United Baloch Army claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The blast took place at a time when President Mamnoon Hussain was in Quetta on a two-day visit.

According to officials, the bomb planted in carriage number-9 of Jaffar Express went off 10 minutes after it reached Sibi and passengers were disembarking. The helpless passengers started screaming and tried in vain to escape the burning bogie.

“Twelve passengers, including two women and four children, burned to death. Their charred bodies were recovered after putting out the fire,” Sibi Range DIG Qazi Hussain Ahmed said.

“The condition of most of the injured is serious. They received serious burn injuries,” Dr Ghulam Sarwar, Medical Superintend of Divisional Hospital Sibi, said.

The critically injured passengers were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital, Quetta. At least 12 injured were brought to CMH Sibi.

Three of the passengers succumbed to their wounds in CMH Sibi and two in the divisional hospital.

An emergency was declared in all Sibi hospitals.

Sources said some security personnel travelling in the train were also injured.

“We received 12 bodies and over 40 injured,” an official at the Sibi Divisional Hospital said. The bodies were charred beyond recognition.

About 80 passengers were in the ill-fated bogie, but many of them remained safe and stepped off the train when it stopped at Sibi.

Police officer Mohammad Tahir said a preliminary investigation by the bomb disposal squad suggested that an improvised explosive device (IED) weighing 20kg had been used in the blast. It was detonated by remote control.

Soon after the blast security forces and police cordoned off the railway station and launched a rescue operation.

The officials said the bomb was apparently placed in the bogie’s washroom.

“The train reached the station 10 minutes before schedule and railway workers started supplying water to its washrooms. The explosion took place before the start of the process of security clearance by FC personnel and sniffer dogs,” they said.

Sibi Commissioner Sher Khan Bazai said the condition of 24 of the injured was critical.

The fire brigade extinguished the fire after hectic efforts.

The blaze turned the bogie into a wreck. Three other bogies were also damaged. Windowpanes of almost all bogies at the Sibi station were smashed by the blast.

The ill-fated train carrying hundreds of passengers was bound for Rawalpindi. It left Quetta at about 9am and reached Sibi at 1pm. The blast took place at about 1.10pm.

The officials said only two bodies could be identified. Fifteen bodies were beyond recognition. Their samples would be sent to laboratory for DNA test and determination of their identities.

CONDEMNATION: Railways Minister Saad Rafiq condemned the blast and said a woman might have been used to plant the IED in the train. “There are no arrangements at railway stations to check women passengers,” he said, adding that the government would take all measures to ensure safety of passengers.

United Baloch Army spokesman Mureed Baloch told reporters in Quetta over phone from an unspecified place that his organisation had carried out the attack in revenge for security forces’ operation in Kalat, Turbat, Panjgur, Mastung and many other areas of Balochistan.

The Balochistan chief minister ordered an investigation into the tragedy. The perpetrators must be brought to justice, he said. He directed the authorities concerned to provide quality medical treatment to the injured.

Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti said the provincial government would continue its crackdown on terrorists.

Our Staff Reporter adds from Lahore: Railways police constituted a committee to investigate the bomb blast. Additional Inspector General Munir Ahmad Chishti left for Sibbi to supervise the probe, a spokesman for the railway police said.

The railway police also beefed up security at stations and trains.

Railway police IG Syed Ibne Husain ordered deployment of commandos at major stations and increase in the number of plainclothesmen in trains.

He said the maximum number of PR police should be deputed for the protection of key railway points and vital installations. Patrol by policemen should be regularly conducted within the area of PR police jurisdiction. Joint trolley patrol with railway officials should also be undertaken.

Pilot engines should be run ahead of the main trains in dangerous areas to avert any untoward incident, he ordered.

Landslides kill 10 of a family, five others

Syed Zahid Jan

UPPER DIR: Fifteen people, 10 of them belonging to a family, were killed and seven others injured in two incidents of landslide in Upper Dir on Tuesday.

UPPER DIR: Fifteen people, 10 of them belonging to a family, were killed and seven others injured in two incidents of landslide in Upper Dir on Tuesday.

A house in Badran near Kalkot in Kohistan was hit early in the morning and seven children and three elders of a family were buried under the debris, police and local people said.

Rescue operation was delayed because the place is situated in a remote area about 80km east of Dir district headquarters. There being no road link, it took rescue personnel two hours to reach there.

Police, Levies and Army personnel took part in rescue operation which continued for about seven hours.

MPA Mohammad Ali and police officials confirmed the death of 10 people.

Police said bodies of Asia Bibi, Shagufta, Bano, Sobia, Salma, Ms Bacharom, Sajjad, Abdullah, Gul Nameer and Ishaq were retrieved from the rubble. Gul Bacha received serious injuries.

The second incident took place in Batal in Usherai Darra where a boulder rolled down from a mountain and struck a shop, killing five people, including three school students, and wounding six others.

The students were having snacks at the shop when the boulder struck. Three of the dead were identified as Gohar Ali, Najumuddin and Irfan.

MPA Muhammad Ali asked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to immediately announce compensation for families of dead and injured.

Minister calls parliament ‘most powerful’ institution

Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD: A day after a statement by Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif vowing the army would “resolutely preserve” its dignity, two senior government ministers took the floor of the National Assembly on Tuesday to reject a perception that people lacked trust in parliamentarians they voted for in elections.

On the last day of a 16-day session of the house that passed off smoothly after Monday’s noisy furore over the bulldozing of a controversial anti-terrorism bill by the government, no lawmaker from either side of the aisle made a direct mention of the army chief’s speech at a commando base in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, which otherwise seemed to attract a lot of attention from politicians and the media.

But Water and Power Minister Khwaja Mohammad Asif, who is also in charge of the defence ministry, seemed hinting at that very subject when he advised members of parliament against “crossing all limits in self-accountability” while “all (other) institutions defend themselves and defend their members”.

Calling parliament “the most powerful institution” of the country, the minister said its members must guard it from being trampled by any other institution rather than vilify one another and “belittle our own institution”.

But, in a reference to support extended by politicians to every military dictator in the country, the minister regretted that “whenever a usurper comes, members of our own community join hands with him”.

Before him, Information and Broadcasting Minister Pervaiz Rashid said it was wrong to assume that people didn’t trust parliamentarians, asking that if it were so, why they would not stand in long queues to elect them?

PRIVATE BILLS GALORE: On what was a private members’ day, the government allowed the introduction of 10 private bills by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, including one from two PTI members to provide for electronic voting in general elections, which was called “really progressive” by minister Pervaiz Rashid, who is also in charge of the law ministry.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed told the house that the ministry concerned had already sought a detailed report from the department concerned on what he called “a very important bill” that Nafisa Shah and three other members of the PPP were allowed to introduce, seeking the constitution of an independent National Air Transportation Safety Board to ensure compliance of international air safety standards. But another PPP member, Shazia Marri, was denied a similar accommodation as her resolution demanding the lifting of a 1-1/2-year ban in Pakistan on the YouTube video-sharing social website was not put on the day’s agenda after an inconclusive debate on the previous private members’ day on April 1.

Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi also did not allow her to move what she called a joint resolution supported by different parties on what the government should do to make Pakistan polio-free.

The house also heard an outburst from PTI member Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who resumed his seat in the house after the vacation of some nine months’ suspension by the Supreme Court on allegations of possessing a fake university degree.

The member, who had defeated Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in one of the two constituencies the minister had contested from Rawalpindi district, called his suspension “a unique case of political victimisation and judicial activism” but agreed to speak in detail on the issue in the next session when he said “the man behind all this conspiracy” should also be present.

PIRZADA’S GESTURES: It is not unusual for a minister concerned or a ruling party chief whip to going to the speaker’s rostrum to make a suggestion about the business before the house or about when to adjourn the proceedings.

But towards the fag end of the sitting on Tuesday, Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada was seen making gestures with his hands from his seat apparently suggesting an end to the proceedings, and the deputy speaker did not seem to ignore them as he cut short Ms Shazia Marri’s request to move a resolution on polio elimination by reading out the presidential order proroguing the house somewhat early than usual at 1.15pm.

Commanders meet today

The Newspaper's Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD: Army’s top brass is meeting on Wednesday, soon after Gen Raheel Sharif caused a stir with his remarks at a Special Services Group base in Tarbela.

The meeting, which is commonly known as Corps Commanders’ Conference, is a routine monthly affair at the General Headquarters where the commanders get together to discuss “professional matters and issues that are impacting national security”, but this time round the timing is being seen as important.

The army chief left no doubt with his comments at the SSG base that the military, contrary to what was being claimed by the political leadership, was neither comfortable nor on the same page with the government on a number of issues.

Gen Raheel’s comments that the army would “resolutely preserve its own dignity and institutional pride” sent shockwaves in the government circles.

It is said that the comments were made in the context of army’s concern over the trial of former military ruler retired Gen Pervez Musharraf on the charge of high treason.

But insiders insist that the army is neither at peace nor happy with the way the government is proceeding with its initiative of holding peace talks with militants involved in the killing of tens of thousands of countrymen.

Sources aware of Wednesday’s agenda said differences with the government were not on the formal list of items, but they were expecting an intense in-house discussion on the matter.

“It will be wrong to say that the matter will not be discussed; yes it is likely to dominate the proceedings,” an officer said.

While the general expectation is that rift will not be allowed to widen and both sides are already taking steps to avoid a face-off, but still the army is likely to keep some measure of pressure on the government.

“It is a very important matter that is related to institutional morale,” a defence analyst commented.

With unease, govt agrees to MPs’ tax probe

Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD: Despite showing some unease over a perceived attempt to belittle parliament, the treasury benches joined in a unanimous adoption of an opposition motion in the National Assembly on Tuesday asking its speaker to form a committee to investigate allegations of non-payment of taxes by parliamentarians.

Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had earlier agreed to take up, out of turn, the motion tabled by Asad Umar and six other members of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) on the allegation of tax non-payment by parliamentarians on the insistence of PTI’s chairman Imran Khan and vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi — both of them noting that it was the sixth attempt to have the motion discussed — as well as support from opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah of the PPP.

Even after Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada agreed to the adoption of the motion, two members of the ruling PML-N from Punjab, Sheikh Rohale Asghar and Abdul Mannan, did not seem comfortable over the move, pointing out that all parliamentarians were paying taxes deducted from salaries at source.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Pervaiz Rashid also opposed any more discussion on the issue at the time after the house adopted the PTI motion, which said that the speaker constitute a special committee of up to 10 members belonging to major political parties “to investigate the allegation of non-payment of taxes by a number of parliamentarians and report within 90 days”. But PTI’s senior figure, Javed Hashmi, called for the probe to be extended beyond salaries paid to parliamentarians and include disclosure of their assets held abroad and made subject to the taxation system.—Raja Asghar

Over 30 killed in operation near Kalat

Saleem Shahid

QUETTA: Security forces killed over 30 militants in an operation in Kalat and Khuzdar districts on Monday.

QUETTA: Security forces killed over 30 militants in an operation in Kalat and Khuzdar districts on Monday.

Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Bugti said at a press conference that at least 10 personnel of the Frontier Corps were injured during a heavy exchange of fire that continued for several hours in the Parodh area.

Inspector General of FC Major General Ejaz Shahid himself led the operation.

“Over 30 militants involved in attacks on passenger trains and security forces, bomb blasts and other subversive activities have been killed in the operation against their hideouts,” Mr Bugti said. Eight to 10 camps set up in the area were destroyed in the operation.

FC spokesman Khan Wasey told Dawn that “around 30 to 40 armed militants have been killed in the gunbattle.”

He said a huge quantity of illegal arms and ammunition was found in the militants’ hideouts captured by the forces.

The home minister said: “The armed men killed in the operation belonged to banned militant organisations which are involved in subversive activities in Kalat and Khuzdar districts and other areas of the province.”

The operation continued for several hours.

Mr Bugti said the government would not tolerate attacks and subversive activities and would take action against those involved in such criminal activities. Action will be taken “whenever the writ of the government will be challenged”.

Sources said the special operation wing of the FC and Kalat Scouts (FC Wing) had set up a special team for the operation after receiving information about presence of insurgents and their hideouts in Kalat and Khuzdar districts.

The FC troops, along with Levies force, cordoned off the area early in the morning and launched a search operation. The militants in the hideouts opened fire using rockets, mortars, hand-grenades and automatic weapons. Security forces returned fire.

“A heavy gunbattle ensued and continued for at least six hours,” official sources said.

The claims about casualties made by the home minister and FC spokesman could not be confirmed from independent sources. The bodies of militants have not been brought to a hospital so far.

“The camps destroyed in the operation were being used as hideouts by members of banned militant organisations who were involved in targeted killings, kidnapping for ransom, attacks on forces and passenger trains and houses of their opponents,” the FC spokesman said.

The decision to conduct the operation had been taken at a high-level meeting which had taken notice of grenade attacks on houses of people who had taken part in the Pakistan Day celebrations.

He said that FC and other security agencies would continue their joint operations till the elimination of subversive activities in the area.

The sources said security forces were still present in the area.

The FC soldiers injured in the exchange of fire were taken to the CMH, Quetta, by a helicopter.

AFP adds: The Frontier Corps said in a statement that “around 40 insurgents belonging to the Baloch Republican Army and Baloch Liberation Army were killed during the operation”.

Six vehicles were destroyed during the operation which was still going on, it said.

Security and rebel accounts of clashes often differ greatly and spokesmen for the two separatist groups have so far declined to comment.

Musharraf summoned in another case

Amanullah Kasi

QUETTA: An anti-terrorism court ordered former president Pervez Musharraf, an accused in the Nawab Akbar Bugti murder case, on Monday to appear in the hearing on April 21 or face an arrest warrant and cancellation of his bail.

Judge Tariq Anwar Kasi expressed displeasure over the non-appearance of the former military ruler despite orders issued to the police for the fifth time to produce the accused.

Former interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao and former provincial home minister Mir Shoaib Nausherwani were present in the court.

Ordering Mr Musharraf to ensure his presence in the next hearing, the court said his bail would be cancelled and arrest warrant issued if he failed to appear.

The court also asked the two guarantors who had filed surety bonds for the accused to appear on the next date of hearing.

Army to preserve its dignity, says COAS

Baqir Sajjad Syed

ISLAMABAD: Finally breaking its silence on the issue of high treason trial of retired Gen Pervez Musharraf, the army on Monday came out in what appeared to be support of its former chief and warned critics against undermining military’s institutional morale.

“Pakistan Army upholds the sanctity of all institutions and will resolutely preserve its own dignity and institutional pride,” Chief of Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif said while speaking to Special Service Group (SSG) commandos at Ghazi Base near Tarbela.

The army chief’s extraordinarily hard-hitting statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) did not directly link it to Musharraf’s trial, but some of the officers who had attended the Ghazi Base meeting, confirmed that discomfort within ranks over the issue formed the context of Gen Raheel’s comments.

While visiting the base, the home of SSG commandos, every other soldier that the army chief met expressed concern over the case, an officer disclosed and reminisced that Gen Musharraf belonged to the same group.

The ISPR statement noted that the army chief had made the remarks in response to “the concerns of soldiers on undue criticism of the institution (army) in recent days”.

Gen Raheel’s statement came a week after Musharraf was indicted by the Special Court on five counts of high treason, a charge that potentially carries death penalty.

It is quiet rare for the military to publicly express its ‘sentiments’ on a political matter and even its usual media statements on routine professional matters are sanitised to the extent that they are most of the times bereft of details. This has more so been the case under Gen Raheel.

But Monday’s media release was an exception.

The last time such a statement was made by an army chief was on Nov 5, 2012, when the then COAS Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had warned detractors of military against undermining the institution and behaving as the “sole arbiters” of national interest. Observations made by the Supreme Court in the Asghar Khan case about funding of politicians in the past by the ISI had formed the background of Gen Kayani’s outburst.

Gen Raheel was reportedly upset about the manner in which the discourse on Musharraf trial had digressed into army bashing and public humiliation of the former army chief. Statements by Defence Minister Khwaja Asif and Railways Minister Khwaja Saad Rafique on the treason case in particular were seen by the army as demeaning.

The army had been privately conveying its reservations to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but decided to go public after it was felt that he was not paying heed to the concern, an insider claimed.

In his comments at the Ghazi Base, the army chief regretted the timing of the campaign to ‘malign the military as an institution’ and he noted that “country is faced with multiple internal and external challenges…”.

Underscoring the importance of public support for the army, Gen Raheel said: “Drawing its strength from national support, with its characteristic coherence and resilience, Pakistan Army has contributed immensely towards national security and nation building and will continue to deliver on its mission.”

PPP for keeping military on board

Syed Irfan Raza

ISLAMABAD: The PPP expressed concern on Monday over release of Taliban prisoners under what it called undisclosed assurances and urged the government to keep the army on board during talks with the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.

The assertion appears to be an expression of no confidence in the official claim that the government and military leadership are on the same page on the dialogue.

Senior PPP leaders were of the opinion that the current government-TTP talks would not reach a logical conclusion.

Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Ahmed Shah told reporters outside the Parliament House that Taliban were not releasing innocent people, but the government was freeing terrorists as a result of dialogue with the TTP.

“If Taliban do not release sons of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer, the PPP will be justified to question the dialogue process,” he said.

The government recently announced that it had released 19 TTP prisoners last month and there are reports that some more will be set free soon.

“Taliban have made the army a party in the peace process and, therefore, the government should take the military leadership into confidence. Otherwise, any misunderstanding will be harmful for the democratic system,” the opposition leader said.

He suggested that the government should make its committee holding direct talks with Taliban more powerful so that it could take decisions on the spot instead of going to the prime minister and the interior minister again and again to seek instructions.

He said PPP Patron-in-Chief Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari wanted that talks should be held on the basis of equality and the government should not be blackmailed by the Taliban.

In reply to a question about former president retied Gen Pervez Musharraf, Mr Shah said his case would be similar to that of US spy Ramond Davis. “Musharraf had facilitated Nawaz Sharif and thus the latter will do the same,” he added.

Another PPP leader and former interior minister Rehman Malik told reporters that release of terrorists in response to Taliban’s assurance of freeing innocent people was ‘illogical’. “It seems that Taliban want to get a group of 1,000 terrorists released and send them on a secret mission.”

He warned the government to be wary of Taliban and keep in mind the integrity and stability of the country.

The PPP’s legal wizard and former federal minister, Aitzaz Ahsan, said in a statement that there was no hope of success in government-TTP talks, adding that Taliban should free non-combatants and innocent people, including sons of Mr Gilani and Salman Taseer.

TTP PRISONERS: Rustam Shah Mohmand, a member of the government committee, claimed that the government had agreed to release TTP prisoners in phases. He said both the government and TTP had prisoners in their custody, but their number was uncertain. The issue would be taken up at the next meeting between the government and Taliban committees, he added.

Govt forces anti-terror bill through NA

Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD: The government bulldozed a controversial anti-terrorism bill through the National Assembly on Monday amid rowdy scenes with the protesting opposition lawmakers tearing up copies of what they called a repressive “black law”.

A party allied with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also joined the noisiest protest of the 10-month life of the present lower house after the government rejected opposition demands that the two sides further discuss the Protection of Pakistan Bill, based on two presidential ordinances.

The failure of a compromise between the two sides makes the fate of the bill — including draconian provisions like empowering law enforcement agencies to shoot suspects at sight, detain them for up to 90 days and not disclose the place of their detention — uncertain when it goes to the opposition-controlled Senate.

The day was marked by three walkouts by the entire opposition — twice against the contested bill and once against the adoption of a resolution by the ruling coalition to extend the life of a presidential ordinance for an additional period of 120 days, and one separately by the government-allied JUI-F to press its own reservations against the bill.

Lawmakers of the ruling party were present in strength for what they expected would be a showdown, after suffering an embarrassment in the previous sitting on Friday, when the house had to be adjourned soon after the question hour because it lacked quorum.

The main component of the bill — Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, 2013 — is already in force after the National Assembly extended its life for 120 days until June through a resolution passed by the house in its previous session.

In an unusual legislative mode, a second bill on the agenda containing a briefer Protection of Pakistan (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014, was withdrawn after its provisions were adopted by the house through amendments moved in the main Protection of Pakistan Bill, which, as an act of parliament is to remain in force for three years from the date any of its provisions first comes into force and will be extendable for up to another three years by a resolution passed by each of the two houses of parliament.

Opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah, of the PPP, and parliamentary leaders of other opposition parties suggested that the two sides further discuss the controversial provisions of the bill possibly during the night and take up a possible compromise draft on Tuesday, the last day of the present session, to ensure its smooth sailing in the 104-seat Senate, where the PPP and its allies form the majority.

But the government’s refusal to oblige them, and the decision of Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to begin a clause-by-clause reading of the bill, brought opposition lawmakers on their feet in protest before they walked to the steps of the Speaker’s rostrum chanting slogans against the draft and tearing up its copies and throwing them into the air.

After this protest for 15 minutes, through which Science and Technology Minister Zahid Hamid, acting on behalf of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, continued moving clauses of the bill, as well as government-proposed amendments, the opposition walked out to an adjacent lounge, leaving a pile of torn papers in front of the rostrum.

That was a reminder of similar noisy scenes created by opposition parties during the previous PPP-led coalition government and the preceding government of military president Pervez Musharraf.

The opposition members trickled back into the house after an abortive attempt by one of them to disrupt the proceedings by forcing a headcount to see if the 342-seat house had a minimum quorum of 86 members, and finally stormed out through a different gate, allowing the government a smooth sailing for the remainder of the bill.

A soft-spoken Khursheed Shah urged the government to follow the example of his party’s government, which, he said, got major constitution amendments and most of over 130 bills passed during its five-year tenure by consensus, assuring it that the opposition wanted to facilitate it rather than obstruct.

But Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar, Qaumi Watan Party chief Aftab Ahmed Sherpao as well as senior JUI-F member Maulana Ameer Zaman came out more strongly.

Earlier, the opposition staged their first walkout of the day after Minister of State for Water and Power, Abid Sher Ali, gave an abrasive response to opposition criticism against his resolution seeking an extension for 120 days from April 29 onwards for the already enforced Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013, which provides for higher penalties for power theft.

That walkout, which also provoked an angry onslaught from Water and Power Minister Khwaja Mohammad Asif, ended when, on the advice of the chair, Defence Production Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain, persuaded the protesters to come back to the house just as the treasury benches voted “yes” for the resolution.

Earlier in the day, the house also passed a government bill to amend the Service Tribunals Act, 1973, seeking to make appointments of tribunal members in line with procedures followed for judiciary, make the tribunals financially autonomous and empower them to get their decisions implemented.

Afghan polls to pave way for peace in region: PM

Syed Irfan Raza

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan felicitated the people and government of Afghanistan on Sunday for successfully completing the election process and hoped that it would pave the way for peace in the region.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan felicitated the people and government of Afghanistan on Sunday for successfully completing the election process and hoped that it would pave the way for peace in the region.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement that taking decisions through the ballot box reflected Afghan people’s determination and keen interest in adopting democratic culture.

“Participation in the democratic process by the Afghan people would play a significant role in bringing peace and stability in the region,” he said.

The prime minister said Pakistan would help and support Afghanistan in strengthening democracy and would also work in collaboration with the new leadership in Afghanistan for peace and tranquillity in the region.

He expressed the hope that a peaceful transfer of power would take place in Afghanistan and democracy would flourish in the country.

“This election would prove as a historic moment for the Afghan people in their democratic journey.”

He was optimistic that the elections would foster unity and harmony among the people of Afghanistan.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement that the people of Afghanistan braved the security threat and inclement weather and turned up in millions to exercise their democratic right to choose their future leadership.

“We wish the Afghan electoral institutions well as they take the next key steps in ensuring the successful completion of the electoral process. Like always, the people of Pakistan stand in strong solidarity with the Afghan nation at this historic moment, and as it moves forward in its peaceful democratic transition.”

Former president and Co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party Asif Ali Zardari also felicitated the Afghan people.

He said he hoped the Saturday polls would be a watershed in the journey of the people of Afghanistan on the path to peaceful democratic transition and lead to peace and stability not only in their country but also in the region.

Mr Zardari said that despite threats the successful election demonstrated yet again that the Afghan people wanted peace and democracy and those opposed to their democratic ethos would be frustrated.

S. Lanka beat India to win World T20 title

Reuters

MIRPUR: Sri Lanka lifted their maiden World Twenty20 title at the third time of asking following their six-wicket victory against former champions India at the Sher-i-Bangla National Stadium on Sunday.

Kumar Sangakkara hit an important 52 (six boundaries and a six) not out in his last Twenty20 international outing to help Sri Lanka chase down the 131-run victory target with 13 balls to spare and deny India, the reigning 50-over World Cup and Champions Trophy winners, a record limited over treble. Another departing great, Mahela Jayawardene, contributed a run-a-ball 24.

Sri Lanka finally managed to break their jinx of losing the finals of global events, having gone down in the decider of the 50-over World Cup in 2007 and 2011 and T20 World Cup in 2009 and 2012. —Reuters

Iran parliament approves bill on accord with Pakistan

Agencies

TEHRAN: Iranian parliament approved on Sunday the Tehran-Islamabad enhanced security cooperation act.

According to Iranian news agency Irna, the bill is intended to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in combating terrorist groups operating in border areas.

Terrorist groups have carried out several attacks on Iranian border guards deployed along the border between Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province and Pakistan since 2004.

The capture of Iranian border guards earlier this month, along with the killing of 14 Iranian soldiers last November, was claimed by the terrorist group Jaish al-Adl.

The Iranian parliament approved general terms of the bill with 187 votes in favour, 14 against and six abstentions.

It had earlier been adopted by the Iranian cabinet and submitted to parliament on March 31 last year.

The bill contains working methods, costs and other issues.

Pakistan and Iran signed the accord in February last year to take stringent measures to combat terrorism and human and drug trafficking.

Meanwhile, four Iranian soldiers abducted by rebels returned home after being held for two months.

Four of the abducted border guards had returned home, the Iranian intelligence ministry said in a statement.

It did not address the fate of Jamshid Danayifar, a fifth soldier abducted along with the other guards on Feb 6.

The Jaish al-Adl group said Danayifar had been slain in late March.

PAKISTAN NAVY VESSELS: Pakistani naval vessels have arrived at the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas for a naval manoeuvre.

Irna quoted Rear Admiral Shahram Irani as saying the fleet would have presence in the manoeuvre beginning on Tuesday east of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.

Pakistani vessels which reached Iranian waters include a warship, a submarine and a logistics vessel.

The fleet will leave after four days. In the past, regional countries have attended similar Iranian manoeuvres as observers.

“The most important activity of the Pakistani fleet during its stay in Bandar Abbas is to launch joint manoeuvres with selected units of Iran’s navy in eastern waters of the Hormuz Strait,” Admiral Irani said.

The joint exercises were aimed at promoting military cooperation between Pakistan and Iran, the news agency said.--Agencies

IDPs repatriation in Kurram begins

Bureau Report

PESHAWAR: Political authorities have started repatriating thousands of people of Ali Sherzai tribe to their native area in the Kurram tribal region.

Kurram political agent Riaz Mahsud said that 55,000 tribal people had been displaced in June 2010 following a military operation to cleanse the area of militants.

“So far 7,500 people have been sent to their area and the rest would be repatriated over the next couple of weeks,” he said. “We intend to complete the process by April 24.”

He said the returnees were being provided free transportation and food for six months, although the area had been cleared of militants. It was because of hectic efforts made by the Fata administration that Rs5 million had been arranged for the purpose, they added.

Displaced people have been holding protests for their repatriation without further delay, but donors and the federal government, despite pledges, have not provided funds to facilitate their return.

Punjab hospitals’ ICUs in bad shape

Asif Chaudhry

LAHORE: Muhammad Usman Khan is a relationship manager at a bank in Sahiwal. He recently went looking for something as basic as a bed in an intensive care unit (ICU) in a hospital and a ventilator to save the life of his 54-year-old mother who was suffering from acute pneumonia. He searched desperately for it in his hometown and then went calling at various hospitals in Lahore, around two and half hours drive from Sahiwal.

Usman and his mother arrived at the government-run Services Hospital in Lahore on March 18. The patient was admitted and referred to the ICU, but all the ventilators there were already occupied. A ventilator was urgently needed for the fast weakening body of the patient, and her son was left with no option but to look for a private hospital with the facility after an unsuccessful round of some other public sector facilities.

All he could ultimately find in a private hospital was an ICU bed without ventilator, because he lacked resources required to get his mother admitted to a ‘medical centre’ at Rs60,000 per day plus expenses on medicines.

His mother died five hours later and soon afterwards Usman was handed a treatment bill of Rs75,000.

Not only is there no critical care specialist available in any government institution in Punjab, the ICUs are being run either by a professor of medicine or anaesthetics. The public and private hospitals do not have sufficient number of trained and qualified nursing staff for ICUs and ventilator is a major component of intensive care.

Up to 5,000 patients are estimated to visit the outpatient department (OPD) and emergency of a government teaching hospital every day. Dr Abubakr Gondal, a specialist associated with the Jinnah Hospital ICU, tells Dawn that on an average one out of every 10 patients visiting the emergency requires ICU care.

By comparison, according to information gathered from the administration of 12 major tertiary care hospitals in Punjab, the number of ICU beds in all of them adds up to only 250.

The 1,250-bed Jinnah Hospital in the Punjab capital has 34 ICU beds and 54 ventilators. The 2,200-bed Mayo Hospital, which receives at least 4,000 patients daily in its OPD and emergency department, has only 48 ventilators. The 1,200-bed Services Hospital has only 43 ventilators.

Away from Lahore, the 1,450-bed Bahawal Victoria Hospital in Bahawalpur has a six-bed ICU.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends a 50:1 ratio of general ward to ICU beds and there should be a trained nurse for each bed in the ICU.

But medical experts cite reports which say that at present one nurse is staffed for three patients at an ICU in both the public and private hospitals.

An implementation strategy report of the WHO Global Code of Practice on International Recruitment of Health Personnel says the ratio of nurses to population is estimated to be one nurse to 3,626 people in Pakistan. It says there are 19 teaching hospitals with only 12,000 beds.

The hospitals are also blatantly lacking in other staff for ICU, including physiotherapists, nutritionists, laboratory technicians, biomedical technicians for repairing equipment, pharmacists and counsellors. They are mostly arranged on the basis of an emergency call.

As intensive care is believed to be a major source of income for private healthcare providers compared to any other format or method of treatment, a majority of leading hospitals in Punjab have come up with very odd ICU treatment packages.

According to a survey carried out by Dawn, the cheapest ICU package in an average private hospital starts from Rs40,000 for 24-hour treatment. This includes only service charges and doctors’ fees. Expenses incurred on medicines -- which are generally costlier in case of critical patients --, surgical and disposable items and laboratory investigations are besides this.

Under the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s Medical and Dental Institutions Recognition and Accreditation Standards Regulations 2012, 15 per cent (22.5/125) marks are assigned for critical care beds, which include intensive care, coronary care and neonatal care. Without these marks, a hospital cannot get accreditation, on paper, but there are frequent allegations that these rules are flouted at will.

Rule 17 of the regulations envisages: “There shall be separate medical and surgical ICU beds, separate paediatric and neonatal intensive care and separate intensive care beds.” Moreover, 15pc of the total bed strength shall be intensive care beds.

“At least 15 ventilators should be available for a 500-bed hospital,” according to the PMDC criteria. Out of the 500 beds, 10pc should have cardiac monitoring facilities.

Peace process on track, says Nisar

Iftikhar A. Khan

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has said that the peace process is moving in the right direction.

Speaking at a press conference after presiding over a meeting of the committees representing the government and the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan on Saturday, he asked critics of the peace process to see its achievements.

He pointed out that the number of suicide attacks and other terrorist acts had come down drastically over the past few weeks.

“Military operation is very easy, but working for peace is a difficult task.”

The minister expressed the hope that efforts for reconciliation would bring peace in the country.

He said the government would release more “non-combatant militants” before the next round of direct talks with the TTP shura next week and hoped that the other side would reciprocate.

Chaudhry Nisar was hopeful that the exchange of prisoners would help expedite the peace process.

“Nineteen Taliban were released last month and the number will reach about 30 before the next round,” he added.

He was optimistic that the TTP would also start freeing prisoners soon. Among such prisoners are sons of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer as well as a former vice chancellor of a Peshawar university.

The minister said the two sides would present their demands during the coming round.

He said the government wanted to see peace in the country through steps within the ambit of the constitution and added that no step would be taken against the interest of the country.

Chaudhry Nisar refused to comment on recent comments of PPP Co-chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari against the peace process, saying that “I do not react to statements made by children”.

“Such statements cannot change the negative opinion of people about the PPP because it did nothing for peace during its five-year rule,” the interior minister observed

About the TTP’s demand for a peace zone, he said “the Taliban in fact want identification of places where they can easily move for talks and such locations are being identified”.

Earlier the head of the Taliban team, Maulana Samiul Haq, told reporters that the meeting expressed satisfaction over extension of the ceasefire by the TTP.

He welcomed the “positive steps” taken by the government and said it was contemplating doing more. The meeting also discussed goodwill gestures which could be taken by both sides, he added.

He said the TTP Shura would be asked to release non-combatant prisoners.

Maulana Sami said the venue of the next round of talks would be decided in two days and both parties would present their demands there.

He agreed that the announcement of a permanent ceasefire could free the two sides from pressure related to time.

He was optimistic about the success of talks because, he said, confidence-building measures were being taken by both sides.

Maulana Sami parried a question whether the TTP would apologise to about 50,000 families whose loved ones had fallen prey to its terrorism. Retired Major Amir and Rahimullah Yousufzai also attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, an official dispelled a perception that the army was opposed to the peace process. He told Dawn that “the release of non-combatant Taliban shows that the civilian and military leaderships are on the same page on the dialogue process”.

Public sector defaulters bleed power network dry

Khawar Ghumman

ISLAMABAD: To go through the list of public sector defaulters of the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) is to realise that virtually every single government department at both the central and provincial levels has contributed towards bankrupting the power sector.

Documentary evidence available with Dawn explains, list after list, which government departments, starting from defence forces to autonomous bodies, provincial government departments, and down to municipal corporations, owe hundreds of millions of rupees to Wapda.

The recovery of these dues is as challenging a task for the government as adding more megawatts (MW) to the national grid. In total, as of Jan-Feb this year, the outstanding power dues stand at Rs492 billion — the private sector owes Rs366bn while the public sector owes the rest.

In the list of public-sector defaulters, the Sindh government leads with Rs52bn, followed by the AJK government (Rs32bn), the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government (Rs20bn) the federal government (Rs8bn) and the Punjab government (Rs6bn). The Balochistan government has consumed electricity worth Rs4bn and has yet to pay the bill.

Further delving provides more facts. For example, under the list of federal government defaulters falls the army, which has an over Rs1bn electricity bill pending, followed by the Pakistan Air Force (Rs278m), and the Pakistan Navy (Rs33m).

On the civilian side, there are many government departments at the federal level which are defaulting on their electricity bills. These include the Capital Development Authority (Rs2.10bn), the Senate Chairman’s office and residence (Rs112m), the information ministry (Rs211m) and the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (Rs155m).

Other defaulters are the Frontier Corps (Rs149m), the Hyderabad Cantonment Board (Rs125m), the Chaklala Cantonment Board (Rs270m), Pakistan PWD (Rs112m) and the Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation (Rs168m).

PROVINCIAL GOVTS: Provincial governments too have a long and interesting list of defaulters. In Punjab, for example, particularly in Lahore, a number of tehsil municipal administrations (TMA) have millions of rupees outstanding against them. These include the TMA Ravi town (Rs268m), the TMA Data Ganj Bakhsh town (Rs209m), the TMA Allama Iqbal town (Rs219m), and the TMA DG Khan (Rs365m).

The Sindh government too keeps a long list of departments which have over the years let their electricity bills pile up, some of them running into billions. These include WASA Hyderabad (Rs4.4bn), the Hyderabad Development Authority (Rs2.63bn), the Sindh public health engineering department (Rs2.7bn), Sindh SCARP (Rs1.01bn), the Sindh police department (Rs864m) and the Sindh Irrigation Department (Rs662m).

In Balochistan, its health engineering department tops the list with electricity bills worth Rs3.54bn, followed by the education department (Rs334m), the police department (Rs112m), the health department (Rs191m) and the provincial irrigation and power department (Rs23m).

The KP provincial government’s defaulters include TMA town-I Peshawar (Rs147m), the works and service department (Rs65m), TMA town-I Peshawar street light (Rs85m) and the TMA town-I Peshawar tube-well (Rs88m). A major chunk which the KP government had to pay is Rs18.60bn under the heading of tariff differential.

Talking to Dawn, a senior official of Wapda said the government has to go for some out-of-the-box solution for the recovery of these pending electricity bills. One of the best solutions which has been discussed at the Council of Common Interests was at-source deduction from the share of the provincial governments concerned from the federal divisible pool. However, except for the Punjab government, the others are opposing the suggestion.

16 killed, 46 hurt as van plunges into ravine

Nabeel Anwar Dhakku

CHAKWAL: Sixteen people, three children and three women among them, were killed and 46 injured as a van plunged into a ravine near Matan Khurd village in the hilly terrain of Salt Range on Saturday.

CHAKWAL: Sixteen people, three children and three women among them, were killed and 46 injured as a van plunged into a ravine near Matan Khurd village in the hilly terrain of Salt Range on Saturday.

“The victims belonging to an extended family from Sahiwal village in Sargodha district were going to the shrine of Pir Khara on Chakwal-Sargodha road,” DPO Dr Moeen Masood told Dawn.

The driver of the van was among the injured.

The official quoted the driver as saying he lost control over the van after its brakes failed.

An official of the Kallar Kahar police station said the driver did not belong to the area and was not familiar with the steep road.

“When the brakes failed, the van speeded up and finally met with the accident,” he said.

Rescue workers and police took the injured and the bodies to the Rural Health Centre in Lillah, a town in Khushab district. Later, they were shifted to a hospital in Sargodha.

DCO Faisal Bilal Lodhi said emergency had been declared at the hospital and doctors had been called from Jhelum.

“The injured include 25 children,” he said and added that those with critical injuries would be referred to Rawalpindi.

On March 28, three people were killed and 30 injured when a bus carrying them overturned on the motorway near Lillah. They too were going to the shrine of Pir Khara from Chiniot.

Baby no more among murder suspects

The Newspaper's Staff Reporter

LAHORE: Muslim Town police discharged on Saturday nine-month-old Mohammad Musa from a case of attempted murder lodged by the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines.

The case had been registered against members of a family and dozens of other inhabitants of Muslim Town after they allegedly attacked a bailiff and raiding team of the SNGPL after it went there to arrest people involved in gas theft.

Musa had already been granted a confirmed pre-arrest bail by a sessions court against surety bonds of Rs50,000.

Talking to Dawn, SSP Abdul Rab confirmed deletion of the baby’s name from the FIR. He said the controversy was a result of misunderstanding as the list of the accused provided to police by the gas company’s raiding team made no mention of their ages.

Five crew members of hijacked tanker return

Dawn Report

KARACHI/LAHORE: Five Pakistani crew members of the Morning Glory oil tanker that was hijacked by Libyan rebels returned home on Saturday morning.

KARACHI/LAHORE: Five Pakistani crew members of the Morning Glory oil tanker that was hijacked by Libyan rebels returned home on Saturday morning.

The vessel set off for Tunisia on Feb 25, but it changed course after reaching Egypt and made a turn towards Libya after receiving clearance from its Dubai-based owners.

However, on reaching a Libyan port, the crew was taken hostage by the rebels who demanded that the tanker sailed towards Cyprus. Several days later, on a request made by the Libyan government, US Navy Seals helped in rescuing the crew members and took the rebels into custody. On March 23, the ship was back in a Tripoli harbour.

The entire 21-member crew has been rescued, according to officials. Six Pakistani crew members were rescued by the US navy and handed over to the Pakistani ambassador in Libya, from where they came to Pakistan.

But two Sudanese, two Syrians, three Sri Lankans, two Eritreans and the Pakistani chief officer, Ghuffran Marghoob, are still with the Libyan authorities.

Marghoob is said to be assisting the Libyan authorities in offloading the vessel as there were some complications after the vessel was hit by a bomb on March 11.

Among those who were allowed to return, Capt Nauman Baig took a direct flight to Lahore, while second officer Mehdi Shamsi, third officer Asif Hassan and crew members Mohammad Arshad and Naik Zada reached the Karachi airport at 11am. Most of them refused to speak to the media, apart from the family of Mr Shamsi, whose father had been running from pillar to post to inquire about his son’s safety.

Capt Baig expressed his delight over his release but said: “I am responsible for the safety of all 21 staff of my ship. One Pakistani member, chief officer Ghuffran Marghoob, is yet to return home. I will be really happy when all the members are reunited with their families.”

Talking to reporters at the Allama Iqbal International Airport, he said: “I have got a new life. The governments of Libya and Pakistan and (human rights activist) Mr Ansar Burney played an important role in our release. I am also thankful to the people of Pakistan and the media.”

The family of Capt Baig received him at the airport. “We are very happy. Capt Baig asked me to come to the airport in bridal dress to receive him. It is like Eid for me. I have cooked karahi gosht and rice for him on his request,” said his wife.

Seven injured in Jaffarabad grenade attack

The Newspaper's Staff Correspondent

QUETTA: Seven people were injured in a hand-grenade attack on a shop in Usta Mohammad town, Jaffarabad, on Saturday.

QUETTA: Seven people were injured in a hand-grenade attack on a shop in Usta Mohammad town, Jaffarabad, on Saturday.

Two masked men on a bike hurled the device at a greengrocer’s shop and fled, sources said.

“The armed men lobbed a hand-grenade at the vegetable shop and seven people were injured in the blast,” police said.

The victims were taken to a local hospital from where some were referred to Civil Hospital Larkana.

The injured included Shabbir, Munir, Majid, Ghulam Sarwar, Riaz Shahid and Mohammad Khan.

Police official Mohammad Ayub said the shop had been damaged and windowpanes of nearby buildings and shops were smashed by the impact of the explosion.

He said it appeared to be a targeted attack.

Plane search detects ‘pulse signal’

AFP

BEIJING: A Chinese ship searching for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 detected a “pulse signal” in the southern Indian Ocean on Saturday, but there was no evidence yet that it was linked to the missing plane, state media said.

The signal picked up by the vessel’s black box detector had a frequency of 37.5kHz per second, the official Xinhua news agency said — identical to the beacon signal emitted by flight recorders.

The announcement came nearly a month after the Malaysian jetliner disappeared off radar screens en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, triggering an unprecedented international search.

Australian and British vessels are currently involved in a round-the-clock underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean, hoping to pick up a signal from the plane’s black box recorder, but the battery powering those emissions is nearing the end of its roughly 30-day life span.

The Chinese search ship Haixun 01 picked up the pulse signal at about 25 degrees south latitude and 101 degrees east longitude, Xinhua said in a brief dispatch.

“Suspected pulse signal picked up by Haixun 01 has not been identified yet,” the China Maritime Search and Rescue Centre said on a verified microblog.

Australian Defence Minister David Johnston said he had not received a report on the signal and warned that it may not be from the plane.

“This is not the first time we have had something that has turned out to be very disappointing,” he told ABC television.

“I’m just going to wait for (JACC chief) Angus (Houston) and the team and my team to come forward with something that’s positive because this is a very very difficult task.”

Up to 10 military planes, three civilian jets and 11 ships are currently involved in the protracted search for the Boeing 777, but have so far failed to find any sign of the plane.

Authorities still have no idea how or why the plane vanished. They warn that unless the black box is found, the mystery may never be solved.

Earlier in Kuala Lumpur, Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said Malaysia would, in line with international agreements, appoint an independent “investigator in charge” to lead an international team to probe what happened to MH370.

The team will include Australia, China, the United States, Britain and France.

Hishammuddin again declined to provide any detail from Malaysia’s ongoing investigation, however, saying he remained focused on finding the plane and its black box.

“In spite of (the long odds), our determination remains undiminished,” he told a press briefing.

Australia is leading the hunt for the plane, which concentrated Saturday on about 217,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean some 1,700km northwest of Perth.

Malaysian authorities believe satellite readings indicates MH370 crashed in the Indian Ocean, far off Australia’s western coastline, after veering dramatically off course during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But no proof has been found that would indicate a crash site, and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has described the oceanic search as “the most difficult in human history”.

The JACC said Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau was continuing “to refine the area where the aircraft entered the water” using further analysis of satellite data and aircraft performance.

Several nations that normally do not work together — notably the United States and China — have rallied to help look for clues in one of the world’s greatest-ever aviation mysteries.

The Ocean Shield, which is carrying a US Navy “black box” detector, and HMS Echo, which has a similar capability, are searching a 240-kilometre track of ocean in hopes of detecting sonic pings from the recorder.

However, progress is painstaking as vessels must move slowly to improve readings, and officials have acknowledge there is no solid evidence the plane went down in that stretch of sea.

“The search using sub-surface equipment needs to be methodical and carefully executed in order to effectively detect the faint signal of the pinger,” Commodore Peter Leavy said.—AFP

Footprints: It’s Thursday mourning in Pakistan

Mehreen Zahra-Malik

There are eulogies. There are hymns. There are loud duas. There are pictures. There are ofrendas. A wife’s favourite bottle of perfume is placed in the coffin. Ashes are scattered in a river. A body is snugly cocooned in a white shroud.

But how do you mark a death — or a life — without bodies?

Hundreds queued up on Thursday to attend the funeral in absentia of the 24 who died in Wednesday’s bomb explosion at the Sabzi Mandi on the edge of Islamabad.

The mourners moved with the quiet translucence of ghosts, snaking down the main road to pass through a metal detector, be absentmindedly patted down by a police officer and enter the vast grounds sealed off for the funeral with a barbed wire fence.

Traders, shopkeepers, labourers and children quietly followed one another, step by step, heads bowed, wordlessly thumbing prayer beads.

A little girl carrying a little baby on her back stood motionless, seemingly uncertain about how to behave.

A politician and a human rights activist addressed the crowd, the only ones who spoke for a long time.

All around them, the disorder that characterises mornings at the Sabzi Mandi was gone. Streets usually choked with thousands of impetuous labourers and impatient motorbikes and trucks were deserted. Raucous sidewalk fruit and vegetable stalls were empty. Tiny TVs placed in shops displayed noiseless black screens instead of the faces of sobbing soap stars.

It was Thursday mourning in Pakistan and silence, it seemed, was its jarring new ritual.

Such funeral scenes have been repeated tens of thousands of times across this country. The war on terror has exacted a brutal toll. But for the people of this area, bomb blasts are often just the apogee of a life perpetually marked by fear and insecurity.

Residents of “illegal colonies” recently picked for eviction by the government, their fear — whispered, not always openly spoken — is that Wednesday’s blast may signal the death knell for the slums. They can almost hear the bulldozers coming.

“For the last few weeks, police have been coming in droves after the morning prayers and taking tens of people to the police station,” said Abdul Waheed, who has a fruit cart and lives in a katchi abadi across from the vegetable bazaar.

“They keep people there all day and then let them go if they pay a few thousand rupees. Now, it will only get worse.”

After Wednesday’s blast, police rounded up at least 50 residents of the slums, Waheed says. Others say 20, 40, 80 people were picked up for questioning.

“But they’ll be released in a few days once they pay money,” said Jabbar Khan, a rickshaw driver who left the site of the blast just minutes before the bomb went off.

“I’ve cheated death but tomorrow they can come and arrest me because my father is from Jalalabad.”

“I am both Afghanistani and Pakistani!” Khan exclaimed as the crowd broke into laughter. Finally.

Another labourer reassured him. There was nothing to worry about. Let’s be brave.

But no courage should have to brave such futile tragedy.

In the torrent of news and the breathless commentary since the explosion, about who to blame and what security equipment to buy, people’s loss has been overlooked — and the reality that their precarious lives may just have gone from bad to worse.

A man walks up to the crowd and says the cars have arrived to transport volunteers to the hospital so they can donate blood to friends and relatives injured in the blast. People begin to disperse.

A few feet away, police have marked off a ring of land with yellow tape. Inside is a scattered circle of crates of damaged fruit and a hole in the ground, the gaping leftovers of the explosion.

There are more leftovers. Someone has spread a piece of cloth right next to the circle of tape and gathered the waste of human lives. A plaid scarf probably bought from the Lunda Bazaar. A brown sandal embroidered with the word ‘Kadam’. Keys. A mobile phone SIM.

And a thumb.

At this little memorial, there is no bottle of perfume or favourite foods on display to remember those who have passed. The showpiece is a thumb.

Mehtab to take oath as KP governor on 14th

Bureau Report

PESHAWAR: Seasoned politician and PML-N leader Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan will be sworn in as governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on April 14 (Monday).

PESHAWAR: Seasoned politician and PML-N leader Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan will be sworn in as governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on April 14 (Monday).

A notification issued by the Cabinet Division about his appointment has been received by the provincial government.

Sardar Mehtab, who was Leader of Opposition in the KP Assembly, has already resigned as a member of the house.

He will be the first person to have the honour of serving as both the governor and chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Outgoing Governor Shaukatullah tendered his resignation to President Mamnoon Hussain on Tuesday. Mr Shaukatullah had taken oath on Feb 11, 2013, after his appointment as governor by the then president Asif Ali Zardari. Sardar Mehtab served as chief minister of KP from 1997 to 1999. He has been elected to national and provincial assemblies several times. He has also served as federal minister.

Delhi records high turnout in elections

The Newspaper's Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The third leg of India’s nine-stage polls registered a high voter turnout in Delhi on Thursday while the southern state of Kerala, a comfort zone for mainstream communists, and some Maoist-dominated regions of Chhattisgarh mocked what appears to have become a TV-contrived wave for the Hindu right in the polls so far.

Maoist-hit Bastar constituency saw the lowest turnout of 51.4 per cent, which was still higher than its 2009 performance with about 47 per cent voting. A star candidate here this time is Soni Sori, a tribal schoolteacher who has been accused of being a Maoist supporter, a charge she denies.

Ms Sori was tortured and sexually brutalised in police custody, triggering global condemnation by rights bodies. An Aam Aadmi Party candidate, she is currently out on bail.

Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Bihar reportedly witnessed violence linked to Maoists, who oppose the polls. Three security men were said to have been killed.

Reports said a high voter turnout was recorded in the 91 constituencies in 14 States and Union Territories that went to polls on Thursday, with Chandigarh witnessing the highest percentage of 74. The turnout in Delhi was 64 per cent, up by 12 per cent as against 2009 elections.

The voter turnout this time was substantially higher over the last Lok Sabha elections in all the constituencies.

Muzaffarnagar and Shamli in Uttar Pradesh, which witnessed communal riots in August 2013, recorded “above average” voter turnout of 67.78 per cent and70.85 per cent, respectively.

The 10 seats of Uttar Pradesh, which went to polls on Thursday, reported a record turnout of 65 per cent as compared to 51.30 per cent recorded in the last LS polls.

Kerala, which went to polls in single phase on Thursday, recorded 73.4 per cent voter turnout, up from 73.2 per cent last time.

In Odisha, Maoists reportedly snatched electronic voting machines and took away the battery of one of the machines.

Election Commission has decided to postpone polling in 22 places in Bihar -- 19 in Jamui, two in Nawada and one in Gaya -- as polling personnel were not sent there keeping in mind their safety.

Jharkhand's four seats witnessed 58 per cent turnout, which was higher than the 50.89 per cent recorded in last general elections.

Madhya Pradesh, where nine seats went to polls, saw an average turnout of 54.13 per cent, while in Haryana, an Aam Aadmi Party bastion, it was 65 per cent.

All the 10 seats of Haryana had a single-phase poll. In the last elections, the turnout in Haryana was 68 per cent.

The Jammu seat also saw an impressive turnout of 66.29 per cent -- 17 per cent higher than in 2009.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands had a record turnout. Till the last count, it was 67 per cent, higher than last time's 64.15 per cent. But in Lakshadweep, the turnout was 71.34 per cent, lower than last time's 85.98 per cent.

MPs want Gorbachev investigated for treason

AFP

MOSCOW: A group of Russian MPs have formally requested prosecutors to investigate former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for treason over the breakup of the Soviet Union, one lawmaker said on Thursday.

Ivan Nikitchuk, a deputy with the Communist party, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular had led five MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to probe Gorbachev, 83.

“We asked to prosecute him and those who helped him destroy the Soviet Union for treason of national interests,” Nikitchuk said, adding that Soviet citizens in 1991 were against the country's breakup.

Seeking to create a more open and prosperous Soviet Union through glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev ended up inadvertently unleashing forces that swept the country he had sought to preserve from the map and himself from power.

“The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen,” said Nikitchuk. He added that this included not only Ukraine but also in other former Soviet countries over the past two decades.—AFP

Dutch govt to pay compensation to Bosnians

AFP

THE HAGUE: The Dutch government said on Thursday it would pay 20,000 euros to each relative of three Bosnian Muslim men murdered after peacekeepers expelled them from a UN compound at Srebrenica in 1995.

The announcement follows a Dutch court’s landmark ruling last year that the state was liable for the deaths, the first time a government has been held responsible for the actions of peacekeepers operating under a United Nations mandate.

“We deeply regret what happened to them and their family members and we hope that this can help them towards dealing with their loss,” defence ministry spokesman Klaas Meijer said.

The compensation is for the psychological damage suffered by the four relatives of the three dead men, with another possible sum to be awarded for “material” damage, such as loss of earnings, because of the killings, Meijer said.

The compensation will be paid to former UN interpreter Hasan Nuhanovic whose father, mother and brother were killed by Bosnian Serb forces after Dutch peacekeepers expelled them from the UN base.

Rizo Mustafic, an electrician at the base, was also killed after being sent to certain death at the hands of Bosnian Serb forces. His widow, son and daughter will each receive 20,000 euros ($27,700).

Their lawyer, Liesbeth Zegveld, slammed the payout announcement as “disrespectful” because the Dutch government had never sought to discuss the compensation with the relatives.

“It means but one thing: the state never had the intention to involve the relatives, it just wanted to get the case over and done with,” she said.

“It’s disrespectful, firstly because of the amount offered, although that’s not the most important issue, but also because the relatives were never approached during the talks.”

Further litigation?

Zegveld said the families had not yet decided whether they would pursue further litigation over Dutch involvement in the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

Almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by troops commanded by Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, who brushed aside lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers and overran the supposedly safe enclave in July 1995, during Bosnia’s brutal three-year civil war.—AFP

Nine more killed in Taliban infighting

The Newspaper's Correspondent

TANK: Five people were killed as fighting between two groups of the Taliban spilled over to Tank area on Wednesday whereas four militants were shot dead in Shawal area of South Waziristan tribal region.

Sources said militants in a vehicle with tinted glasses opened fire at a roadside restaurant in Kot Khadak area, 25km from here. Five people were killed. Kot Khadak is situated near South Waziristan.

Witnesses said the attackers had warned the people against removing the bodies and threatened that anybody who did so would meet the same fate. Police took the bodies to hospital, they added.

Two of the victims were common citizens and identified as Attaullah, son of Gulab Khan, a resident of Matchkhel; and Mohammad Zaman, son of Payao Khan, a resident of Katikhel.

Three others were identified as Naqeebullah Mehsud, son of Ibrahim, a resident of Sheikh Uttar; Ali Mohammad Laly, son of Khayal Mohammad, of Ladha tehsil, and Faqir Mohammad, son of Fochain Mehsud, of Sarwaki area in South Waziristan. Source said the three belonged to the Sheheryar group of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and were killed by militants belonging to the rival Khan Said alias Sajna group.

SP Tank Anwar Saeed Kundi said the three were wanted by police in cases of kidnapping for ransom, targeted killing and extortion.

He said police and security forces had cordoned off the area.

Sources said a large number of militants belonging to the Sheheryar group had moved to Gomal area of Tank near South Waziristan.

AFP adds: Wednesday was the fourth day of fighting between the two feuding factions of Taliban.

A total of 43 people have now died in clashes which erupted on Sunday between supporters of Khan Said Sajna and followers of the late Hakeemullah Mehsud group.

Delhi braces for keen contest

The Newspaper's Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Delhi sends just seven deputies to India's 543-strong Lok Sabha, but the contest on Thursday will be watched with unusual interest for the dramatis personae involved.

They include academic and peace activist Rajmohan Gandhi who is spearheading the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) campaign in the national capital together with six first-time candidates.

Journalist Ashish Khetan who did a clutch of exposes on the Gujarat massacre of 2002 is one of them.

His main contest is with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which got the highest tally in the recent assembly polls though it fell short of a majority.

The high-voltage contest also assumes greater significance as it may set the stage for the possible assembly polls in the city in the next few months.

Though a total of 150 candidates are in the fray, including 58 Independents, the contest in all constituencies is likely to be three-way among the BJP, AAP and Congress.

For AAP, the election assumes greater significance as it will reflect people's support to it after the first time entrant created history in the December 4 assembly polls wresting 28 of the 70 seats and forming the government.

AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal had faced severe criticism for quitting after remaining in power for just 49 days. Mr Kejriwal says he was being propped up by the Congress and had to go when they fell out over AAP's anti-corruption moves.

The BJP's campaign is centred around Narendra Modi and the election will determine whether the ‘Modi wave’ had any impact or not. If the party performs well, then it may press for early assembly polls.

Your vote for our seven candidates in Delhi is a vote for me. Vote for them and help me build a strong and prosperous India,” prime ministerial candidate Mr Modi appealed to the people through advertisements in the dailies on Wednesday.

Almost all top party leaders including Mr Modi, Mr Advani, Ms Sushma Swaraj, Mr Rajnath Singh and Mr Arun Jaitley campaigned in the city. BJP drew a blank in the 2009 polls, while Congress had won all the seven seats.

After its massive defeat in the assembly polls in December last year, Congress through its campaign tried hard to win back support of the people through rallies and house-to-house contact programme.

The party was routed in the assembly polls as it could win only eight seats. Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi had addressed separate rallies.

AAP chief Kejriwal held road shows and public meetings across the city but its cash-strapped candidates mainly focused on connecting with people through door-to-door visits.

Religious rhetoric takes backseat as new JI chief takes oath

Amjad Mahmood

LAHORE: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Senior Minister Sirajul Haq took oath as the fifth emir of the Jamaat-i-Islami here on Wednesday.

According to those present on the occasion, never was such enthusiasm witnessed in an otherwise solemn ceremony which was electrified by the presence of young activists who had come from across the country, particularly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Cabinet colleagues of Mr Haq and the speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly were prominent among the participants.

A large number of participants kept raising slogans, prompting secretary general Liaquat Baloch, who acted as stage secretary, to disallow use of the podium by the enthusiastic activists.

In his speech, Mr Haq said that a tiny elite class was exploiting all economic and political resources to the disadvantage of the masses. “This class is responsible for all the economic, social and political ills plaguing the country,” the JI chief observed.

Unlike his predecessors, in his maiden speech as his party’s chief, he talked of problems like poverty, loadshedding, lawlessness and unemployment instead of focusing on religious subjects.

He urged the masses to stand up for snatching their rights from the usurpers.

However, he reiterated his party’s stance that any change in the country would be brought through peaceful and constitutional means. “The JI does not believe in underground politics and intrigues.”

In another first, Sirajul Haq publicly demanded that the Saudi Arabian government reconsider its policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Hamas of Palestine.

Sources told Dawn that the JI had earlier arranged a meeting of representatives of the two organisations with Saudi diplomats.

Mr Haq also stressed the need for rehabilitation of people displaced from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and an end to all injustice done to the Baloch people.

Although he held the electoral system responsible for all deficiencies of governance, Mr Haq declared that the Jamaat would take part in local bodies elections as well as other polls.

The war against the prevalent system could not be fought alone and other parties would have to be taken along while keeping the JI’s ideological identity intact, the JI chief said.

Praising the services of the army and police in protecting the lives of people, he opposed an army operation in North Waziristan even if talks with the Taliban failed.

Highlighting his leanings by declaring himself as son of ‘Maulvi’ Ehsanul Haq, he talked of Jihad but instead of urging the people to join an armed struggle, asked them to launch a struggle against lawlessness, corruption, loadshedding and forces of exploitation.

Sirajul Haq said his party believed in friendly relations with all neighbouring countries, but linked normalisation with India to resolution of the Kashmir issue.

Kuwaiti court urges calm over ‘plot’ video

AFP

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s royal court appealed for calm on Wednesday as the country was abuzz with rumours about a videotape allegedly showing former senior officials plotting to overthrow the Gulf state’s government.

The appeal comes two days after Sheikh Ahmad Fahad al-Sabah, a senior member of the family and former minister, was questioned by the public prosecutor for five hours about the tape, which he said he had handed over to Kuwait’s leaders.

Local media reported that the tape included a segment in which the former officials plot against the regime, ruled by the Al-Sabahs for more than 250 years.

The Amiri Diwan (royal court) acknowledged that there were reports of a tape and said the matter “is currently being handled by the public prosecution.”

In its brief statement, it said it “appeals to all people to avoid debating the issue and leave it to the public prosecution to take the necessary measures.” It did not provide any details.

After his questioning, Sheikh Ahmad said he told the prosecutor he had a videotape dealing with financial and political matters as well as the ruling family and regional issues.

A number of MPs and the opposition called for an immediate investigation into the issue and demanded that the government reveal the content of the video.

MP Ali al-Rashed asked Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Sabah if the video included a plot to overthrow the regime and requested for the names of the people involved in any conspiracy.

Meanwhile, a number of MPs appealed for calm, also urging people to allow the judiciary to deal with the issue.

Since 2006, Kuwait has been rocked by a series of political disputes between the Sabah-controlled government and MPs. About a dozen governments have been formed and parliament dissolved on six occasions.

After July parliamentary elections, in which pro-government candidates gained a majority, Kuwait has been relatively calm.—AFP

20 injured in mass stabbing at US high school

AFP

NEW YORK: An American student stabbed 19 teenagers and a security guard in a bloody 30-minute rampage in classrooms and hallways of a Pennsylvania high school on Wednesday, officials said.

NEW YORK: An American student stabbed 19 teenagers and a security guard in a bloody 30-minute rampage in classrooms and hallways of a Pennsylvania high school on Wednesday, officials said.

At least four students were critically injured in the shocking assault at Franklin Regional High School, said Thomas Seefeld, chief of police in Murrysville, an outer suburb of Pittsburgh.

The 16-year-old boy walked down a hallway flashing two knives, stabbing fellow pupils and the guard as they began arriving for what should have been a routine school day, Seefeld said.

Nineteen students and one male security guard were injured, mostly in the chest and stomach, officials confirmed.

The school principal and another member of staff tried to overpower the suspect who was then arrested, Seefeld said.

Officials said the assault began at 7:13am, was over by 7:45am.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the assailant, who is himself being treated for a hand injury, to attack.

Doctor Mark Rubino at Forbes Regional Hospital, which is treating eight of the victims, said he expected everyone to survive despite what he called “deep penetrating” stab wounds.

The knife wounds, most of them to the lower abdomen, caused significant injuries to internal organs, Rubino said.

Three of the victims were still in surgery and the other five were still being evaluated, he told reporters.

“Three of the patients had severe injuries and are still in the operating room right now. And two of them are in critical condition, but they have stabilized,” Rubino said.

The other five that we had are still being evaluated, of whom one or two may require further surgery, he added.

Dan Stevens, a spokesman for Westmoreland County emergency management, told AFP that the teenage victims are aged 14 to 17.

They were attacked in “numerous classrooms and hallways” of the school, Stevens added.

Police said the victims were found in multiple locations because they were following the correct drill to run as far away as possible in the event of an emergency.

Wednesday’s attack comes after a long and frequent line of US school shootings that have inflamed a nationwide debate over gun control in the United States.—AFP

Institutions should work within their limits: Shah

The Newspaper's Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD: Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah said on Wednesday that all institutions should work within their limits and do not interfere in each other’s domain.

ISLAMABAD: Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Khursheed Shah said on Wednesday that all institutions should work within their limits and do not interfere in each other’s domain.

Talking to the media in his parliament house chamber, he said: “Army Chief General Raheel Sharif poses no threat to the Sharif brothers.”

Responding to a question about recent remarks of the army chief which created ripples in political circles, Mr Shah said: “Army chief’s statement will not affect Nawaz Sharif.”

“Why are we giving an impression that Gen Raheel Sharif is against the democracy? Ministers should avoid giving unnecessary statements,” he said.?

Three madressah students among 8 killed in Karachi

The Newspaper's Staff Reporter

KARACHI: Eight people, including three seminary students, a doctor and a policeman, were killed in different incidents on Wednesday, police said.

KARACHI: Eight people, including three seminary students, a doctor and a policeman, were killed in different incidents on Wednesday, police said.

Gunmen attacked a restaurant in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Block-15, injuring six students of a madressah. Two of them, Hayatullah and Ali Ahmed, died. The injured were taken to hospital where another, identified as Riaz Jabbar, died.

They were students of Jamia Dar-ul-Khair.

Earlier, a doctor, Syed Haider Raza, was shot dead in the same area in an attack on his car. He worked at the Darul Sehat Hospital.

An activist of the Awami National Party, Pervez Bangash, was killed in Natha Khan Goth area by attackers on a bike, according to Shah Faisal SP Syed Ali Asif. He said Bangash had recently been released from a prison.

A cable operator, Ali Bihar, was shot dead by unidentified assailants at his shop in Khada Market of Lyari area.

A passerby, Amjad Mian, lost his life and another man, Shah Rukh, received bullet injuries when guests at a marriage ceremony resorted to heavy firing in Lines Area, Brigade SHO Ghulam Nabi Afridi said.

In yet another incident, police constable Sadiq Khan was gunned down in Ettehad Town.

ASWJ chief secures NA seat from Jhang

The Newspaper's Staff Correspondent

FAISALABAD: An election tribunal disqualified on Wednesday PML-N MNA Sheikh Akram from NA-89 (Jhang) and declared runner-up candidate Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat elected.

Mr Ludhianvi and Abdul Ghafoor Jhangvi had challenged the victory of Sheikh Akram, father of former minister Sheikh Waqas Akram, in the last year’s elections on the charges of bogus voting and bank loan default.

The tribunal comprising Javed Rashid Mehboobi said in its order: “Election of the returned candidate Sheikh Muhammad Akram from NA-89 (Jhang-I) has been declared void and simultaneously, the petitioner Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, has been declared as duly elected.”

Security was beefed up in Jhang following the announcement of the tribunal’s order.

Two Afghan poll candidates see victory as run-off looms

AFP

KABUL: Two leading candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election each claimed on Wednesday to be winning the vote count easily, but said they would be ready to contest a second-round run-off if necessary.

More than seven million people defied Taliban threats of violence in Saturday’s election to elect a successor to President Hamid Karzai as US-led troops prepare to exit the country.

Unless one candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote, the top two names will go head-to-head in another election scheduled for late May.

Campaign officials for former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani and for Abdullah Abdullah, who came second in the 2009 election, both said that they were well ahead in unofficial counting.

“Initial assessment of the tally by our observers show that we are far in the lead,” Azita Rafat, Ghani’s spokeswoman, told AFP.

“We have to wait for the announcement made by the IEC (Independent Election Commission), but if its decision is to go to the second round, we are fully prepared for that with confidence in our ultimate success.”

Abdullah had vowed on the campaign trail to secure a first-round victory, and his team has been upbeat since the vote.

“Analysis by our database centre shows that our election ticket is in the lead, scoring 62 percent of the votes that we have counted,” said Abdullah's spokesman Mujib Rahman Rahimi.

“The official account has to come from the IEC, and these are partial results that could change, but we are ready for a second round if needed.”

Fraud fears persist

Campaign officials have been collating results pinned up in the 6,400 individual polling centres.

Abdullah’s campaign said it had counted two million of the estimated seven million votes, while a running tally published on Ghani’s website was taken down on the request of the IEC.

Turnout was about 58 percent, but the figure is uncertain as there is no proper electoral roll.

The Election Complaints Commission (ECC) chief said on Wednesday that votes would be combed through to uncover cheating after fears of a repeat of the massive fraud that blighted Karzai's re-election in 2009.

“There has been fraud, there have been violations, and not in small numbers, but we are committed to clean out the fraudulent votes,” ECC chief Abdul Satar Saadat told reporters.

He said over 3,000 complaints had been registered, mostly about shortages of ballot papers -- a problem allegedly due to poor planning, unexpectedly large turnout and possible ballot-box stuffing.

The ECC has said that the election appeared cleaner than the chaotic 2009 vote, which badly damaged ties between Karzai and the US-led international donors on which Afghanistan relies.

Some partial official results may be released in the coming days, though the final result is not due until May 14 with the run-off scheduled on May 28.

An undisputed result could allow the new president to promote peace and reconciliation with the Taliban, as well as reset the crucial, and much battered, relationship with the United States.

The new president is also likely to sign a deal for a small number of US troops to stay in Afghanistan from 2015, lessening the fear of spiralling violence and ending the threat that essential aid money could be cut off.

The final 51,000 US-led Nato combat troops are due to withdraw this year.—AFP

IMF forecasts slow, but improving growth for Pakistan

Khaleeq Kiani

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast a slow growth rate of 3.1 per cent for Pakistan in the current year and an improvement to 3.7pc in the next year.

At the launch of its World Economic Outlook here on Tuesday, ahead of its annual spring meetings, the IMF projected a steady increase in the rate of inflation. The consumer price index is expected to be 8.8 per cent during the current year, up significantly from 7.4 per cent last year, and the rate may further rise to 9 per cent in 2015.

Likewise, the IMF said, the unemployment rate in Pakistan would remain on the receding mode — from 6.7pc last year to 6.9pc in the current year and 7.2pc next year.

The IMF said the current account balance in the country was expected to move in a very narrow band — from one per cent of the GDP in 2013 it was anticipated to come down to 0.9pc in the current year and then return to 1 per cent in 2015.

GLOBAL ECONOMY: The IMF said the global recovery was becoming broader, but the changing external environment posed new challenges to emerging markets and developing economies. It forecast global growth to average 3.6 per cent in 2014, up from 3pc in 2013, and to go up to 3.9pc in 2015.

The strengthening of the recovery from the `great recession’ in advanced economies is a welcome development, according to IMF staff, but the World Economic Report says that growth remained subpar and uneven across the globe.

“The recovery which was starting to take hold in October is becoming not only stronger, but also broader,” said IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard. “Although we are far short of a full recovery, the normalisation of monetary policy — both conventional and unconventional — is now on the agenda.”

Mr Blanchard, however, cautioned that while acute risks had decreased, but not disappeared.

In this setting, the global economy is still fragile despite improved prospects, and important risks — both old and new — remain. Risks identified previously include finishing the financial sector reform agenda, high debt levels in many countries, stubbornly high unemployment, and concerns about emerging markets.

New worries on the horizon include persistently low inflation in advanced economies, a weaker outlook for emerging markets than thought in the second half of last year, and recent geopolitical strains. Against this background, the report underscored stronger policy efforts to fully restore confidence and ensure a durable and sustained global recovery.

Mr Blanchard said an accelerating US recovery would help world economy to grow 3.6pc this year against 3pc last year. The report, however, put the US growth rate at about 2.8pc for the current year.

In Europe, the growth had turned positive, the report said. Across the euro area, a strong reduction in the pace of fiscal tightening is expected to help lift growth. Outside the core euro area, contributions from net exports have helped the turnaround, as has the stabilisation of domestic demand.

However, growth in demand is expected to remain sluggish, given continued financial fragmentation, tight credit and a high corporate debt burden.

It said the economic activity in Japan was expected to get a boost from some underlying growth drivers, notably private investment and exports. Nevertheless, Japan’s economic activity overall was projected to slow moderately in response to a tightening fiscal policy stance in 2014–15, starting with the rise in consumption tax.

The report said that emerging markets and developing economies continue to contribute more than two-thirds of global growth, and their growth was projected to increase moderately from 4.7pc in 2013 to 4.9pc in 2014 and 5.3pc in 2015.

The forecast for China growth will remain broadly unchanged at about 7.5pc in 2014-15 as authorities seek to put the economy on a more balanced and sustainable growth path.

In India, the real GDP growth was projected to strengthen, partly due to government efforts to revive investment growth.

The report notes that the balance of risks to global growth has improved, but not diminished.

These include persistently low inflation in advanced economies, especially in the euro area and even in some cases deflation, lighter financial conditions and the resulting higher cost of capital may lead to a larger-than-projected slowdown in investment and durables consumption in emerging markets, and also ongoing developments in Ukraine for geopolitical instability.

Five die in Kashmir clash ahead of polls

AFP

SRINAGAR: Suspected militants in India-held Kashmir have shot dead a soldier and two policemen, officials said on Tuesday, two days before voting begins in the region for the Indian election.

SRINAGAR: Suspected militants in India-held Kashmir have shot dead a soldier and two policemen, officials said on Tuesday, two days before voting begins in the region for the Indian election.

A gunbattle late on Monday in Kralpora village left one soldier and two policemen dead and “two terrorists were killed”, Indian army spokesman N.N. Joshi said.

In another clash on Tuesday, a policeman was shot at point-blank range and critically injured in Anantnag.

“The militant also snatched an automatic rifle from the officer before fleeing the scene,” police officer Sheikh Junaid said.

Security has been stepped up across the region which is scheduled to go to the polls in five stages between April 10 and May 7.—AFP

Ukraine struggles to control eastern parts

DONETSK (Ukraine): Ukraine’s government struggled to stay in control of the country’s eastern regions as tensions flared on Tuesday in three cities.

While the government managed to recapture its regional headquarters and detain dozens of pro-Russia protesters in one city, it said “radicals” were keeping 60 people hostage and threatening them in another city.

The Ukrainian Security Service said in a statement that unknown “separatists” with weapons and explosives were threatening the hostages inside a security service branch in the city of Luhansk. It was not clear who the hostages were or if they were security service employees.

The building was seized on Sunday by armed pro-Russia protesters.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities battled with pro-Russia protesters but regained control over a government building in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, evicting the protesters and detaining dozens.

In Donetsk, a city 250km further south, protesters dug in for their third day at the 11-storey regional administration headquarters they had captured on Sunday and began to declare their own parallel government.

Serhiy Taruta, the governor of Donetsk, scoffed at the shifting events in his city. “I call this a theatre of the absurd,” he said. “It is just artistes performing, but the main thing is that there is an ever-dwindling audience.”

All three cities are in Ukraine’s east, where hostility is strong toward the government that took power in February after the ouster of Kremlin-friendly president Viktor Yanukovych. Even though Ukraine’s interim authorities have achieved some success in quelling unrest that swept across eastern provinces on Sunday, festering discontent threatens to undermine plans to hold a presidential election on May 25.

In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry threatened Russia with tougher economic sanctions if it failed to back down from its involvement in Ukraine.

“What we see from Russia is an illegal and illegitimate effort to destabilise a sovereign state and create a contrived crisis with paid operatives across an international boundary,” he told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He called the demonstrations in eastern Ukraine a “contrived pretext for military intervention just as we saw in Crimea”.

Addressing parliament in Kiev, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov said security forces retook control of the Kharkiv administration building early on Tuesday but several police personnel were injured in clashes with separatists.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov described the measure on his Facebook page as an “anti-terrorist operation”.

In a session briefly interrupted by a brawl, parliament also voted to toughen the punishment for undermining Ukraine’s national security, imposing jail terms of up to five years for separatism.

In Donetsk, there was little sign that government forces had any immediate plan to retake the regional administration building. The city has seen weekly rallies marching on local government offices, but on Sunday groups of masked men carrying batons burst through police lines to take over the building.

By Tuesday, lines of car tyres wrapped in razor wire had been erected to deter any possible attempts by police to storm the premises. The tactic appears to have been copied from the anti-government protests in the capital, Kiev, which led to Yanukovych’s overthrow. Just like in Kiev, food stations have been created inside the Donetsk building, supplied by volunteers and residents.

No clear leader or agenda has emerged from the obscure group of pro-Russia Donetsk activists behind the standoff.

A declaration adopted on Monday claimed sovereignty for what they called the ‘Donetsk Republic’ and demanded a referendum to be held no later than May 11. While none of them have said they necessarily want the region to join Russia, they have also declined to rule out the option.

Despite claims by the separatist groups to represent all of Donetsk, a region of more than four million people, rallies outside the regional building since the weekend have drawn crowds only in the low thousands.

The seizures of the buildings and calls for local votes on secession were an echo of the events that led to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula last month. After Yanukovych fled to Russia, Russian troops took control over Crimea and the region voted to join Russia in a hastily called referendum.

The West has not recognised the vote or the annexation and has retaliated with sanctions against Russia.

Even as the United States warned Russia of more sanctions, the White House announced a high-level meeting among US, EU, Ukrainian and Russian diplomats in the coming days to try to resolve the crisis.

In Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the date and format of the four-way talks hadn’t yet been agreed.

He suggested that Ukraine’s presidential candidates could be invited to join the negotiations.

Russia has pushed for constitutional reform in Ukraine that would turn the country into a federation with broad powers for its regions and ensure its neutrality. The demands reflected Russia’s desire to maintain influence over its neighbour and prevent Ukraine from joining Nato.

The new Ukrainian government says Russia has no business telling it what type of government to establish.—AP

Eight killed as militant groups clash in South Waziristan

The Newspaper's Correspondent

LADDHA: At least eight militants died and three wounded in running battles between two rival groups in Shaktoi and two other places in South Waziristan on Tuesday, sources said.

LADDHA: At least eight militants died and three wounded in running battles between two rival groups in Shaktoi and two other places in South Waziristan on Tuesday, sources said.

Sources privy to the warring groups said that militants allied with Khan Said Group raided the bases of rival Sheharyar Group in Shaktoi, Makeen and Bobar late on Monday. The bases belonged to late Qari Hussain, Commander Achanak and Abu Nasir, associated with Sheharyar Group, sources said.

The clashes left eight fighters wounded, five from Sheharyar and three from Khan Said alias Sajna Group, sources said. The skirmishes continued till Tuesday afternoon but latest reports said that Commander Aryana from Haqqani Network and some commanders from North Waziristan had intervened and succeeded in bringing peace to the area enabling the two sides to remove the dead and wounded.

This is the second time in as many days that rival groups have clashed in Shaktoi in South Waziristan. Local residents maintained that both the groups have several training and other facilities in Shaktoi, Makeen and Bobar area which are close to North Waziristan. The area is mountainous and the army has no presence there.

Militants said that the fighting was a turf war between the erstwhile Waliur Rehman and late TTP leader Hakeemullah Mahsud Group. Waliur Rehman’s Group is now led by Khan Said while Sheharyar leads Hakeemullah’s Group. “This is not a fight between pro and anti peace (talks) groups. It’s a turf war”, credible sources said. Sajna, with 20 commanders has more strength in South Waziristan than Sheharyar — both Shabikhel Mahsuds, sources said.

New round of Iran nuclear talks begins

AFP

VIENNA: Iran and world powers held a new round of nuclear talks on Tuesday, hoping to move to the next level and start drafting a historic and highly ambitious final deal next month.

VIENNA: Iran and world powers held a new round of nuclear talks on Tuesday, hoping to move to the next level and start drafting a historic and highly ambitious final deal next month.

Threatening to drive a wedge between the powers, however, is the crisis over Ukraine, which has led to the biggest standoff between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

Iran and the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany want to transform a temporary accord struck in November into a permanent agreement before it lapses on July 20.

Doing so is a tall order, however, requiring both sides to tackle thorny issues that will severely test their willingness and ability to give ground.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said he had formed a group of legal experts to help in the “complicated, difficult and slow work” of drafting a deal.

A spokesman for the powers’ chief negotiator, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, said this round, expected to last two days, was to “explore our respective positions on each topic”.A senior US official involved in the talks said earlier she was “absolutely convinced” a deal could be reached and that both sides were “looking toward beginning drafting in May”.

Under the November deal, which took effect on Jan 20, Iran froze certain nuclear activities for six months in exchange for minor relief from sanctions hurting its economy.

But it has not permanently dismantled any of its nuclear equipment and could any moment stop the freeze, although this would invite new sanctions.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told US lawmakers on Monday that the theoretical period needed for Iran to produce a weapon’s worth of bomb material — if it chose to do so — was “about two months”.

In order to greatly extend this “break-out” time, the six powers want the final deal to see Iran reduce permanently, or at least long-term, the scope of its programme.

The deal may involve Iran slashing the number of centrifuges — machines “enriching” nuclear material — changing the design of a new reactor at Arak and giving UN inspectors more oversight.

Iran in return wants all sanctions lifted.

If Iran gives away too much this risks losing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — who since taking office last year has sought to improve ties with the West — the support of the supreme leader.

But leaving too much — or indeed any — of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact would be hard to sell with sceptical US lawmakers and Israel, the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear power.

So far, the six powers have shown a united front. But Moscow’s annexation of Crimea last month has sent relations between Russia and the West into a tailspin.

Russia’s chief negotiator, Sergei Ryabkov, fired a warning shot last month, saying Moscow might “take the path of counter-measures” on Iran if pushed too far.

On Tuesday, however, Ryabkov sounded a more conciliatory note, telling Itar-Tass it would “not be wise” to turn Iran into a “bargaining chip”.

Russia was not involved in the Iran talks “to please the Americans or Iranians” but because it “meets the national interest” to find a solution, he said.

Moscow and Tehran are said to be negotiating an oil-for-goods barter deal that would undermine Washington’s sanctions efforts, a strategy the US credits with getting Iran to talks in the first place.—AFP

Footprints: Time to idolise the conscience

Reema Abbasi

Fallen idols are a chilling sight. Be it man or deity, the vulnerability of the revered is never an easy bullet to bite. We drove down a lush avenue with nurseries ablaze with spring blooms and sluggish camels chomping lazily under old neem trees, to arrive at the non-descript gate of the Kali Mata Mandir in Hyderabad.

An old peepal tree and a saffron temple flag ushered us into a long, tight alleyway, where the first stop is the assailed sanctum of Hanuman, some 400ft away from Kali. It is a lime green, grilled room that freezes one’s spine upon entrance — a god sits scarred and broken in his pink-tiled niche; his limbs have been crushed and he is propped up with bricks.

“Can you imagine our grief? Hanuman was on the floor and smashed. We put him together and cleaned up his blackened home,” says a moist-eyed Krishan Kumar who resides opposite the desecrated holy enclosure.

The passage, lined with tiny homes and shops, wears an indolent air. Through one of the jute curtains, I spot a young man, Vallu, cutting cloth amid large piles of khaddar. When I peer in to ask about the incident, he is both startled and hesitant.

“We were asleep as we work late to supply shalwar kameez to shops. The main gate opens at 5:30am when the morning aarti begins and that day, I woke up to screams and tears. It was painful,” he says.

The narrow path opens into a colony of some 14,000 square yards with 500 homes of Meghwar Hindus, a small school, stalls of temple-ware and ration shops. A shaded central compound serves as an old world community centre, marked by a cone-shaped Shiva chamber facing the prime Kali shrine, and a three-foot domed Ganesh alcove rests in the centre beneath a saffron flag; it encircles the inner sanctum of the goddess.

Children, who have just streamed out of schools, throng to colourful gola ganda carts alongside large cauldrons of vegetable rice. Old women in lehngas and kurtis stand at stalls decorated with rose garlands and the younger ones scramble around with veiled faces in chunri saris.

Incidentally, it is Hanuman’s day of Saturday so the complex is abuzz with preparations for a special dusk ritual for the now impaired god. Better known as the Kali Mata Colony, this settlement of some 400 years has never known upheaval, other than a ferocious attack after the Babri mosque demolition in India. Today, the grief is searing.

“It was at 6:30am when a car arrived with four youths; one stayed in the car and three came in with incense sticks and prasad and went into Hanuman’s chamber. They pretended to perform puja and then came out with their faces covered. One boy hacked the statue and the other two started sprinkling petrol and then set the place alight,” narrates Kumar.

He also says that the arsonists bolted as inhabitants began to scream and pour out of their brick homes. “We chased them but they got into the car and pointed guns at us, which stopped us in our tracks.”

Mithu Maharaj, who has served at the temple for 22 years, is certain it was not a communal incident. “They were boys who belong to families that have fled terrorist-infested regions. It is their ambition to create unrest in Sindh,” he says. “We demand heightened security because these IDPs are out to force us out and usurp our lands. But this is our home and they won’t succeed.”

Meanwhile, Hema, who runs a ration cart and has spent 40 years here, presents a more politicised view: “There were dharnas at Fateh Chowk, Liaquat Colony, Cantonment, Bombay Bakery and army areas, which were attended by political representatives. They made many promises but weeks have gone by and no one has returned to fulfil them, except for our own representatives.”

The sacred locality boasts an intriguing history that is visible as one enters Kali’s large shrine; in the centre stands a 10-foot Kali in blue fibreglass. To her left is an anteroom with a protruding mountain rock wall that opens into a small cavern. These are mementoes of an ancient past alive with lore.

It is the foothills of Ganjo Takkar hills, brought to the fore by Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai. Professor Allana, former head of the University of Jamshoro, has penned many chronicles that point to both Bhitai’s verses and the ancient paths taken by ascetics in these hills to reach sacred caves.

Mithu Maharaj supports these fables. “In this cave, Bhitai went into a 41-day seclusion before he made his way to Hinglaj,” says the long-haired priest.

In the land of Bhitai, defiling a temple is a faithless act. A nation that honours God must protect all that is held sacred.

Militants want ban on laughter, crying, says Chinese governor

Reuters

BEIJING: The governor of China’s restive region of Xinjiang wrote on Monday that Islamist militants were trying to ban laughter at weddings and crying at funerals, as he appealed to people to stamp out the “tumour” of extremism.

Xinjiang has been beset by violence for years, blamed by the government on militants and separatists.

Exiles and many rights groups say the real cause of the unrest is China’s heavy-handed policies, including curbs on Islam and the culture and language of the Muslim Uighur people who call Xinjiang home.

China’s nervousness about extremism has grown since a car burst into flames on the edge of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in October, and 29 people were stabbed to death last month in the southwestern city of Kunming.

Beijing blamed Xinjiang militants for both.

Writing in the official Xinjiang Daily, Governor Nur Bekri said that acts of terrorism had been made possible by extremists taking advantage of people’s faith, especially “young people who have seen little of the world”.

“In order to incite fanaticism and control believers, religious extremists have blatantly distorted religious teachings…,” he wrote. “They use this to bewilder believers into what they believe is `jihad’ in the form of suicide terrorist attacks or other violence.”

People who do not follow the strictures of the Islamists are condemned by them as “traitors” and “scum”, he said.

China’s ruling Communist Party has issued similar warnings in the past about extremism, accompanied by a harsh crackdown on suspected militants.

Uighurs have traditionally followed a moderate form of Islam, but many have begun adopting practices more commonly seen in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, such as full-face veils for women, as China has intensified a security crackdown in recent years.

Mr Bekri, a Uighur himself, accused the militants of ignoring the region’s own traditions and of wanting to enforce a strict theocratic society.

“They...push the banning of watching television, listen to the radio, reading newspapers, singing and dancing, not allowing laughter at weddings nor crying at funerals,” he added. “They force men to grow beards and women to wear the burka.”—Reuters

BJP sets Hindutva agenda in manifesto

Jawed Naqvi

NEW DELHI: India began a nine-stage month-long election on Monday even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the front-runner, finally released its manifesto, delayed over reported differences among leaders about how much Hindutva to pack to deliver it a victory next month.

Contrary to earlier expectations of an economic development driven agenda, the BJP has gone back to its core Hindutva issues of cow protection, commitment to Ayodhya Temple, a uniform civil code opposed by Muslims, and declaring Kashmir as non-negotiable.

Pakistan is named in the context of cross-border terrorism and the need to deal with it firmly.

“Jammu and Kashmir was, is and shall remain an integral part of the Union of India,” the BJP said as polling booths opened in parts of Assam and the communist-ruled tribal state of Tripura.

“The territorial integrity of India is inviolable. The BJP will pursue an agenda of equal and rapid development in all the three regions of the state — Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.”

The prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi did not take any questions as has been his wont during the run-up so far.

The BJP promised the “return of Kashmiri Pandits to the land of their ancestors with full dignity, security and assured livelihood”.

It reiterated its stand on the Article 370, a special status for Kashmir which the BJP wants to be withdrawn. The party “will discuss this with all stakeholders and remains committed to the abrogation of this article”.

The manifesto spoke of foreign policy in terms of creating “a web of allies to mutually further our interests”, a reference thought to be directed at befriending China's Asian adversaries such as Japan and Vietnam. “We will leverage all our resources and people to play a greater role on the international high table.”

India has a sensitive neighbourhood and there are internal security issues, the BJP said.

“There have been intrusions inside the LAC (Line of Actual Control on the China border), loss of squadrons of combat aircraft by the air force, witnessing of a series of accidents by the Navy, leading to a loss in its combating capability built over many decades, communal riots, Maoist attacks, increase in incidence of Pakistan-backed terror groups in India, illegal immigration across the eastern border, and racists’ attacks in the national capital.”

The BJP said all these were indications of surrendering of India's interest. “This calls for a review and overhauling of the current system.

With the financial situation worsening, the issue of national security can acquire a horrifying dimension.”

There were tears for the Muslims. “It is unfortunate that even after several decades of independence, a large section of the minority, and especially Muslim community continues to be stymied in poverty,” the rightwing Hindutva party observed. “Modern India must be a nation of equal opportunity. BJP is committed to ensure that all communities are equal partners in India's progress, as we believe India cannot progress if any segment of Indians is left behind.”

The Congress party, smarting over a string of electoral losses in recent elections to the BJP, said BJP’s claim to protect Muslims was like Dracula running a blood bank.

Australia looks into ‘encouraging’ signals in MH370 hunt

AFP

PERTH: Ships searching the vast Indian Ocean for a Malaysian airliner have detected three separate underwater signals, and more ships and planes were diverted on Sunday to investigate whether they could have come from its black box.

Angus Houston, head of the Australian search mission, said the detections were being taken “very seriously” as time ticked down on the battery life of the black box’s tracking beacons.

He said China’s Haixun 01 has twice detected an underwater signal on a frequency used for the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders — once for 90 seconds on Saturday and another more fleeting “ping” on Friday a short distance away.

A third “ping” was also being scrutinised, 300 nautical miles away in the Indian Ocean.

The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 239 people aboard vanished on March 8 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

“This is an important and encouraging lead but one which I urge you to continue to treat carefully,” Houston told reporters.

“We are working in a very big ocean and within a very large search area. Speculation and unconfirmed reports can see the loved ones of the passengers put through terrible stress and I don’t want to put them under any further emotional distress at this very difficult time.”

Britain’s HMS Echo and the Australian ship Ocean Shield — both equipped with black box locators — and Australian air force planes were being diverted to the area to help discount or confirm the Chinese signals, Houston said.

Ocean Shield was also investigating the signal it detected on Sunday in its current location, about 300 nautical miles north of Haixun 01, in waters far off Australia’s west coast.

Houston said the Chinese finding was more promising.

“I think the fact that we’ve had two detections, two acoustic events in that location provides some promise which requires a full investigation,” he said.

TIME RUNNING OUT: The hunt for the jet was refocused on the southern end of the search zone on Sunday after corrected satellite data showed it was more likely the plane entered the water there.

Houston said the Haixun 01 was already operating in that more southerly zone.

Some analysts greeted the acoustic detections with optimism, saying a 37.5kHz signal can only be transmitted by an emergency beacon. But others were sceptical and said it was vital to find supporting evidence.

Houston said Haixun 01 was in waters about 4.5 kilometres deep, meaning “any recovery operation is going to be incredibly challenging and very demanding and will take a long period of time” if the plane is found there.

“This is Day 30 of the search and the advertised time for the life of the batteries in the beacon is 30 days. Sometimes they last for several days beyond that — say eight to 10 days beyond that — but we’re running out of time in terms of the battery life of the emergency locator beacons.”

Up to 10 military planes, two civil aircraft and 13 ships were scouring the remote waters on Sunday, concentrating on about 216,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean around 2,000 kilometres northwest of Perth.

Houston insisted that China was “sharing everything that’s relevant to this search” with the lead authority, and sidestepped questions over the Haixun 01’s location far from the other lead vessels in the search.

“China has seven ships out there, that’s by far the largest fleet of ships out there. I think we should be focusing on the positives,” he said.—AFP

Afghan presidential hopefuls raise fraud concerns

AFP

KABUL: Leading candidates in Afghanistan’s presidential election voiced concern on Sunday that voting was tainted by fraud, a day after millions defied Taliban threats and turned out to choose a successor to President Hamid Karzai.

World leaders praised the courage of voters, who came out in force to cast their ballots despite bad weather and a violent campaign of intimidation, and urged patience during the long counting process.

Ahead of the poll there were fears that a repeat of the massive fraud which blighted Mr Karzai’s re-election in 2009 would undermine the winner’s legitimacy at a testing time for the war-torn country.

There were reports of polling stations in numerous parts of the country running out of ballot papers, leaving some people unable to take part.

More than 1,200 complaints had been received by the Election Complaints Commission (ECC) by Sunday morning, spokesman Nadir Mohsini said, and the number was increasing.

“Complaints include late opening of polling centres, shortage of ballot papers, encouraging of voters to vote for certain candidates and mistreatment of some election officials,” Mr Mohsini said.

But in a promising sign for the stability of the process, two of the frontrunners to succeed Mr Karzai, who is stepping down after serving a maximum two terms, said they would abide by the ECC’s rulings.

Zalmai Rassoul, who was seen before the vote as Mr Karzai’s preferred choice, told a press conference on Sunday that he had made complaints to the ECC but refused to give details.

He said he was confident it would address the concerns properly but warned:

“Any president elected with fraud will not be accepted by Afghanistan.”

Former World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani, who claimed to be in the lead in preliminary results, voiced similar views.

“There are reports of serious fraud in several locations but all is documented and will be passed on to ECC for investigation,” he said on his official Twitter account.

Whoever emerges victorious from the lengthy vote-counting and appeals process faces the prospect of fighting the Taliban without the help of US-led combat troops.

There were fears that a disputed result could spark bitterness and recrimination and put the new president in a weak position.

The third leading candidate, Abdullah Abdullah, runner up in 2009’s acrimonious poll, said his team had also filed complaints.

“Unfortunately, hundreds of our countrymen were deprived of their rights due to shortage of ballots. The process was not free of flaws,” he said. “We have registered complaints about fraud.”

An estimated seven million people voted, according to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), more than 50 per cent of the electorate — a huge increase on 2009 when only around a third of those eligible cast ballots.

Preliminary results are due on April 24 and if no candidate secures more than 50 per cent of the vote, a runoff is planned for late May.

Bomb destroys ballots

A roadside bomb hit a truck carrying full ballot boxes in the northern province of Kunduz on Sunday, killing three people, officials said. Eight boxes of votes were also destroyed in the blast.

The Taliban had urged their fighters to target polling staff, voters and security forces. But no major attacks were reported during the day, although sporadic violence caused a number of casualties.

Emanuele Nannini, programme coordinator for International NGO Emergency which runs three hospitals in Afghanistan, said they treated around 30 people on Saturday, which he said was an unusually high number.

The day before the poll, Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus was shot dead by a police commander in the eastern province of Khost.

US President Barack Obama congratulated Afghanistan on the largely peaceful ballot — its first democratic transfer of power — and said it was “critical” to its future and securing continued international aid.

“This is their moment. The Afghan people secured this election. They ran this election, and most importantly, they voted in this election,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

The United Nations Security Council also congratulated Afghanistan and urged the candidates and their supporters to be patient and “respect the electoral institutions and processes”.

The election will end 13 years of rule by Mr Karzai, who has held power since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

Afghans have taken over responsibility for security from US-led forces, and this year the last of the Nato coalition’s 51,000 combat troops will pull out.—AFP

BJP, Congress trade barbs over plight of Indian Muslims

AFP

NEW DELHI: Hindu hardliner Narendra Modi, front-runner for premier in the world’s biggest election, accused India’s ruling Congress party on the eve of the vote on Sunday of failing Muslims as his own party battled claims of fuelling religious tensions and his rival Rahul Gandhi warned that the country faced religious turmoil if Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won.

Modi also urged voters to give him a strong mandate during the marathon six-week ballot which starts on Monday.

“The problems that have plagued you in the past 60 years, I will get rid of all those problems in just 60 months,” he told thousands of cheering supporters in Bijnor in the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh.

However, Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi described Gandhi, front man for the party’s campaign and the scion of the country’s most famous dynasty which has dominated politics since independence, as a “superstar campaigner” who would return them to power.

“Congress is the only party that has resonance in every nook and cranny of India,” he said.

Voting will begin in the remote states of Assam and Tripura, before spreading across the country of 814 million voters in a staggered process. Results are due on May 16.

Modi, who is tainted by association with anti-Muslim riots, went on the attack after a row flared over accusations that his right-hand man had stoked tensions against Muslims just days before the election.

He accused Congress president and Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi of failing to deliver on pledges to improve the lives of Muslims.

“Madam Sonia, nearly 700 (communal) riots happened in the country in one year right under your nose.

And 250 of those were in UP,” Modi said.

The comments came after Modi’s close aide Amit Shah reportedly told several Hindu leaders to seek “revenge” at the ballot box. He was speaking in a part of UP hit by Hindu-Muslim violence last year that left some 50 people dead. “This election is about voting out the government that protects and gives compensation to those who killed Hindus,” he reportedly said on Friday.

The Congress has asked the Election Commission to order Shah’s arrest and ban him from campaigning.

A party official accused the BJP of making “horrible” statements and “creating animosity between communities”.

The BJP has said the comments have been taken out of context, while the Election Commission has so far declined to comment.

A local magistrate said on Sunday that an investigation was under way into the comments.

Modi, the 63-year-old son of a tea-stall owner, has focused on economic reform and creating jobs, largely steering clear of promoting any Hindu nationalist agenda.

But he has been tainted by religious riots in 2002 in Gujarat which he has governed since 2001. The riots killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. He has been cleared of any personal wrongdoing.

Addressing a rally in Sirsa, 250km from the capital, Rahul Gandhi said majority Hindus would be pitted against minority Muslims if hardliner Modi and his BJP clinched power.

“Wherever these people (BJP) go they create fights. They’ll pit Hindus and Muslims against each other,” he said.

“We walk with everybody, be it Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians. We walk with people from all communities, castes, religions and regions and that is our politics,” the 43-year-old leader said.

“We don't do politics of anger and division,” he said, as he implored voters to back Congress, which looks set for a defeat at the polls after a decade in power.The campaign, which has largely focused on development, has taken a religious tone in recent days.

With voters worried about the slowing economy and angry about corruption and high inflation under the Congress-led coalition, Modi has pledged to attract investment and overhaul manufacturing.

Opinion polls-- fallible in the past and famously wrong when Congress won in 2004 -- show the BJP likely to emerge as the biggest party in the next 543-member parliament. But the BJP is forecast to fall short of a majority, meaning another coalition will need to be stitched together comprising the country’s numerous regional parties.

Five seats are up for grabs on Monday in the tea-growing and underdeveloped Assam state and another one in Tripura, near the border with Myanmar.

A juice vendor in Assam's Dibrugarh, a Congress stronghold, said he would vote for Modi, as election officials in the town prepared to disperse to polling stations throughout the constituency. “The Congress has done nothing to control the rising prices. I voted for them in the last two parliamentary elections,” Motilal Shah said.-—AFP

Obama offers to continue partnership with Karzai’s successor

Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has offered to continue America’s partnership with the new Afghan government as Afghans voted to seek a successor to President Hamid Karzai.

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has offered to continue America’s partnership with the new Afghan government as Afghans voted to seek a successor to President Hamid Karzai.

Once cordial relations between the Obama and Karzai administrations deteriorated rapidly in recent months as the Afghan leader refused to sign an agreement needed to keep US and allied troops in his country after 2014.

The United States hopes that Saturday’s elections in Afghanistan will bring a new leadership which will not only sign the agreement but will also continue to work with Washington for maintaining stability in the region.

The elections promise to “usher in the first democratic transfer of power in Afghanistan’s history,” said President Obama in a statement issued by his office on Sunday.

He also noted that the elections were another important milestone in “Afghans taking full responsibility for their country as the United States and our partners draw down our forces”.

The United States and its allies plan to withdraw most of their troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year but also want to keep a small residual force after 2014 as well to help Afghan deal with the insurgents.

President Karzai, while acknowledging the need for continued international support to the Afghan forces says that the required agreement should be signed by the future Afghan president. He also claims that the US-led coalition is there to protect its own interests and not that of the Afghan people.

“These elections are critical to securing Afghanistan’s democratic future, as well as continued international support,” said President Obama while underlining the importance of Saturday’s elections.

“We look to the Afghan electoral bodies to carry out their duties in the coming weeks to adjudicate the results — knowing that the most critical voices on the outcome are those of Afghans themselves,” he added.

While commending the Afghan people, security forces, and election officials on the high voter-turnout, Mr Obama also recalled “many Americans — military and civilian — who have sacrificed so much to support the Afghan people as they take responsibility for their own future”.

The US continued to support a sovereign, stable, unified, and democratic Afghanistan, and looked forward to “continuing our partnership with the new government chosen by the Afghan people on the basis of mutual respect and mutual accountability”, he added.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a separate message that the vote demonstrated “the fierce determination of the millions of voters undeterred by violence and threats of violence has been remarkable”.

Now the international community should “give the Afghan electoral bodies the time they need to do their work in processing the outcome of these elections,” he said. “The US remains ready to work with the next president of Afghanistan,” Mr Kerry said.

Pro-Russia demonstrators storm Ukraine govt buildings

KIEV (Ukraine): Crowds of pro-Russian demonstrators stormed government buildings on Sunday in two major cities in eastern Ukraine, where secessionist sentiment has sparked frequent protests since Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president was ousted in February.

In Luhansk, 30 kilometres west of the Russian border, hundreds of people surrounded the local headquarters of the security service and later scaled the facade to plant a Russian flag on the roof.

In Donetsk, to the southwest, a large group of people surged into the provincial government building and smashed windows.

A gathering of several hundred, many of them waving Russian flags, then listened to speeches delivered from a balcony emblazoned with a banner reading “Donetsk Republic”.

Eastern Ukraine was the heartland of support for Viktor Yanukovych, the president who fled to Russia in February after months of protests. About half of the region’s residents are ethnic Russians, many of whom believe Ukraine’s acting authorities are Ukrainian nationalists who will oppress Russians.

Ukraine’s interim authorities deny they are infringing the rights of the ethnic Russian population and accuse Moscow of trying to sow instability. Russia has moved large contingents of troops to areas near the Ukrainian border, and speculation is strong that unrest in eastern Ukraine could be used as a pretext for a Russian incursion.

Since Crimea held a referendum to secede and then was annexed by Russia in March calls for similar referenda in Ukraine’s east have emerged.

On Saturday, Ukraine’s security service said it had detained a 15-strong armed gang planning to seize power in Luhansk province. The Security Service of Ukraine said it seized 300 machine guns, an antitank grenade launcher, a large number of grenades, five handguns and firebombs. It said the group intended to mount a grab for power. No names or additional details were provided.

Also on Sunday, authorities in Ukraine said they found the body of a kidnapped journalist who played an active role in protests that led to Yanukovych’s ouster. The body was found in a forest about 150 kilometres outside the capital, Kiev.

Cherkassk province prosecutors said Vasily Sergiyenko was abducted in his home city of Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi on Friday evening and later murdered. The nationalist Svoboda party, of which Sergiyenko was a member, said the reporter was found with stab wounds and signs of beatings to his head and knees.—AP

Footprints: Female wardens back on bikes

Mina Sohail

IT was peak midday rush hour and the day had warmed up to about 24°C in Lahore. A female traffic warden on a 250cc motorbike zoomed through a busy intersection on Mall Road. Ignoring several gaping onlookers, she parked her bike near a traffic signal opposite the Punjab Assembly.

At about five foot five with a strong build and an air of confidence, 24-year-old Aroosa Hussain slid off the bike and walked up to a group of reporters waiting to interview her. Her name badge was inconspicuous behind the headscarf, and the steel-grey uniform with loose pants and a full-sleeved top looked as though it would be suffocating in the April heat. “Part of our training is to not feel hot in all the layers we wear,” said Hussain, seemingly undisturbed.

Hussain is one of the seven female traffic wardens who are working as patrolling officers to monitor traffic issues in Lahore. The first batch of female wardens started work in 2008, but they were quickly removed from the roads and deputed to work at the office, reportedly after several instances of harassment.

Hussain said that she felt confident being on the roads after having undergone a two-year training period. Although she had encountered no harassment, she recalled one incident when she stopped a man over a traffic violation: in protest, he grabbed her hand. She immediately registered a first information report with the police and got him imprisoned. “I was able to do this as I was aware of the legal provisions under which I could take this action,” she said.

Given that they have the heaviest motorbikes on the roads right now, it is almost impossible for anyone to chase these wardens. As compared with the earlier batch, they are better trained in terms of confidence and morale. “Earlier, they panicked if they fell off the bike,” said Tasleem Shuja, the manager of safety at Atlas Honda, which trained the wardens for two months. “Now they can counter any mishap on the road with confidence.”

Shuja said that the earlier female wardens had not been removed from road duty due to complaints of harassment but because some senior police officials objected to women being on the roads.

Several factors played a role in female wardens earlier preferring office duty to being on the roads. “Two of them had accidents and injured their legs severely,” said Sohail Chaudhry, Lahore’s Chief Traffic Officer (CTO). He added that many wardens from the earlier batch had got married, had children and were older, so they themselves preferred office work. This view was corroborated by Phool Mushtaq, an officer at the ticketing office who explained that issues such as bathroom breaks while on the road for long hours and the disapproval of in-laws were some of the reasons that prevented her from opting road duty.

For those who did enrol for traffic duty, public interaction was given more focus during their training. This included over a year on ticketing experience, four months on traffic duty and two-and-a-half months on bike training, according to Chaudhry.

“We have mechanisms in place against harassment now,” he said. “There is always a designated male warden with a female warden and women are sent to areas where we expect more educated people and drivers.” Wardens have been given wireless access that enables them to immediately contact a male warden. They are also deputed to areas such as the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Defence Y-block, Kinnaird College and Lahore College on Jail Road, and Main Boulevard, where “people on the roads are expected to be more educated”.

“When in uniform we are not male or female but police officers,” stated Hussain. “People are already becoming accustomed to seeing us on the streets and will soon consider us as just police officers, not female ones.”

According to Hussain, the impression of a non-conducive work environment is often exaggerated. Her eagerness to show how much she enjoyed her job was visible in the way she coordinated with a team of a local television network, nodding to instructions about how the camera crew wanted to film her.

As the camera rolled, she put her white gloves back on her hands, placed a water bottle in a white box and attached it to her bike and, with an air of self-worth, roared off on the Mall.

Govt officials working for donors, NGOs

Syed Irfan Raza

ISLAMABAD: A number of top bureaucrats are involved in making money by extending their services to non-governmental organisations or foreign agencies, often at the cost of the ethics of their public offices and in violation of rules, sources in Establishment Division have revealed to Dawn.

The government has flexed its muscles against such officials, though.

Such officials have been working with foreign donor agencies on very high salary packages without prior permission from the Establishment Division and in violation of service rules.

Some of these government officials have offshore bank accounts where they squirrel away the hefty salaries they get for the provision of consultancy services, apparently to hide their income details and to evade tax.

They usually deceive their employers (donor agencies and NGOs) by providing fake documents or incorrect information to convince the employer that they have prior permission from their parent departments and the Establishment Division to serve with another organisation.

If in service, they get double pay: one from their government department and the other from the donor agency or the NGO (which is in foreign currency on a daily basis wages).

There seems to be no proper check in place in foreign donor agencies and NGOs either to ascertain whether their local employees have been allowed to work with them.

According to documentary evidence available with Dawn, some senior government officials are working with Coffey International (CI), a subsidiary organisation of the UK government donor agency, the Department for International Development (DFID). This is said to be the second largest donor agency working in Pakistan after the US Agency of International Development (USAID). Coffey International is a specialist professional services’ consultancy with expertise in geosciences, international development and project management.

The secretary of the Establishment Division, Shahid Rashid, said that no government official was allowed to work with any non-governmental organisation even if on long leave. However, in case they provide consultancy services to any other government organisation, they have to deposit some portion of their income from the second organisation into the national kitty. However, this does not apply to those working in private organisations.

Asked about irregularities committed by government officials by working with CI, the secretary said: “The matter is already in our knowledge and we are investigating it.

“We have sought a report from the government of Punjab as most of the officials with dual jobs belong to the provincial government,” he said. Mr Rashid, who vowed to take stern action against such officials, did not comment on federal government officials who are also working with CI.

The document revealed that some officials in the federal government as well as in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments have been working with CI’s programme concerning the Police Services of Pakistan (PSP).

These officials include: Syed Ali Murtaza (BS-19). He is an ex-commissioner of Multan and has recently been made officer on special duty and has been working with CI as an expert on the rule of law since Oct 24, 2012, at a daily wage of £375 (the equivalent to Rs1.93 million per month). A letter said that he had granted himself 90 days’ leave from the office of commissioner of Multan and started working with CI. It has been learnt that a group of government officials, under the leadership of Mr Murtaza, move from one agency to another as he acts a mediator between donor agencies and government employees.

Ehsan Sadiq (BS-20) is presently working as the DIG Motorway Police. He has been serving with CI since Nov 12, 2012, and is due to work till July 13 this year as head of gender-responsive policing at a salary of £220 per day (equivalent to Rs1.1m per month).

Omer bin Zia (BS-19) is an officer of the Secretariat Group. He sought permission from the government and was granted leave to work with the Asian Development Bank on deputation till early 2014. However, he is working as a deputy team leader in CI at a salary of £350 per day (equivalent to Rs1.80m per month).

Tariq Abbas Qureshi is a grade-19 senior superintendent of the police (research), Faisalabad. He has been working with CI as a head of police investigations since Oct 7, 2013, up until July 31, 2014. He draws a salary of £250 per day (equivalent to Rs1.29m per month). He has leave approved from the government of Punjab but no permission to work with CI or any other organisation.

Many attempts were made to contact DFID and CI officials to get their comments, but in vain. Besides several abortive phone calls, an SMS was sent to Project Director CI John Moss and the team leader of Coffey Pakistan, Sarwar Khan, but they did not respond. Similarly, all efforts to contact the head of corporate affairs of DFID Pakistan, Sikandar Ali, were futile.

Editorial News

TTP’s somersault

Editorial

THE Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan has never hesitated to own, in fact flaunt, the terror campaign it has been waging for years. Now suddenly, the banned outfit has staged a somersault, terming the killings of civilians un-Islamic and ‘haram’. In a statement issued on Wednesday, TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said that killing civilians was illegal and claimed that a hidden hand was behind the recent atrocities in Islamabad and Sibi. Two questions come to mind: if we are to accept the absurd notion that killings are to be categorised as Islamic and un-Islamic, who is going to judge? Two, must it take the slaughter of 50,000 people, an overwhelming majority of whom were civilians, for the TTP to wake up, express a bit of remorse and try to find a scapegoat in the two recent acts of terror in Sibi and Islamabad?

Ever since it began its killing campaign, the TTP never wavered from its rigid two-pronged policy about acts of terror: it either had no shame in claiming responsibility for acts of mass murder, or at best chose to keep quiet. The Taliban’s victims have included children in school vans, the faithful at prayer, patients in hospitals, mourners at funerals, peacemakers at jirgas, pilgrims in buses, devotees at shrines, civilians in religious processions, political activists at rallies and media persons on duty. Those murdered or maimed for life have included men and women of all age, and Pakistanis of all professions — doctors tending patients and judges administering justice. They have not spared the ulema: Maulana Fazlur Rahman survived two attempts on his life, and they succeeded in killing Mufti Naeemi of Lahore because he dared to condemn their criminality behind the facade of jihad.

The list of the militants’ acts is too long to be mentioned, but some cold-blooded acts of carnage need to be recalled. For instance, to kill the then interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, a suicide bomber blew himself up at an Eid congregation in Charsadda, on Dec 21, 2007, killing 56 people. Again, on Dec 4, 2009, to kill a major general, militants attacked a mosque in Rawalpindi murdering 40 people, including 16 children, and they had no qualms when they fire-bombed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Sept 20, 2008, killing 40 people at iftar time. They also need to be reminded that the beheading of captured soldiers was a barbaric act in violation of Islamic laws. The TTP’s now saying that the murder of civilians is un-Islamic is hypocrisy of the highest order. Nevertheless, this is not the end of the story, and the people will watch how the TTP behaves in the future and whether the sentiments expressed by its spokesman signal a change of heart or words uttered out of expediency.

Tax focus on lawmakers

Editorial

PARLIAMENTARIANS have long been accused of evading taxes, providing ‘a bad example’ for taxpayers in the country. The recent publication by the Federal Board of Revenue of the first-ever directory on taxes filed by elected public representatives has done little to improve their image. Whatever details about the tax history of representatives of the people today has so far been made public by the FBR or by the Election Commission shows that a significant number of them do not pay taxes — other than the amount deducted at source from their salaries — nor file returns. Many haven’t even bothered to get their National Tax Number and the lifestyle of a majority of them doesn’t quite correspond to the taxes they pay. This is not expected of them even if we have a history of weak enforcement of tax laws and less than 1pc of our population filing returns.

Against this backdrop, the National Assembly’s decision to accept a motion, requiring the constitution of a house committee to investigate growing allegations of tax evasion by parliamentarians should help clear the air and fill the coffers a bit. The motion, tabled by a PTI leader, was ‘killed’ twice not very long ago and was admitted this time around quite reluctantly. Though most members — from the treasury and opposition benches — supported the move, a few from the ruling party didn’t quite like the idea. Indeed, many politicians consider the ‘propaganda’ of tax evasion against them part of a campaign to malign them. They rightly ask why the media doesn’t focus on other sections of society — generals, judges, businessmen, lawyers and journalists among them — whose lifestyle also doesn’t match the taxes they pay. But they must understand that the media focus returns to them every now and then because of two reasons: one, they represent the people of Pakistan and, thus, should maintain a public image as law-abiding citizens; two, as lawmakers they are supposed to make tax and other laws that affect the common people. How can they expect a man on the street to follow the laws they make if their own image is tainted? Everybody must appear equal before the law. After parliamentarians, others could also be subjected to similar investigations by the FBR.

False strokes

Editorial

APART from Pakistan cricket’s internal matters, there is much focus still on the issue of the Big-3 — India, England and Australia — dominating the running of the game. The popular Pakistani sentiment against this domination was reflected in the reaction here after the recent T-20 tournament in Bangladesh. Sri Lanka’s win against India in the final, and the fact that neither England nor Australia could turn in a strong performance was celebrated in popular discourse as a defeat for the Big-3. At the other end from this open dislike for the unsporting coming together of the troika is positioned the Pakistan Cricket Board under the leadership of Najam Sethi, who has been found sulking over how Zaka Ashraf as PCB chairman had missed the opportunity to claim a share in the power and riches that the Big-3 are set to enjoy.

Just before going off to a meeting of the International Cricket Council in Dubai which concluded yesterday, Mr Sethi had come up with the latest in his series of disclosures. He said that, at one point, Pakistan had an offer to join the big club, implying that if the PCB, then under Mr Ashraf, had played it right, Pakistan could have joined the dominant powers and there could well have been a Big-4 group in control today. All this talk could have been an attempt by the PCB boss to bring down public expectations by relating the tough circumstances he had been placed in by a ‘blundering’ Zaka Ashraf. Alternatively, it would appear Mr Sethi isn’t in a positive enough frame of mind. He must plead Pakistan’s case and market its potential in the best possible way, and a defensive, apologetic, approach is not advisable. It is good that the PCB has had reassurances of engagement at the latest meeting in Dubai — in return for Pakistan reposing trust in the Big-3. The point is that it is Pakistan competing for the best deal and not a contest between Najam Sethi and Zaka Ashraf.

System in disarray

Editorial

TWO major blasts on two consecutive days in Islamabad and Sibi have once more brought to the fore the helplessness of the state in the face of frontal assaults by militants. Both attacks involved soft targets — the Jaffar Express in Sibi and a vegetable market in the capital. The proscribed United Baloch Army, a separatist group, has claimed responsibility — reportedly as a response to security operations in different parts of Balochistan — for both incidents in which ordinary men, women and children died. While there is reason to doubt the veracity of the claim in the case of Islamabad, given that Baloch militants from various proscribed groups have so far limited their attacks to targets in Balochistan, if indeed the UBA is involved, it marks the advent of a dangerous trend: the war against the state by Baloch militants is being extended beyond provincial boundaries.

On the other hand, even though no claim has been forthcoming so far from religiously inspired militant groups, the possibility of one of them carrying out the Islamabad attack cannot be discounted. The outlawed TTP may have condemned the Islamabad blast, which took place a day before the Taliban-declared ceasefire ended. But going by other attacks that have occurred after the militants entered into talks with the government and that were claimed by extremist splinter groups, the likelihood remains that the market blast was the work of one of them. In fact in theory the attack could also be the handiwork of groups other than the Baloch militants or religious extremists.

In all this murkiness regarding the perpetrators and their motives, what is tellingly clear is the government’s inability to tackle militancy — from the first step of intelligence-gathering to coming up with measures to put an end to the growing violence in the country. No one in government is addressing the key questions regarding counterterrorism. Even the basics of counter-insurgency don’t appear right. For example, the National Counter Terrorism Authority— the front-line agency designed to deal with the terror threat — is tied up in legal wrangles and for all practical purposes is dormant. At the other end, the security establishment is not learning from its mistakes so that it could evolve an effective and cohesive counterterrorism strategy. The state is lurching from one incident to the other in confusion, which is not limited to strategy but also includes its muddled narrative regarding militancy. The state must now ask itself some hard questions: does the counterterrorism infrastructure have the capabilities to neutralise the threat, and if not what is being done to remedy this? In short, unless the state focuses on the terror threat with clarity, militants of various stripes will continue to run circles around it.

Healthcare shortcomings

Editorial

HEALTHCARE in the country has expanded in leaps if one is to go by the number of ribbons cut to inaugurate hospitals and clinics. But this expansion, accompanied by greater awareness and availability of technology, does not always translate into safer treatment for patients. A report in this paper recently brought out the contrast between expansion — in size and in numbers — and the situation in the public-sector and privately run hospitals regarding the provision of critical care. The report focused on Punjab and pointed out that a large number of privately run hospitals as also big public-sector names did not have a sufficient number of intensive care beds. WHO recommends at least one ICU bed to 50 beds in a general ward, and one nurse assigned to every patient in ICU. Many of the hospitals surveyed were lacking these ‘luxuries’. And if there were a few privately run hospitals where better care could be ensured, often at prices out of most people’s reach, it is common knowledge that in a much larger number of private clinics intensive care units exist but in name only, limited as they are to a sign hung outside a dark, sad-looking room in some obscure corner of the hospital.

The need is to look deep inside and make a list of all that is missing, all that is so crucial to saving lives, and is taken as a given in other countries. The evidence demands some emergency remedies, which are not forthcoming. Specifically in Punjab, progress towards institutionalised monitoring of hospitals is yet to begin as the recently set up healthcare commission tasked with the job is yet to effectively take charge of the situation. There are no citizen groups methodically bringing out the problems at hospitals, though there is always quite a lot of noise created by the public. The government wants to be seen to be doing some good in an area crowded with suffering people, but it hasn’t been able to move beyond the more visible health issues such as outbreaks of illnesses. Unless it evolves a system to keep a constant watch on hospitals, both public-sector and private, those in need of intensive care will go on being unattended.

Locker heist

Editorial

THE confusion that has ensued after the looting of over 50 lockers in Karachi has thrown up challenges in the sector that may well be systemic, requiring a thorough overhaul and stringent regulation. On Sunday, six armed men overpowered the lone security guard at the locker facility of a private bank in Soldier Bazaar. After an eight-hour operation involving specialist equipment, they walked away with all the contents of the strongboxes, including cash, jewellery and valuable documents. Aghast, the holders of the lockers staged a protest demanding the prompt recovery of their assets — even though the success rates of investigations into earlier bank robberies, 10 of them this year alone, have been woefully low.

Their troubles, though, had only just begun. It soon emerged that the facility had not been under the direct management of the bank but of the employees’ foundation subsidiary to it — a technicality that meant that as far as the police were concerned, it could be treated as just an ordinary theft. And this technicality had further ramifications. By design, what is put into such safekeeping facilities is undisclosed and its value is never made known. It is for this very reason that under State Bank guidelines, banks offer a flat ‘act of God’ insurance depending on the size of the lockers rented out. But because this particular facility was not under the bank’s direct management, it seems that this rule does not apply either. What, then, are those who have lost valuables to do? On Tuesday, the employees’ foundation said it would provide compensation — but provided no clarity on how this would be done. It is entirely likely that the matter might linger on for a long time. While those who have lost their belongings deserve sympathy, this should be taken as a clarion call to regulate locker facilities in the country’s increasingly insecure climate. It is appalling that people depositing valuables in ostensibly safe facilities, in trust, can be let down in this way.

A veiled warning?

Editorial

If Gen Sharif’s comments and the ISPR’s decision to publicise them were inadvisable, that still leaves unexplained the intentions behind the comments. In a polity where perceptions seem to matter more than outcomes, it is possible that the comments were intended only to placate the wider army leadership and the rank and file that the institution’s image of itself and its standing with the public would be protected. Perhaps Monday’s unhappy episode will have no effect on whether Mr Musharraf’s trial will go ahead or if he’ll be allowed to leave Pakistan. But the warning shots have been fired and this could cause civil-military tensions.

Restive Balochistan

Editorial

NOT long after the provincial government’s claim that law and order had improved, violence in Balochistan has once again intensified. On Monday, security forces claimed to have killed more than 30 militants in the districts of Khuzdar and Kalat. The province’s home minister says the militants belonged to banned organisations and were involved in attacks on trains and the security forces, and in bomb blasts. A day later, on Tuesday, there was yet another bomb explosion, on Jafar Express at Sibi — which was immediately condemned in official and non-official forums. However, the situation demands much more than that. The incidents over the last two days indicate persistent and heightened danger for the administration as well as for the people at large who, like those on Jafar Express, are at risk of being caught in the crossfire. This is also a clear sign of lack of progress on the part of the elected government in Balochistan, and at the centre. All those promises of representative rule opening up avenues to dialogue leading to a durable solution are fast turning out to be hollow. If anything, the militant strikes are strengthening the impression that militant outfits are wayward groups whose objective is to terrorise and not to ensure their just rights.

In fact, the needed dialogue is as distant as Balochistan is to Pakistanis living outside the province. There are no signs of even the first few steps being taken. Meanwhile, the information from Balochistan is still taken as if it pertains to incidents happening a long way away from the Pakistani mainstream. Even Quetta, in many instances, appears administratively and politically cut off from the scene of violence. While there may be other places in the country that do not yield easily to inquiries, rights groups say no area, not even parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where militancy has been raging for many years now, are as much under wraps as some districts in Balochistan. This screen has to be lifted as a prerequisite to addressing the suspicions. The militants must be seen. The campaign against them must be transparent. The options must be debated and weighed before one is preferred over the others.

Hidden potential

Editorial

THERE is good news from the football field as Pakistan’s team finished third at the Street Child World Cup held recently in Rio de Janeiro, beating the US 3-2 on penalties. While success has mostly eluded Pakistani footballers at the international level, the achievement of the youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds has strengthened hopes that local players can deliver in the beautiful game. The SCWC, organised and supported by different multilateral non-profit organisations, aims to provide avenues for growth to youths from disadvantaged backgrounds through sports and art. The young sportsmen returned home on Tuesday to Karachi to a rapturous welcome. Interestingly, while most of these children had been forgotten by society before gaining recognition through football, with many falling into the abyss of drugs and crime, on Tuesday politicians and officials lined up to get their photos taken with the lads. The Pakistan Football Federation has also taken notice, announcing a cash reward for the players and promising to train them. It is hoped that after the hype dies down, these young players continue to receive attention in order to develop their football skills and get an education.

The success of the boys in Rio points to two things. Firstly, if football and other sports are patronised and talented youngsters are given training and encouragement, they can perform at the international level. As it is, cricket receives the lion’s share of resources in Pakistan, with most other sports left neglected. The PFF is said to be setting up academies across Pakistan to train young footballers; let us hope these institutions can groom youngsters so that they can represent Pakistan professionally. Secondly, the boys’ performance shows that if given the chance to pursue constructive, healthy activities, children from poverty- and crime-stricken areas can also shine. All these children need is an opportunity that will enable them to leave the streets and discover their potential. Who knows, perhaps one day a Pelé or Maradona may rise from the streets of Karachi or Quetta.

Poll model next door

Editorial

THE Indian general election would appear to Pakistanis not only as a huge project, it would also come across as a sharper, more intense, more pluralistic version of the polls held here. The exercise which kicked off on Monday with voting in Assam and Tripura will be completed by May 16.

Opinion polls speak of a Narendra Modi wave and defeat for the Congress. But while the pros and cons of this expected change are a topic of hot debate, the election campaign itself has been characterised by what is the usual fare anywhere in the world, with very few exceptions. The subcontinent’s flavour — the glamour and darker side — has been on full display.

The election is going to cost the Indian politicians approximately $4.9bn — three times more than the expense incurred on the 2009 polls. The candidates could have got away with paying as little as $60m had they abided strictly by the limits set by the Election Commission.

A large part of the resources at the disposal of the political parties — gathered and wrapped in the respectable title of ‘donations’ — has gone into cultivating the new voter in India. Almost 100 million more voters were enrolled this time in comparison to 2009, and the parties are inclined to adopt new ways to woo the new and the old.

Social media has come into excessive use with time, new apps have been fashioned and mobile phones put to innovative use — on a scale proportionate to the size of India’s democracy — to coexist with old modes of sloganeering, where also, professional handling has lent certain sharpness to the fare.

Though some of the colours visible most vividly at poll time are inherent in the multi-hued Indian society, branding and packaging has been at its most intense during the campaign, reflecting the advancements made both in technology and content handling over the years.

The old communists, the secular capitalist, the imam who cannot ask his Muslim followers to vote for the BJP, show diversity. But the contest, as has been the case in Pakistan, is essentially about who can most efficiently run the chosen system, rather than a vehicle to debate any great changes in the system.

In its diversity, the campaign also brings out the most vicious in politicians in a much more experienced India as it always does in a fumbling Pakistan — personal attacks, wild accusations, jingoism.

Eventually, one proof of the efficiency of the Indian model would be just how quickly and smoothly the politicians there are able to emerge from this assault mode after the election and just how naturally they settle down in their respective roles from then on.

That process begins with the acceptance of whatever truth is thrown up by the ballot box — one basic requirement Indians have learnt to fulfil over the decades.

Unpaid telecom dues

Editorial

SUCCESSIVE governments have failed to recover the unpaid proceeds of privatisation of PTCL from Etisalat. This failure is indicative of the sheer helplessness of the Pakistani state, as well as its inability to protect public interest while cutting such deals with private investors.

The government has been showing an outstanding amount of $800m in its budgets since 2006, and has not been able to recover even a dollar from the UAE telecom major that has bought 26pc shareholding in the company and taken over control of its management. Whenever the issue is raised on the floor of the National Assembly or in the Senate, the Ministry of Finance furnishes the same standard reply that the government is ‘persuading’ Etisalat to pay up the money.

It wasn’t any different when PTI’s Dr Arif Alvi demanded the details of the government efforts to recover the withheld money.

At the heart of the dispute is the government’s failure to transfer 43 properties to the PTCL according to the terms in the deal.

The government is finding it difficult to transfer these properties because some are under litigation and others are in the possession of private parties. When the PML-N government came to power in June last year it was confident it would resolve the matter before the end of this fiscal and recover the money owed by the buyer.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has had a meeting with the Etisalat management last winter and also requested the UAE rulers to mediate on behalf of Islamabad. But his effort has so far not produced any result. The deal cannot be undone, it seems, as the privatisation rules framed in 2003 prohibit its scrutiny.

So what next? The matter is unlikely to be resolved unless the conditions agreed upon are met by Islamabad or the issue is taken up with the buyer through diplomatic channels. Nor is it likely that Etisalat will be forced to pay up the money the government requires badly to cut its budget deficit.

Nevertheless, the government can hold the officials responsible who had helped seal the deal as suggested by Dr Alvi. Also, it can put in place safeguards to avoid a repeat of the mistakes in future privatisation transactions.

Sri Lanka’s victory

Editorial

SRI LANKA’S magnificent six-wicket win over India in the ICC World T20 final in Dhaka on Sunday has yet again established their credentials as worthy champions of the T20 format. In what can be described as a mature performance from a highly professional outfit, the Lankans completely outplayed the hitherto unbeaten squad of Mahendra Singh Dhoni in front of a packed crowd of over 40,000 people to win their first World T20 title.

Lasith Malinga’s men first restricted India’s studded batting line-up to a paltry 130 and then knocked off the required runs with more than two overs to spare.

The victory was, indeed, a fitting send-off to their two stalwarts, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, who were playing their last T20 game. Sangakkara, in fact, overcame a patchy tournament to hit a fabulous half century in the final and win the Man of the Match award. To their credit, the Sri Lankans never dithered from their path in this fiercely contested tournament.

They remained undeterred by Alex Hales’ blistering run charge that led England to a shock win over them in the league round clash and then came out stronger from the one-match suspension of their skipper Dinesh Chandimal to beat the West Indies in a crucial match and qualify for the semifinals.

Sri Lanka’s recipe for success in the event has been their consistency and quietly confident way of going about things.

They have been inspired, too, by the presence of consultant Sanath Jayasuriya and batting coach Marvan Atapattu, both legendary figures of Sri Lankan cricket, who have worked tirelessly with the players to make them a mentally strong bunch. In the final analysis, we feel that Pakistan has a lot to learn from Sri Lankan cricket.

To begin with, we must reorganise school cricket, which has served Sri Lanka tremendously in the past several decades. Also, there is nothing egotistical about the islanders’ cricket which is such a contrast to our set-up where personalities have always been bigger than the game.

Taliban’s narrative

Editorial

A BASIC, though major, error the government has made in the process of dialogue with the outlawed TTP so far is to entirely ignore the narrative war. As far as the government is concerned anything that reduces the level of violence in the short and medium term is an idea worth pursuing, regardless of other — less tangible, though no less important — consequences for state and society. Consider the ideological war that is being fought through propaganda and intimidation by the TTP. The latest audacious move on that front was creating and putting online a website run by the TTP’s media wing, Umar Media. The website was accessible for part of yesterday before apparently being taken down, but thus far there is little clarity whether the blackout was ordered by authorities here or whether the website has been taken offline for violating the terms of use of a foreign website-hosting company. Either way, the very fact that the TTP decided to publicly announce the creation of an official website indicates that the propaganda war is being taken to the next level by the group.

Why do narratives matter to begin with? Consider how the country has once again arrived at the stage where a government finds it easier to negotiate with than to take on the TTP. Even though it had long become clear that the TTP’s ideology is an intolerant and murderous one, the religious and political right continued to hawk the line that the Taliban were simply conservative patriots who resented Pakistan’s assistance in the war on terror — and that once the state’s allegedly misguided policy was reversed, the militants would lay down their arms. Because that narrative was not effectively or forcefully challenged, it eventually became the starting point for dialogue at all costs — regardless of what the TTP itself said about its goals and intentions.

Climate change consequences

Editorial

FAR too much evidence of climate change and global warming has by now stacked up to allow the naysayers to keep arguing. Mankind and its activities are adversely affecting the planet, and a process of the wipe-out of natural and renewable resources is under way. Many of the consequences of humanity’s polluting activities can no longer be reversed. The only hope lies in the world taking rapid action to slow down the pace of deterioration as far and as soon as possible. If all this sounds apocalypse-like, it is rendered all the more so given the source: in Japan last week, a comprehensive report released by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change blamed “human interference” for climate change, the effects of which “are already occurring on all continents and across the oceans” in a world that is mostly “ill-prepared” for the risks posed by the sweeping changes. As the IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri said, “nobody on this planet is going to be untouched….”

The consequences sound like a library of ideas for grand-scale disaster movies: decreased water availability, changes in crop yields, the compromised supply of food and widespread hunger; devastating coastal flooding and inland flooding that will damage big cities; extreme weather occurrences disrupting the supply of some of what many take for granted, such as electricity and running water; increased chances of armed conflicts between nations and communities as a result of water and food scarcities. The list is a long one, and the report says that while humans may be able to adapt to some of these changes, this will only be within limits. Ironically, while it is the developed world that has contributed most to global warming through polluting activities, it is the world’s poorest populations that will suffer the most from rising temperatures and rising seas. And this is where smaller, underdeveloped countries such as Pakistan need to start formulating plans. As we have seen over the past several years, this country is not equipped to handle flooding; food scarcity is already a growing problem; glacier-melt is a reality. These issues will only intensify. The world as a whole needs to think green; countries that are especially vulnerable need to square up to the challenge.

Acts of desperation

Editorial

TO imagine the state of mind of Nizam Mai is to stare madness in the face. In a country where rape is often not reported to even families, let alone the law, her teenaged daughter was determined to seek justice. Even when the main suspect was granted bail last month, the rape victim refused to give up and went to the Bet Mir Hazar police station to lodge a protest. One does not know how the conversation went, but the fact is that she exited the police station, doused herself with petrol, and set herself ablaze. The burns she suffered led to her death, and her desperate act can only be taken as evidence of the level of confidence with which she viewed her chances of getting justice. That her mother complained on Wednesday that pressure was being put on her to drop the case — even though the Supreme Court has taken suo motu notice of it — is a shameful, damning indictment of the state and the priority it affords to women’s rights and safety.

There can be no denying that victims of rape in Pakistan must resort to desperate measures just to draw attention to their plight, let alone hold out any hope for justice. It was just a few days ago, after all, that in Layyah, a rape victim and her mother put themselves in a cage in the forlorn hope that the police might be induced to pursue the investigation with more seriousness. In this case, the suspects had been released at the request of a member of the National Assembly. Will this situation ever improve? Not until this crime is brought out of the shadows and prioritised by the law enforcement and justice systems. Every country that has relentlessly pursued rape cases has seen a drop in the incidence rate; every country where the police has been sensitised to women’s rights has seen improvements. Pakistan’s problem is the fact that the state does not seem interested.

TTP in the driving seat?

Editorial

IT is possible to read too much in the ebb and flow of the day-to-day developments and minutiae of the dialogue with the proscribed TTP. But, as both sides have constantly reiterated, the process is meant to be a quick one, so mini trends that manifest themselves are important. At the moment, with the government preparing for the next round of talks with the TTP leadership, the trend is unmistakable: the TTP is in the ascendant and the government is coming across as weak and uncertain. Consider the most recent developments. Yesterday Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan announced in one of his habitual press conferences that more prisoners are to be released by the government. Quite who these prisoners are; what precisely they stand accused of, if anything; whether they are individuals whose release the TTP has specifically sought; indeed, how does it help the dialogue process if simultaneously trying to downplay the importance of the released and to-be-released individuals — none of those questions are being answered.

Meanwhile, the TTP has seemingly once again gained the upper hand in the negotiations process. As is now publicly known, the first prisoner releases by the government occurred in several phases over the last 10 days of March. Yet, the TTP publicly made a big show of debating internally whether to continue its ceasefire after April 1 and, when a decision to extend it for a mere 10 days was finally announced, the TTP cast its decision as a difficult choice and a huge sacrifice made in the face of stiff opposition from within many parts of the TTP network. So now, as the next round of talks approaches, the perceptions are clear: the TTP showing great forbearance and generosity of spirit; the government bending over backwards to make concessions to secure a deal.

Consider the change in tone and tenor, and results, from the two occasions in which the government did stand firm. First, when the government negotiating team insisted that any deal would have to be within the parameters of the Constitution, the TTP acquiesced by sidelining Abdul Aziz, the Lal Masjid cleric on the TTP negotiating committee who was opposed to the idea. Next, when the Mohmand chapter of the TTP killed 23 FC personnel they had held since 2010, the government came out and at long last demanded an unconditional ceasefire by the TTP. Once again, to the surprise of many, the TTP agreed — and militant violence significantly declined during the month-long ceasefire. The results speak for themselves. When the state stands firm and the government insists on certain minimal requirements for the dialogue to proceed, pressure on the TTP works. But when the TTP is allowed to grab the initiative and shape the dialogue process, it becomes bolder and more outrageous in its demands. Right now, it appears as if the TTP is calling the shots.

Bilawal’s dilemma

Editorial

Questionable inductions

Editorial

HIRINGS made on questionable grounds, to accommodate favourites in violation of the rules, are a common occurrence in Pakistan, especially in the public sector. Perhaps this is why many of our public-sector organisations have, over the decades, been stuffed with political and personal appointees, throwing merit and actual manpower requirements of the organisations to the wind. Yet when it comes to letting go of individuals inducted through improper channels, the process can be problematic. Such a process seems to have started in PIA, where 300 employees have been sacked over the past six months, reportedly for having fake degrees. The national airline took the step due to instructions from the Supreme Court. It is truly disturbing to know that pilots, engineers and air hostesses were apparently hired by the flag carrier without verification of their academic backgrounds. In related news, the National Accountability Bureau is investigating over 700 appointments made ‘illegally’ in the Ministry of Housing and Works during the last PPP government’s rule. Here, too, the rules were apparently violated to induct the appointees.

Without a doubt there is a need to address inductions made through dubious means as not only are these individuals a burden on public enterprises deeply in the red, but inducting people who possess phoney documents means that unqualified individuals are very likely placed in important positions. We hope similar scrutiny of qualifications is carried out in other state-run departments. However, there are two things the government must be mindful of; firstly, the scrutiny of qualifications must not be an excuse to throw hardworking people with sound credentials out of a job in the name of ‘rightsizing’. Secondly, there must be no purges based on political affiliation. For example, qualified individuals must not be thrown out simply on the basis of their political preferences. Yet if people have cheated their way into securing public employment, then they must face action for professional dishonesty. Hopefully these actions will lead to more productive and capable human resources in public organisations.

Columns and Articles

Innovative thinking needed

Faisal Bari

IT has been four years since the 18th Constitutional Amendment was passed. Article 25A, ‘Right to Education’, was part of the 18th Amendment. It states: “The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to 16 years in such manner as may be determined by law.” Four years later, by most estimates, more than 20 million children between five and 16 years remain out of school. About six million of these are primary school-aged children.

Islamabad Capital Territory and Sindh have passed the requisite law for making the implementation of 25A possible. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab have draft laws only. Even in ICT and Sindh there has been limited or no progress on implementation. Though much has been made of the ‘education emergency’ and similar campaigns, government spending on education remains more or less flat.

If it was not for the substantial expansion in the provision of private education, especially in urban areas and large parts of Punjab and KP, the situation would look substantially poorer. By some estimates, 45pc to 50pc of enrolled children in Punjab now go to private schools.

We are not going to meet our education-related MDG targets. The prime minister recently promised a rise in spending on education to about 4pc of GDP by the end of his current term, reiterating something that is a part of the promise that the PML-N made in its election manifesto. Such pledges are not new. Even if the increase in educational spending does happen, and this is a big ‘if’ given the financial constraints the government is working under, this is still not going to be enough to ensure that all children between five to 16 years are in school and getting at least a minimally acceptable quality of education.

Expansion in the private provision of education is not going to solve the problem either. Without quibbling about the exact numbers on poverty, if 30pc to 40pc of households are poor in Pakistan, and if the cost of a minimally acceptable quality of education is Rs700 per student per month, society will need to find resources for getting poor children educated as their parents will not be able to afford this. So, private provision will not work in this sector. We need to find direct and indirect ways of subsidising the education of children of almost 50pc of households in the country.

Too many people, especially in policy circles, separate the issue of access to schools from quality of educational provision. They prioritise access and hold that the focus should first be on getting all children in schools and then worry about quality.

This is clearly wrong. First, if quality is poor, why should parents send their children to schools? Even if we are able to get all children to schools, we will not be able to keep them there. They will and should drop out. It is a waste of time and resources. Punjab should be wary of this given their recent enrolment drives. Second, this lexicographic ordering of access over quality binds us to current ways of provision of education and does not allow any room for innovation. We need to question this mode of thinking.

If the technology and organisational system of teaching remains the same as now, with children coming to designated school buildings, having particular student-teacher ratios, and certain standards for provision of infrastructure and teaching quality, the cost of provision is not going to alter much.

In this case even 4pc of our GDP is not going to be enough to fund “free and compulsory” education for all. This does not mean we do not need to increase the outlay. We do. But we have to be aware that while this might be a necessary condition for moving in the right direction, it might not be a sufficient condition.

What all this tells us is that we urgently need to think out of the box about how things are done currently, how we should be organising and providing for the education of all our children.

What role could new technologies play here? Internet, tablets, computers, mobiles, video and audio mediums, distance learning? Can any of these help? Can they reduce costs per unit, increase access, improve monitoring, evaluation and assessments, allow pedagogical/learning standardisation? Can they also ensure innovation and diversity in class to suit the circumstances of the learners? Can they facilitate the inclusion of groups and individuals who are marginalised currently? We need very serious thinking and experimentation here.

Can a computer in a hole at a street corner replace the school, the teacher, classroom experience and learning and classroom-based peer interaction? Clearly not. And this is not being argued here. But can videos, like the Khan Academy ones, improve teacher and student learning, can computers increase access to reference and reading material, can they assist in assessments and monitoring? Clearly yes. Can they reduce the cost of provision of quality education? We need to find out.

If we do not, the promise of 25A might remain just that — a promise — and governments will continue to drag their feet as they have been doing over the last four years. Maybe it is time for various education-related stakeholders to come together to focus on issues of innovation.

The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.

Baby of the system

Asha’ar Rehman

THE mystery of nine-month-old Musa Khan in Lahore ‘getting booked’ by the police provides us with yet another occasion to mourn our dying system. And it offers our well-wishers all over the world to write yet another lament on our account, which they do when they are not making fun of us.

In a country whose respected elders are in a hurry to marry off girls of any age, a nine-month-old boy landing in the dock for his suspected ability to launch a deadly attack on government officials would suggest some kind of progress in the chosen direction.

Sarcasm in many instances is the only outlet available, and thus there was a chance for the system to complete the trial before the undertrial grew too old. It is usual for a trial to continue for so long that by the end of it a suspect can only generate sympathy rather than be subjected to public wishes about the punishment of the guilty. Musa Khan offered a break from tradition.

There were of course many other reasons to believe why this could well have happened in Pakistan. For starters, there has been, periodically, news reporting attempts at an early nipping of the evil in the bud, of the variety the case of the nine-month-old appears to be. Some four years ago, for instance, there was a report in some papers from Multan and Muzaffargarh, regarding a two-year-old boy who was allegedly mature enough to go around stealing gold and cash. That moment to reflect on a ‘shambolic criminal justice system’ in Pakistan somehow passed unnoticed — a country “where underpaid and ill-trained police can be quick to lay false charges that can ensnare the innocents in years of legal troubles”.

For someone who has to live it day in and day out, it is horrifying that these descriptions still fit the country after all these avowed improvements in police, pay-wise especially. The pays were raised substantially and now they have to be raised further and then further until the police learn to pick people of the right age and disposition to fill their registers and their lockups.

This is a very tempting subject as always — hitting out against the police, one character that is forever willing and often straining and protruding under the uniform to take everyone’s blame to some others’ relief. There is a problem, however. The details of the world famous nine-month-old accused are as yet not so clear to enable formation of the usual opinion. The case is in court and the truth will take time to come out as it always does.

What we know for now is that in February, the Sui gas people had raided a locality in Lahore whose residents had not paid their gas bills. There was a riot which led to the gas company filing a case with the local police station. It seems that it was an FIR that had lumped together some names with their unnamed accomplices, which is not unusual in Pakistan. Among those mentioned in the report was the toddler, the defence lawyers maintained in court earlier this month.

Nine-month-old Musa Khan’s grandfather has “rejected police claims reported in local media that the family had produced ‘the wrong baby’ before the court in order to undermine the police case”. The police say the inclusion of the toddler was a mistake — one of them telling a newspaper reporter that the error was not dissimilar to when the media sometimes gets the identity of people wrong.

Lawyers have been heard saying that there are no provisions in the country to try anyone under the age of seven, but obviously, greater closer legal scrutiny is needed to get to the bottom of this.

The hurried furnishing of the case as proof of incompetence of the police force and failure of the criminal justice system, while it has its merits, is too innocent an act at this moment to inspire hopes of it being some kind of a catalyst. It is innocent since it excludes from the probe many others who may have contributed to this latest example of our failure and our ability to be the laughing stock of everyone around.

Pending legal inquiry the case definitely offers immense possibilities for analysis and targeting the system and those who man it, and that includes the police and implicates so many others — for instance, the gas company officials. The latter were required to name the suspects they had allegedly been threatened by that February day for the police to register the FIR.

Ask around, and there will be so many complaining about how careless the raiding government officials routinely are in getting cases registered against suspects. They are wont to lump people in an area or in a building together without taking the trouble of identifying who exactly among the residents they are actually accusing of breaking the law.

This, people say, is a usual problem in cases where the complaint is lodged by a government raiding team — gas company officials or officials out to control the spread of dengue, for instance. They have this tendency to lump them all together for an investigation. And not all those people who mistakenly appear in an FIR have the innocence and appeal of a nine-month-old to escape the situation easily.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Two-way street

Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

AMONG the most fundamental and least appreciated features of society’s historical advance is its inherently dialectical nature, which is to say that the benefits of development have never accrued equally to all members of society. Taking one’s cue from Marx, it could be argued that expropriation of the many has always gone side by side with enrichment of the few.

In the post-Cold War world, this historical fact no longer garners significant attention. It is unfashionable to view the world through categories like class, and many otherwise extremely informed people believe that ‘globalisation’ promises windfall gains for the majority. A large body of evidence can be mobilised to dispel such fantasies, but, even then, seemingly compelling contrary evidence already in circulation tends to dominate the argument.

If one were to undertake an objective analysis of existing class dynamics in contemporary Pakistan, what sort of picture would emerge? According to the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey — the most comprehensive government household survey available in the public domain — almost 20pc of Pakistanis submitted that their living standards had increased in the past year. The corresponding figure the previous fiscal year was three percentage points lower.

There are of course important differentials across provinces, with households in Punjab and KP more upwardly mobile than those in Sindh and Balochistan. But the aggregated facts speak for themselves: a fifth of Pakistani households are climbing up the social ladder.

It is safe to assume that the majority of these households are neither exceedingly rich nor poor. Less certain, but also a plausible hunch, is that this story of upward mobility is concentrated in urban areas. In short, there’s an urban middle-class bulge and this trend is not likely to level off in the near future. In fact, it is likely to intensify.

As noted at the outset, this is a two-way street. A recent report prepared by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in conjunction with the UNDP confirmed that almost 60 million Pakistanis are poverty-stricken. A staggering 46pc of rural households are poor, with only 18pc of urban households in the same category. Only 19pc of households in Punjab, the most urbanised province, are poor, and the vast majority of these are in the relatively rural Seraiki-speaking districts in the province’s southern and western parts.

On the whole, then, capitalist modernity continues to churn out both prosperity and immiseration, with the absolute numbers of poor growing over time. Yes, there are greater opportunities than ever before for a certain segment of the lower orders to graduate to a higher class bracket, but this does not mean there has been much transformation in the structure of class privilege.

Perhaps more than anything, what has changed is the discourse and practice of politics. Thirty years ago, the story of conflict between the expropriators and expropriated could not simply be ignored in the intellectual and political mainstream. Indeed, the working masses were the subjects of all major narratives of history, with everyone including the far-right acknowledging the former even as they sought to crush working-class power.

The current incarnation of politics — even of the mass variety — is of a decidedly more middle-class tone and tenor. The emphasis on formalistic slogans such as ‘rule of law’ and populist rants against ‘corruption’ speaks for itself. Marxist calls to collective action have been replaced by liberal appeals to individual liberties. Identity — multifarious and decentred — is considered far superior to the reductionism of class.

The objective changes that have taken place over the past few decades — urbanisation, middle class expansion, financialisation, information revolution — were not in and of themselves a guarantee of a change in the way politics was to be conceived and practised. An explanation for the decline of class politics must be sought in the machinations of state and capital, and the attendant inability of the left to pre-empt the rug being pulled out from under its feet.

Either way, there’s no question of rewinding back to the past. Those committed to doing so must build a new, relevant politics of class from the bottom-up. The first step is to force class and exploitation back onto the political and intellectual map.

This means exposing the sloganeering of right-wing populists and bringing back the idea that development never produces universally beneficial outcomes. There will always be winners and losers. Whether the losers acquiesce to the prevailing rules of the game or consciously choose to challenge status quo will determine in the future, as it has in the past, how the story of humanity unfolds.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Ethics of generosity

Jan-e-Alam Khaki

GIVING of one’s charitable feelings to the needy has been an integral part of human society since time immemorial. This tradition is now being extended beyond the personal level to institutional, societal and state levels.

The magnitude of giving has also multiplied. The best part is that giving is no longer limited to one’s community, religion or city.

When a natural or man-made disaster befalls a community or society, people and states in many parts of the world come forward to donate, in cash and kind, to the affected people.

Human beings must feel proud of this development — of moving beyond one’s clan or community, creed or caste, state or society, to reach far-flung areas affected by disasters.

Giving can take many forms: sharing professional knowledge, experience, time, cash or kind, inspiring through words or deeds, giving honest advice, consoling an aggrieved person, supporting the elderly, and so on.

In Islam, we have been advised to share our resources — whatever they may be — with others, not just when we are self-sufficient, but also sharing whatever we have in however small measure.

Muslim communities are considered among the most generous when it comes to giving. Giving is part of a Muslim’s daily life, not just an occasional act. Even a generous and genuine smile is considered sadaqa, nay even ibadah (worship). The Quran exemplifies and ennobles giving in this way: “The likeness of those who spend their wealth in Allah’s way is as the likeness of a grain which groweth seven ears, in every ear a hundred grains. Allah giveth increase manifold to whom He will. …” (2:261).

In Muslim ethics, giving is guided by a few key principles. First: giving without boasting or showing off. The Quran very meaningfully says one should give from what God has given, so there is no question of being boastful.

You give because you have been given. Be generous as God has been generous with you in granting you so many bounties. It is part of being grateful (mashkoor) to God.

Second, giving without hurting the dignity of the receiver.

This is done by forgetting the generous deed and not causing hurt to the receiver by constantly reminding him or her of the favours done. An Urdu saying captures this very well: ‘neki kar darya mein daal’ (do a good deed and throw it in the river).

In Islam it is better to say a few good words than to show off your charity to receivers.

The Quran also says: “Those who spend their wealth for the cause of Allah and afterward make not reproach and injury to follow that which they have spent; their reward is with their Lord. ...” (2:262). This means doing good to others in a way that when your right hand does a favour, your left hand does not know it, ie helping somebody away from the gaze of others.

Third, help the needy in a way that you don’t teach them how to eat fish; but how to fish. I add to this: teach them in a way so that one day they are able to develop fish farms to produce fish.

If we only teach people how to fish, where is the fish going to come from? The purpose of this approach is that one does not give charity only to get a reward but to enable the needy to stand, one day, on their feet. The receivers of charity today should in the long run become givers to the needy.

Thus, Islam teaches us a way of generosity that ultimately aims to enable its believers (and others in its environs) to become givers (of charity) rather than receivers.

This is perhaps the context in which the Prophet (PBUH) reportedly has said that the upper (giving) hand is better than the lower (receiving) hand, encouraging us to become givers rather than receivers.

In sum, the ethics of giving should respect the dignity of the needy and help them in the best possible manner; it should aim to eliminate poverty rather than directly or indirectly encourage it.

As part of the education of our young, we should encourage giving with the purpose of improving the quality of life of the needy and vulnerable.

In both secular and religious education systems, as well as in homes, religious sermons and social forums, charity and voluntary service to humanity must be encouraged.

The motto of the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy in this regard is worth noting: “Give effectively, give intelligently, give smoothly, give strategically.”

The writer teaches Histories and Cultures of Muslim Societies at a private university in Pakistan.

Foolish and dangerous

I.A. Rehman

“If the law supposes that … the law is a ass… a idiot.”

“If the law supposes that … the law is a ass… a idiot.”

— Charles Dickens

CHARLES Dickens was not the only one to call the law an ass — many others have been driven to that conclusion, especially in countries like Pakistan. But how big an ass the law can be has been demonstrated by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

An ordinance promulgated by the KP governor last February provides for a novel way to punish the victims of terrorist attacks. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sensitive and Vulnerable Establishments and Places (Security) Ordinance divides vulnerable places into three categories and lays down how the owners should assume responsibility to fight off the terrorists.

In whatever category one may fall, failure to comply with the law will earn him imprisonment for up to one year, or a fine of up to Rs40,000, or both. As a senior lawyer from Peshawar put it, the victim of a terrorist attack, if he survives, may have to pay Rs40,000 and stay in jail for a year.

In this law of extraordinarily broad application, the phrase “sensitive establishments and places” covers all “sensitive government/non-government institutions, religious places, offices of non-governmental organisations, and foreign projects or any other office, institution or place [such] as government may, from time to time, declare as sensitive establishment and place”.

For any place declared sensitive by a district committee, headed by an assistant commissioner, a security plan will be devised by the committee and the owners will be obliged to adopt it. If anyone engages two guards against the committee’s order for three or the guards have ordinary guns where Kalashnikovs have been prescribed he will be in trouble.

Another category of terrorists’ possible targets comprises “utility service providers” and that “means and includes any person, company, authority, firm that for the time being is providing the services of electricity, gas, telephone, water and sanitation, drainage, postal and other civic services”.

All these utility providers in each district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa “shall be responsible for ensuring that no unauthorised intervention has been made to their installations nor any suspicious material has been planted. For this purpose, they shall detail the inspection team consisting of such members as they may deem appropriate in order to check the installations on regular basis”.

In other words the suppliers of electricity, gas or telephone services will regularly inspect the transformers, and electricity and telephone poles and make sure that no bomb is planted anywhere. The suppliers of water may be able to check the overland pipes but how will the drainage staff check the bodies of dirty water?

The third category of places, “vulnerable establishments and places” “means and includes hospitals, banks, money changers, financial institutions, firms, companies, industrial units, educational institutions, public parks, private clinics, wedding halls, petrol and CNG stations, jewellery shops, hotels (three-star and above), any amusement or entertainment centres, public transport terminals, special bazaars, commercial streets, shops or shopping arcades, or any other place [such] as government may, from time to time, notify.”

All vulnerable establishments and places are obliged “to make appropriate and sufficient security arrangements for themselves”.

The first remarkable thing about this category is that it covers all places of business, activity and entertainment. Private homes, including jhuggis and hotels less than three-star, buses, rickshaws and tongas are not at the moment included in the list but only till the government decides to include them.

The second remarkable feature is the definition of “security arrangement”. According to this law it means “both physical and technical arrangement, including the provision of CCTV cameras, biometric system, walkthrough gates, security alarm and modern gadgetry”. The possibility of other instruments being added to make the arrangement “appropriate and sufficient” cannot be ruled out.

The authors of this extraordinary piece of legislative chicanery have simply prescribed the security plan for their Governor’s House for owners of humbler places who certainly do not possess the resources spent on the security of the high and mighty. Those who lack the means to have the kind of security arrangement expected of them may have to choose between jail and closure of their enterprises.

The premises and places described as sensitive or vulnerable are precisely the points the law-enforcement agencies have for years been directed to keep a special watch on. The ordinance relieves them of most, if not all, their counterterrorism duties. Indeed, the KP government can be accused of abdicating its primary responsibility for guaranteeing the security of citizens.

The measure will have disastrous effects. A government that is unable to protect the people loses all claim to their loyalty. The state will fall in the estimation of ordinary citizens and its writ will shrink further. The terrorists, and ordinary criminals too, will be emboldened to plunder and otherwise harass the citizens abandoned by the state.

The KP government would be well-advised to take the measure back before the charge of foolishness is added to its indictment for incompetence.

Tailpiece: The much neglected street children have done Pakistan proud by winning laurels at an international soccer tournament. No words of praise for them will be too high and no honour too extravagant. Their exploit also brings into focus the myopic policies of sport barons. The best reward for these boys will be to start giving football the attention it deserves. Otherwise these street children will wither away alike the street children boxers who used to win medals for Pakistan not so long ago.

Dar’s spring

Khurram Husain

IT’S been a long cold winter, but as the old song goes: here comes the sun. Here in Washington D.C. a record winter is finally retreating, having given us record snowstorms and even a ‘polar vortex’, a climatic anomaly that we only see once in a generation. Finally the sun has made an appearance for the first time today as these words are written, and the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom.

At the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank too, the winter of the global recession is seen to be in retreat and a new spring is being hailed. “I think our spring meetings come at a good time,” said one senior IMF official in public remarks. “With the global economy recovering, with the risks reducing, it gives us a chance to have the whole international community come together and talk about how they can all cooperate and strengthen recovery and make it more durable.”

Contrast this with the gloom that has defined the mood at the spring meetings for almost half a decade now. The theme is optimistic, and whereas there is talk about the ‘remnants of the crisis’, overall the global economy is seen by most institutional observers as being in recovery.

As Finance Minister Ishaq Dar arrives in the midst of the springtime flowering, he brings with him a story of a spring all his own. Just before departing for Washington D.C. Dar met a group of Canadian business community leaders and their counterparts in Pakistan, as well as Canadian lawmakers in an event held in Islamabad.

He reportedly told those at the event that the Pakistani economy was beginning to turn the corner. He cited the clean chit of health issued to Pakistan by the IMF in its latest review, as well as renewed investor confidence, which he attributed in some measure to the appreciating value of the rupee.

The timing is important. The message given in the talk, of green shoots and a new springtime in the economy of Pakistan, is going to be his message for his scheduled series of talks in Washington D.C. where everyone is asking the same question: is it sustainable?

Few voices are now denying that some kind of a turnaround is indeed under way. The State Bank opened its last monetary policy announcement with these words: “Almost all major economic indicators have moved in the desired direction in the past few months.”

The IMF, in a conference call held at the end of March, also peppered its assessment of Pakistan’s economy with phrases like “overall economic situation in Pakistan is gradually improving” and “indicators of growth … are relatively strong” and “Inflation … better than we had anticipated” and the balance of payments had “begun to see a turn”. And so on.

But important caveats are everywhere. At the spring meetings for instance, the big question permeating many conversations is when the Federal Reserve will begin to taper off the extraordinary measures it has put in place since 2008 to support the economy. The implications of a “fed taper” are huge, and some argue the early effects are already being felt in countries like India, South Africa, Indonesia and Brazil.

A very large question mark hangs over the optimistic outlook that some are allowing themselves, and everybody is aware of this. That’s not surprising though. The times are highly uncertain, and questions remain whether the world economy has genuinely pulled out of the recession and left it behind, or whether it is in the midst of a temporary upswing of some sort which will end quickly once the encouragement from the Federal Reserve begins to abate.

Likewise, caveats abound regarding Dar’s spring. Since none of the underlying structural defects of the economy have changed — not the tax-to-GDP ratio, nor the heavy dependence on imported oil, nor the large subsidy bills, nor the circular debt, and the military just got a big boost in the last budget — since all is as it was in years past just beneath the surface, many here are asking: can it last?

Here’s how the IMF puts it as an example: “risks to the outlook remain tilted to the downside. Security concerns remain a critical risk factor … There continue to be significant risks to the balance of payments” and so on. The State Bank too has its concerns, particularly where currency management is concerned.

So here’s some advice for Mr Dar while he’s here in D.C: listen carefully to how the recovery in the global economy is being talked about, and notice how every expression of optimism is carefully tempered with an acknowledgement of the risks. Then formulate your own story with equal care: yes things have improved, but we are all interested to see how you acknowledge the risks, where you lay the emphasis when you talk about them. There is a broad consensus that Dar’s spring is real but running on borrowed time, and it’s important that he speak to that concern while he’s here in Washington D.C.

Even with the cherry blossoms blooming, everybody is wary of another cold spell that could come in suddenly. It’s been a long and cold winter, and even now people are cautious about welcoming the spring.

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

Consumer rights

Arif Azad

GLOBALLY, the concept of citizen-consumer has gained considerable foothold in debates on accountability and governance. But in Pakistan, where neither the culture of civic citizenship nor consumer consciousness is entrenched, this concept has yet to strike deeper roots.

Unfortunately, the potential inherent in consumer rights for transforming politics has not been given the attention which the issue demands. In fact, consumer rights can act as a pivot around which a culture of accountable politics can be promoted. This can begin with emphasising the importance of eight key consumer rights integral to politics, governance, citizenship and accountability. Some of these touch upon the very core of politics concerning service provision, accountability and the right to information.

Take the first right which concerns satisfaction of basic needs. This right not only covers provision of basic services such as the right to adequate food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and education but also extends to the provision of public utilities. This pretty much covers each responsibility the state is charged with. Bhutto captured various dimensions of this right in his catchy slogan of roti, kapra aur makan after which the politics of this country has never been the same.

The second right to safety requires the citizen-consumer to be protected from products and services deemed injurious to life. If we conceive the state as the provider and the citizens as clients, then the safety of life and limb also falls within the ambit of this right. We can see this right being grossly eroded in the way the Pakistani state has abdicated its prime function of internal and external security and protecting people from unregulated and profit-hungry businesses.

The right to be informed is crucial to improving the relationship not just between business and the citizen but also between the citizen and the state. This right requires the state and all other agencies and businesses to come clean on their practices and make full disclosure of their actions where these are forged in secrecy and perceived to be harmful to citizens.

Tied to this is the right to be heard and included in the process of policymaking and development plans.

The right to a speedy and satisfactory redressal of complaints and the right to a healthy environment cover pretty much everything from unplanned construction, environmental degradation, a hate-filled education curriculum and any other action which contributes to the perpetuation of an unhealthy environment.

Together these rights go to the very heart of politics and development. They resonate with the consumers because they affect them in a very concrete way. It is far easier to emphasise how these rights affect them and how their realisation can improve the quality of democracy, rather than peddling abstract notions of democracy which are far removed from the lived reality of ordinary Pakistanis.

Yet these rights and their potential for popular mobilisation remain unexplored. This juncture offers huge scope for building a political project around consumer rights which will have a ripple effect on wider politics, quality of democracy, an effective citizen voice and the state-citizen relationship. But no concerted political project or movement has been built around them.

If the emphasis on consumer rights is maintained then politics become more service delivery-oriented tied to citizen satisfaction, denuded of all its distracting ideological debates, civ-mil relations and extremism. In time this can have a profound impact on the citizen-state relationship which is rooted in reciprocal obligation.

Placing greater stress on consumer rights would contribute to enhancement of the debate focusing on the relationship between the citizen and state in a way that inextricably binds them together. In the long term, the culture of consumer rights and consumer consciousness can contribute to the process of accountability and better governance. In a more important way, this can contribute to political parties getting their act together.

In other democracies, political movements or parties organised around consumer issues have put pressure on mainstream parties to incorporate the consumer agenda thereby improving political participation and making citizens more responsive.

Political parties in Pakistan are too busy preserving hereditary fiefdoms — their first priority — and engaging in the politics of distributional goodies to placate articulate sections of the electorate. With more pressure piled on them to treat voters as citizen-consumers they can be nudged into shifting the direction of politics towards a more citizen-responsive goal. I have a hunch that there is a strong association between better service provision and a strong consumer movement in Malaysia. Pakistan too can move in this direction by pivoting politics more around consumer rights than it is at the moment.

The writer is an Islamabad-based development consultant and policy analyst.

drarifazad@gmail.com

Voting early

F.S. Aijazuddin

ONE is never too young in Pakistan to be accused of ‘planning a murder, threatening police, and interfering in state affairs.’ Mohammad Musa Khan should have known better. He would have, had he not been nine months old. To the police, his infancy was not excuse enough, his bottle of milk too lethal a weapon for him to escape being charged.

Having been fingerprinted, carried in his grandfather’s arms to court to make an appearance, and released on bail, Musa Khan has been allowed to return home where in time, when he is older, he will learn his ABC: A stands for arrest, B for bail and C for conviction.

It could be argued that as Justice is always depicted blind, it cannot be expected to distinguish between the right and the wronged, to differentiate between young and old. But there is a reason why Justice is also shown as a woman. She personifies compassion. That explains why she never chose a career in the police.

If a nine-month-old child can be included as a defendant in the FIR, and marriage with underage girls has been endorsed by a constitutional body, then an argument could be developed for reducing the voting age from 18 years to, say, birth. After all, the infant has an identity and a nationality from the moment of birth. What better way could there be of alerting a newborn to his/her responsibilities as a Muslim than to recite the azan in one ear, and to civic responsibilities with an electoral number in the other?

A second suggestion that the ECP might like to consider is to expand the voting area to allow every Pakistani to have a say in the general elections held in Afghanistan and India. Think about it. In no part of the world, except perhaps for Israel and Palestine, do neighbouring countries figure so prominently in each other’s electoral dramas. India, Afghanistan and Pakistan share an inordinate interest in each other’s politics.

There can be no better example of this than the Indian general election which has just begun its juggernaut journey towards New Delhi. There was a time when political parties issued their election manifestos before canvassing began. In the current election, the party tipped to win the elections — the BJP — issued its manifesto the day before the first election booths opened. According to reports, the BJP high command could not decide how much sulphurous saffron should be added to the mixture before Hindutva turned inflammable.

The 1998 BJP manifesto put Hindutva up front in Chapter 2, where under the heading of ‘Cultural Nationalism’, it expressed its conviction that Hindutva had “immense potentiality to re-energise this nation and … discipline it to undertake the arduous task of nation-building”. The chapter ended with the BJP’s commitment to “the construction of a magnificent Shri Ram Mandir at Ram Janmasthan in Ayodhya where a makeshift temple already exists” because ‘Shri Ram lies at the core of Indian consciousness.’

In the 2014 manifesto, Ram Mandir at Ayodhya remains a priority, but at the top of ‘Cultural Heritage’, where the BJP “reiterates its stand to explore all possibilities within the framework of the constitution to facilitate the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya.’

The vexed problem of Jammu and Kashmir in 1998 had the BJP affirming ‘India’s unequivocal sovereignty over the whole of Jammu and Kashmir, including the areas under foreign occupations’. Sixteen years later, and after more than a decade in opposition, the BJP stance has blurred into: “Jammu and Kashmir was, is and shall remain an integral part of the Union of India. The territorial integrity of India is inviolable”.

It pledges to abrogate Article 370 (that guaranteed India-held Jammu and Kashmir special status) and by definition regards the UN resolutions obsolete. Pakistan remains in 2014, as it did in 1998, guilty of “hostile interference” and “supporting insurgent groups”.

In another month, there will be new faces in government in both New Delhi and in Kabul, but it is unlikely there will be new policies. But then, Pakistan deserves none. By negotiating with the TTP, the government has reduced itself to parity with anti-state terrorists. By releasing imprisoned insurgents without demanding the return of political captives like the sons of a slain governor Punjab and a former prime minister (both happened to belong to the PPP), it has betrayed partisanship. And by pursuing without vigour an Oedipal trial of a former chief of army staff, it has exposed its judicial flaccidity.

Perhaps the canny old lady was right. She refused to vote in elections because she felt it merely encouraged politicians.

The writer is an author and art historian.

www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Brave journalists on the frontline

Zahid Hussain

JOURNALISTS have always faced extreme danger in war zones. It’s a risk that comes with the job. ‘Wrong time, wrong place’ is an unavoidable hazard for frontline journalists. But recent years have seen a frightening escalation in targeted attacks against journalists.

Many more journalists die every year in trouble spots making one pause, even worry. It is more heart-wrenching when you hear a close colleague has become the target of an assailant’s bullet.

It was such a moment for me as I was woken up on April 4 in New York with the horrific news of my close colleague and friend of more than 25 years being shot by a gunman in Afghanistan. Thankfully, Kathy Gannon survived the bullet injury, but her photographer Anja Niedringhause was not that fortunate. She died instantly, her name being added to the long, growing list of journalists killed reporting from the frontline.

The shooting took place in the eastern Afghan town of Khost where the two women were covering the presidential election campaign for Associated Press. An Afghan police commander reportedly opened fire on them in their car with an assault rifle.

Several local and foreign journalists have been killed in targeted attacks by Afghan insurgents in recent months, reflecting a new and very sinister trend. A major objective of targeting foreign journalists is believed to be to gain publicity and to scare the journalists away at a critical moment of political transition in Afghanistan.

Last month, Swedish journalist Nils Horner was shot at point-blank range in the Afghan capital. About a week later, four gunmen stormed into Kabul’s Serena Hotel and opened fire in the crowded restaurant killing a prominent Afghan journalist Sardar Ahmed who worked for various foreign news networks.

But the Khost attack signified a different pattern. The shooting was carried out by a police officer in uniform, highlighting a different kind of threat faced by reporters covering the war-torn country. Until then, only rebel Afghan soldiers had targeted foreign forces, described as ‘green on blue’ incidents. But now the insurgents within the Afghan security forces have turned their guns on soft targets.

Kathy and Anja have been travelling in Afghanistan for the past several weeks reporting from insurgent-infested regions where other journalists were reluctant to venture. Being longtime chroniclers of events in Afghanistan, the duo were fully aware of the danger, but they took it in their stride. Both had vast experience in conflict zones and were known for their fearless reporting.

For years, Kathy has been writing about the spiralling Taliban insurgency. She certainly knew how dangerous it could it be for a Western journalist to travel in remote regions particularly when the Taliban had mounted violent attacks to disrupt the crucial presidential election. Anja and her commitment never waned, even in the face of acute danger.

Indomitable as she is, unsurprisingly Kathy chose Khost, the far-flung Taliban heartland, to cover the presidential election campaign. This was certainly not the first time the two seasoned journalists were in the region, but things have changed for the worse with the perilous security situation in the borderland. They found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kathy has covered Afghanistan for almost three decades and is undoubtedly one the most credible scribes with her unmatched understanding of the situation on the ground. She was the only foreign journalist reporting from Kabul during the invasion of the US-led coalition forces. Her stories from the frontline gave the world a firsthand account of America’s war in Afghanistan.

Kathy was extremely excited when she left for Afghanistan last month. It is a historical moment and a great story, she said, trying to convince me to come along. We had travelled together in Afghanistan many times in the past. I promised to follow her soon, but could not make it. I last spoke to her a week before the incident, getting the latest on the Afghan situation. I should have been there, I thought.

I met Anja through Kathy. A very pleasant and extremely lively person with a smile brimming over, she had many exciting stories to share about conflict zones from Bosnia to Iraq to Afghanistan. She was hit by a sniper’s bullet in Sarajevo; had her foot broken by a police car while covering demonstrations in Belgrade; and was blown out of a car by a grenade in Kosovo.

Working for the Associated Press since 2002, Anja was the only woman in the team of 11 photojournalists who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in the breaking news category for the coverage of the Iraq war. Little did she know that she herself would become a breaking story when she left for that fateful trip on April 4, 2014.

“The legacy of any photographer is his or her ability to capture the moment, to record history. For me it is about showing the struggle and survival of the individual.” So Anja herself wrote in the spring 2012 issue of the Nieman Reports, a publication of Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

Kathy is now recuperating in a hospital in Germany and knowing her she will be back in the field soon. But it will not be the same for her having seen her closest colleague dying before her. The bravest journalists I have known, the duo were inseparable pursuing stories in the hardest conflict zones. Anja you will be missed, but your courageous legacy will live on. n

The writer is an author and journalist.

zhussain100@yahoo.com

Twitter: @hidhussain

Unity and diversity

Rafia Zakaria

ACCORDING to the Pew Research Centre, Pakistan is one of Asia’s least religiously diverse nations. The news came last week when the centre launched its new religious diversity index.

ACCORDING to the Pew Research Centre, Pakistan is one of Asia’s least religiously diverse nations. The news came last week when the centre launched its new religious diversity index.

The parameters used to measure religious diversity looked at what percentage of the country’s population since 2010 belonged to one of the world’s eight major religious groups. The closer a country comes to having equal shares, the higher its ranking. Pakistan, unsurprisingly, emerged at the bottom, standing among 136 countries ranked ‘low’ in diversity.

The story was not the same across Asia. The Asia-Pacific region was defined as one of the most diverse in the world. Of the 232 countries that were ranked by the survey, Singapore — with its population of five million and long-burgeoning economy — emerged as the most religiously diverse country in the world, having robust representations of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians among its population. The other five Asian countries that came out in the top 12 were Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, China and Hong Kong.

With 96.4pc Muslims, Pakistan has proportionally the 23rd largest Muslim population, smaller than its immediate neighbours Afghanistan and Iran. Egypt, Indonesia, and even Saudi Arabia (probably owing to its practice of taking in migrant workers from other countries) all had proportionately smaller religious populations in terms of diversity.

Numbers tell stories, and in Pakistan’s case, they provide certitude to the realities that are already widely known. Behind the country’s apparent religious homogeneity lies the assumption that such sameness will automatically produce a nationalist unity. When all Pakistanis are followers of the same faith, then no dissent is possible — such is the theory, and it is a cherished one.

These, in turn, have lowered and then lowered again the thresholds of permissible difference. Christians hide and flee; so do Ahmedis; and of late Shias too are seen as unfit to inhabit the chokehold of an ever-narrowing identity. Killers assume that with so many exterminations, unity is guaranteed. The silent watchers of the killings assume that with unity, prosperity too will come.

Erected on this foundation, the march towards similarity continues. A Shia doctor gunned down on the streets of Karachi, a Christian man killed in jail, a Hindu girl raped and murdered, all stories can be culled from the pages of newspapers past — all sacrifices at the altar of pursuing sameness and the elimination of conflict. The interest of the present moment is in producing a mono-cultural, mono-religious, mono-sectarian world. It is a world that Pakistanis, watching the mass murder in the name of religion in their midst, seem to believe in. To be the same, and even more same still, is a matter of pride in the land of the pure.

There are no bricks with which to construct an argument of tolerance in the Pakistan of today. The themes of respect and restraint, religious equality and interfaith or inter-sectarian harmony, have all been sung at length, their tunes drowned out by the quest for unity, for the death of diversity. But while the dirge for an end to persecution of the ever so slightly different — the most delicately dissenting — may fall on deaf ears, another truth spoken by the Pew Survey may not.

As the list recounted at the beginning attests, the most religiously diverse countries in Asia are also those with the better functioning economies. Among Muslim countries, Malaysia with its mix of Muslims, Christians and Hindus, is one story of a Muslim majority that enjoys economic prosperity based not on the random luck of oil wealth, but on its ability to attract foreign business, to accommodate difference such that newcomers are eager to invest.

Pakistan’s death march to homogeneity, for all its fury and fervour, is a dead-end road. The extermination of one, then others, and then some more, has revealed reasons to kill, not to get along. Droves of Pakistanis now populate the asylum and refugee lists of any country that shows the barest possibility of taking them. At home, the beast of bloodletting demands more and more, and smaller and smaller differences become the basis of fatalities. There is no end, just an endless circle of annihilation, based on a faulty premise that the elimination of difference is the foundation of a better future, even a peaceful one.

The golden epoch of Islamic history is a dear favourite. In this too is a betrayal, for the most proximate of these halcyon times, the Ottoman Empire, was a time of much balancing of difference, a learning from exchange, an acknowledgment of the good things that can be born of encountering something other than exact copies of the self.

Those perhaps were the indulgences of a secure people, unafraid of losing themselves when confronted with those who believed differently, ate other things, wore other clothes. In exchange, they saw opportunity, and in opportunity they saw improvement.

Ultimately, the exclusion of others is the exclusion of self. The two other countries with similar rates of religious homogeneity are Afghanistan and Iran, one a war-wrecked skeleton of a nation and the other a global pariah. The cost of excluding others, of an inability to manage difference with justice, is reflected then in borders becoming walls and homelands traps. The same may be familiar, even comforting, but it is also an evasion of challenge without which there can never be triumph.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

An Afghan milestone

Mahir Ali

THE general dearth of positive news out of Kabul partly accounts for the enthusiasm generated by last Saturday’s presidential and local council elections.

THE general dearth of positive news out of Kabul partly accounts for the enthusiasm generated by last Saturday’s presidential and local council elections.

Preliminary estimates put the turnout at almost 60pc of the voting population, which is a healthy figure by most standards — and particularly, as the international media has been keen to emphasise, in the face of Taliban threats of reprisals against all participants in the electoral process.

In the event, the day passed without any egregious instances of violence, thankfully. In the run-up to election day, the Taliban had on several occasions demonstrated a disconcerting tendency to infiltrate supposedly secure areas in the Afghan capital.The enhanced security arrangements, handled mainly by Afghan forces, may indeed have served as a deterrent — although the possibility of a strategic decision by the Taliban to temporarily lie low cannot be discounted. In either case, the outcome was a pleasant surprise.

Not everything went smoothly, of course. It is not hard to put a positive spin on the fact that polling stations across the country began running out of ballot papers, but there were also reports of ballot stuffing and voter intimidation in some areas — although the scale remained indeterminate.

So did the outcome of the race to replace Hamid Karzai, who has remained in office since being ensconced in the presidential post by Western powers in 2001, winning elections of questionable validity in 2004 and 2009. The likeliest scenario appears to be a run-off contest next month between two former ministers, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.

Karzai did not publicly back any of the candidates, but apparently persuaded his brother Qayyum Karzai to pull out of the race and throw his support behind Zalmai Rassoul — whom preliminary results put in third place.

The United States, too, did not expressly favour any particular contestant, but there is no obvious reason why it would object to either Ghani, a former finance minister and World Bank employee, or Abdullah, who initially served as Karzai’s foreign minister but emerged as a surprisingly strong presidential candidate in 2009. That was the year when, according to former US defence secretary Robert Gates, Washington sought to get rid of Karzai in a “clumsy and failed putsch” by manipulating the election result.

In an interview last month with The Washington Post, Karzai dated his disenchantment with his benefactor-in-chief back to 2007, blaming it on a surge in civilian casualties and the refusal of his American allies to heed his protests. He also expressed his displeasure over US presidential statements indicating that the primary goal of the military deployment was to serve American security interests.

It would surely have been naive to believe otherwise, especially after the experience of the 1980s, or for that matter to expect that the US-led intervention would somehow diverge from the pattern of previous military misadventures in various parts of the globe. At any rate, matters came to a head late last year when Karzai refused to endorse a bilateral security agreement (BSA) intended to formalise an arrangement whereby some US troops would stay behind following this year’s broader pullout.

Barack Obama huffed and puffed, claiming that unless Karzai signed on the dotted line, every single American soldier would be gone by the end of 2014. He eventually blinked, accepting that Karzai’s successor could seal the deal.

The Afghan president suggested to the Post last month that he would have relented had there been a peace process in place. Both Kabul and Washington — not always in coordination with each other — have in recent years explored the possibility of negotiations with the Taliban, without evidently getting very far. Efforts to divide the Taliban have also borne insubstantial fruit.

Afghanistan’s progress towards some form of normality after 35 years of incessant conflict will inevitably be contingent to a considerable extent on the conduct of its neighbours —- above all Pakistan, whose Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which became deeply involved in Afghan affairs in the 1980s, is accused of still harbouring ambitions of influencing the course of events, notably through ties with Taliban factions.

Apart from the fraught geopolitics and Taliban terrorism, Afghanistan also faces a range of other enormous challenges. In the past decade, infant mortality has dropped sharply and primary education has expanded, but poverty and malnutrition remain endemic, corruption is rampant and the poppy harvest tends to exceed expectations.

The jubilations that accompanied last weekend’s election were understandable but, sadly, may well turn out to have been premature. The peaceful transfer of power — which could yet take a couple of months to eventuate — would indeed be a milestone, but on a road whose course remains mired in uncertainties.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

At people’s doorstep

Zubeida Mustafa

KHALID, who lives in Shikarpur, suffers from end-stage kidney failure. His ailment was diagnosed at the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Karachi. I met Khalid at SIUT, Sukkur, where he was on dialysis. He is fortunate to have a donor — his younger brother. But Khalid has to wait for a few months more till his sibling comes of age.

Until SIUT, Sukkur, became operational in 2012, patients like Khalid had to visit Karachi for dialysis, and camp out on the streets. Today, the travel time has been cut immensely saving patients a lot of hassle. This is what the director of SIUT, Dr Adib Rizvi, terms “taking medical facilities to the people’s doorstep”. Had it not been for the SIUT’s presence in Sukkur, Khalid would have become a victim of homelessness as well.

Establishing SIUT, Sukkur, was an innovative response to the need of the people of Sindh. Since SIUT holds human life valuable and healthcare as the people’s birthright, the Khalids of society “are not allowed to die because they cannot afford to live”. Dr Rizvi anticipates the needs of his patients and responds accordingly.

To make dialysis accessible, he conceptualised a network of satellite centres in various localities of Karachi to save patients the trouble of commuting from far-flung places for this procedure twice a week. When records showed that 60pc of the patients were travelling from outside the city, mostly from Sindh, in the absence of similar facilities closer to home, the quest for a solution was launched.

This took the SIUT team to Sukkur where the Chablani Maternity Home was discovered in a decrepit state. The Sindh government was approached and much planning, renovation and reconstruction transformed this medical facility into a modern hospital that is a miniature version of SIUT, Karachi, with similar facilities and commitment to service.

This was in line with the SIUT’s need-driven approach and its philosophy of not turning back any patient who comes in search of relief from pain. With the patient-load growing as the incidence of disease in Pakistan escalates, SIUT, Sukkur, has proved to be a welcome addition to Sindh’s healthcare system.

When I visited it recently, I found it to be an oasis of modernity with state-of-the-art equipment in a sea of squalor and neglect. You enter the gate, which is barely visible in the flood of encroachments outside, and you are in another world of peace and horticultural beauty.

Many of the facilities that SIUT, Karachi, boasts of are also present in SIUT, Sukkur, which is a full-fledged 36-bed hospital that reported 1,256 indoor admissions in 2012. That year 33,918 patients went to the thrice-a-week outpatient clinic, 16,403 dialysis sessions were performed, 2,400 patients received lithotripsy, the laboratory carried out 111,913 tests and 4,254 surgeries were performed supported by diagnostic radiology services

The only conspicuous omission is transplantation. Dr Iqbal Daudpota, who volunteered to move to Sukkur as the coordinator, assures me that transplantation surgery can be started any time it is needed. As is the case in SIUT, Karachi, all services are provided free of charge with dignity.

Since a key feature of the SIUT model is the professionalism, dedication and compassion of the staff, the postings are controlled by Karachi. The staff is posted in Sukkur by rotation from Karachi. Dr Adib Rizvi, who leads by example, travels by train to Sukkur every Wednesday night for his OPD on Thursday, to return to Karachi the next day. Some of the surgeons in his team stay on to return home a week later. Thus the rota goes on.

SIUT, Sukkur, has reinforced the belief that the government-community partnership model that Dr Rizvi has been advocating is possible. The SIUT’s ethos has impressed the community in Sukkur which has responded generously with donations.

Two donors, Zahid Iqbal Choudhri and Munawwar Khan, have never let the institute down in times of crisis which are common occurrences in Pakistan. As for the patients who have never experienced such compassion and care from the medical profession ever before in their life, the SIUT is a blessing. What is important for many of these downtrodden people is that the SIUT’s philosophy facilitates excellent services without imposing any charges on them.

The SIUT model is doable if health professionals imbibe the ethos needed to provide the best services for no charge and with compassion and dignity. This calls for adopting cost-cutting strategies and shunning ostentation that make an institution self-sufficient. This is how the SIUT has won the confidence of the community in Pakistan which is reputed internationally for its generosity in philanthropy.

The writer is the author of The SIUT Story: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible

www.zubeidamustafa.com

Policing urban violence

Tariq Khosa

WHILE political, ethnic, religious and socio-economic tensions contribute to conflicts, escalating urban violence is largely a product of poor governance, inappropriate security policies and neglected police reforms.

This is the crux of a recent report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG). “The police are demoralised and paralysed by political interference, and a lack of adequate resources and political support,” says Samina Ahmed, ICG’s South Asia project director. “But they could become effective if properly authorised and given institutional and operational autonomy.”

The recommendations are timely and deserve immediate attention at the federal, provincial and district levels of government. Similarly, the legislature, executive and judiciary must not only contribute to improving governance but also display a vision for ensuring that the criminal justice system upholds the rule of law by encouraging police officers, prosecutors and judges who are honest and efficient. This may entail massive purges to weed out the corrupt and the callous.

Meanwhile, the Centre for Research and Security Studies has, in its recent report, identified 2013 as the worst year so far in terms of violence and terrorism in the country. Pakistan counted “11,249 people (5,697 dead and 5,552 injured) as victims of violence”, making the last year the deadliest in the decade-long fight.

Karachi lost more than 2,000 persons to targeted killings, terrorism and gang warfare last year— 373 dead bodies were discovered dumped in various parts of the city. Quetta lost 473 lives to violence last year; the majority of the victims were from the Hazara community.

Peshawar lost 423 persons to violence last year. After civilians, the second highest victims of militancy were government officials such as policemen, FC personnel, intelligence officers and soldiers. Lahore witnessed sectarian violence when a frenzied mob of nearly 3,000 people attacked a Christian population in March last year and burnt down more than 100 houses in Joseph Colony. Some prominent religious leaders were also targeted and a renowned eye specialist and his son were murdered in a brazen targeted attack.

This seemingly unstoppable spate of violence reflects poorly on the capacity and will of the state. Urban violence is still being tackled with 19th-century policing structures as well as the colonial mindset of suppressing disorder through mainly military means. One witnesses the peculiar state response of enhancing the Rangers’ role in Karachi to increasingly adopt policing functions.

Balochistan, including Quetta, have been handed over to the ragtag, tribal militia-like Levies and the FC is involved in law and order maintenance to fill the gap created by the reduction of the police’s mandate and jurisdiction.

The ICG report recommends the withdrawal of paramilitary units from policing duties and the confinement of their mandate to border areas. In the case of Sindh and Balochistan, it rightly recommends the abolition of the 1861 Police Act and the passage of a new law that “ensures operational autonomy and effectiveness” of the police. It strongly advocates abolishing the status of ‘B’ areas in Balochistan, extending the jurisdiction of the police to the entire province — as accomplished in 2007 but reversed by the then government in 2009.

The ICG has also called upon provincial governments to revamp policing in the provincial capitals by “establishing the subdivision as the basic policing unit, headed by a superintendent of police”, replacing the 19th-century policing structures that have lost credibility.

The report also calls for “improving the subdivision’s ability for rapid response and multiple actions providing adequate transport, logistical, forensic and other technical resources”. It recommends enhancing police-population ratio in the cities to one officer for every 260 residents.

It is high time Pakistan fulfilled the decision of late prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 1988 to introduce the metropolitan policing model in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad. An attempt was made through the 2002 police law to create distinct and locally recruited police services in large cities under a unified and operationally autonomous senior police command but the letter and spirit of the law have never been followed. There is an urgent need to rethink policing structures and strategies for large cities.

A new approach to be considered immediately is to adopt a problem solving-oriented policing model in large cities. Special inter-agency and joint task forces should be created to tackle terrorism, targeted killings, kidnappings for ransom, cybercrime, money laundering and terrorist financing. Professionals from different law enforcement, investigative and intelligence agencies need to work together as teams under a unified command. A concerted and unified approach will yield results.

The strength of the police lies within the community. Information collected with the rapport of the local community will lead to intelligence-based investigations. Therefore, it is crucial to have carefully selected community police officers that earn the trust and goodwill of the citizens. They will immediately know, for example, about suspicious people hiring out houses to carry out acts of terror and also monitor the activities within madressahs and educational institutions.

Finally, instead of relying on the Rangers, FC, and other civil armed forces for the maintenance of law and order, it is important that distinct, locally recruited and professionally managed metropolitan police services be created in large urban centres to curb violence and combat criminality with the community’s support. Without public trust, investments in tactical policing measures will not succeed.

A strategic vision to depoliticise the police, make it operationally autonomous and highly accountable is the only way forward.

The writer is a retired police officer.

The other Taliban

Jawed Naqvi

A couple of Western diplomats from Islamabad were in Delhi the other day to probe the prospects of improving India-Pakistan ties, and to find out what if anything the media on both sides could do to bring the countries closer.

I described a bleak picture taking shape. What would you do, I asked, if Pakistan gets to be ruled by the Taliban, through a perfectly democratic process — as the one that ushered in the Nazis in Germany — and India gets a Hindu variant of the zealotry in the form of Narendra Modi, also by the ballot.

The world at large is rightly fearful of Taliban-like fanatics getting hold of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The same analysts, however, have not paid heed to the possibility of a nuclear nightmare in Delhi should a right-wing Hindutva regime take charge next month. In my view, the adventurist quotient in the latter scenario is no less disturbing than the palpable terror of bigots taking over Pakistan.

Hindu fanatics have gained in strength exponentially from the murder of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, which they plotted, to the bombing of the Samjhauta Express in 2007. Their link with the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 and the massacre of Sikhs in 1984 is well documented. The same people burned Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons alive in a jeep in 1999. He had apparently irked Hindutva fanatics with his Christian missionary activity in a remote village in Orissa.

Yes, it is all too well known that Ziaul Haq was the one who injected narrow religion into the professional armed forces in Pakistan. That such a possibility exists in India has become clear in the run-up to the current general elections.

A former interior secretary and a former army chief, both instrumental in subverting peace talks with Pakistan (and perhaps China) during the relatively agreeable administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, are Modi’s ace candidates in the parliamentary race. It is anyone’s guess how deeply and firmly the Hindutva worldview is rooted in the bureaucracy and in the armed forces.

Allow me to surmise Modi’s mindset about nuclear weapons. He is, after all, a staunch member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and the RSS view about India’s nuclear prowess was stated in an (underreported) interview given by a former RSS chief in the wake of the Mumbai terror nightmare of 2008.

Hindutva chief K.S. Sudarshan was asked if India should go to war with Pakistan over the Mumbai carnage. He said war should be the last option because it would not stop there. That was comforting. But, he added, when aasuri (evil) powers start dominating the planet there is no other way but war. You will notice little or no difference between the Semitic view of the end of the world and Hindutva’s faith in the Armageddon.

“It will be nuclear war and a large number of people will … [perish]. In fact, not me but many people around the world have expressed their apprehension that this terrorism may ultimately result in a third world war. And this will be a nuclear war in which many of us are going to be finished.

“But according to me, as of now, it is very necessary to defeat the demons and there is no other way. And let me say with confidence that after this destruction, a new world will emerge which will be very good, free from evil and terrorism.”

The remarks by Sudarshan, who died in September 2012, echoed what Modi had himself said in a TV interview at the time of the attack. He mocked the Congress government as being weak before Pakistan-based terrorists. And he was, of course, for teaching Pakistan a lesson whatever the cost. “I would do with them what I did in Gujarat,” he hissed to an applauding live audience.

It is generally claimed that hardliners soften their position as they move from the opposition to join or lead governments. This didn’t seem to be the case with Atal Behari Vajpayee. The former Hindutva prime minister’s fire and brimstone response to a botched terror attack on parliament in December 2001 led to a scary nuclear stand-off with Pakistan, and a costly mobilisation of troops. Without a bullet being fired Indian landmines killed Indian soldiers.

India’s elections had not even begun when the hawks on TV and their self-styled analysts handed Modi an outright victory. Raghav Bahl, whose troubled TV empire was apparently bailed out by Modi ally Mukesh Ambani, was holding court. He runs Think India, a right-wing lobby. On this occasion he could barely hide his glee at India’s rightward lurch.

Joining the discussion were three well-known former diplomats. There was consensus that India had been too timid in dealing with China and Pakistan. In the case of Pakistan, which one of the diplomats described as a goon of China, it had to be taught a lesson immediately. I wouldn’t be surprised if a terrorist planning to stir trouble between the two countries was drooling at the sight.

With regard to China, India needs to use the Tibet card, whatever that means.

That was the consensus. Never mind the potholes that stalk travellers between Indian towns and cities, but the border road to Tibet had to be immediately built for the military, preferably by inviting private capital. Keep thy fingers crossed, ye diplomats in Islamabad.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Fractured conservatism

Niaz Murtaza

PAKISTAN has become increasingly conservative in recent decades. Conservatives dominate Pakistani politics, and have forced liberal parties to become centrist. However, when political coalitions become too dominating, they often become fractured. Pakistani conservatism faces similar challenges.

Conservatism means resisting change. Socially, conservatives resist new values, often following harmful traditions. Economically and politically, they resist changing existing political-economic orders which favour the rich and powerful. Three domains give rise to three types of conservatives: social/religious, economic and political. However, all three are seen as preferring to resolve disputes through power rather than principles.

Evolutionary research indicates that conservatives possess lower analytical ability to handle uncertainty, as they see things in binaries e.g. good-bad, rather than shades of gray. Many prefer conformity and settling disputes through power rather than debate.

Psychology explains that many currently non-functional human traits are actually legacies from early human history where they served important survival functions. The instinctive recoiling on seeing even harmless snakes that people exhibit today saved numerous lives when humans inhabited jungles. The same is true for conservatism. For early humans experiencing numerous threats but possessing basic technology, conformist conservatism helped ensure survival.

Today, when science, ethics and political philosophy have made huge contributions towards enhancing human survival (thanks mainly to liberal thinkers), conservatism is merely regarded as an evolutionary inheritance contributing little to human survival. Intellectually retrogressive, conservatism blocks the attainment of what Maslow,

the celebrated humanistic psychologist, referred to as the higher reaches of human nature, ie, intellectualism, altruism and self-actualisation.

While it may still prove useful in specific situations, conservatism is counterproductive as a guiding philosophy in this day and age.

While conservatism may eventually disappear along the long human evolutionary path in future epochs, political, economic and social conservatives wield enormous power today. They usually band together given intellectual affinity and political compulsions. However, internal fissures sometimes occur among them since their main goals — money, power and cultural hegemony for economic, political and social conservatives respectively — differ.

Pakistan’s own history reveals such fissures. While political and economic conservatives banded together from day one, especially under Ayub Khan, religious conservatives remained outcasts for long.

Yahya Khan eventually invited them on-board, recognising the utility of religious militants in former East Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto tried mollifying religious conservatives but eventually failed and succumbed.

It was only under Ziaul Haq that the three groups really gelled together, with the generals, the House of Sharifs and religious parties/militants representing political, economic and social conservatism. The three teamed together to change the country’s destiny and vanquish liberal voices — a feat that Bhutto, a self-proclaimed liberal, had accomplished partially.

Thus, among the five possible contenders (Jinnah, Ayub, Bhutto, Zia and Musharraf) for this title, it is Zia who must be crowned as Pakistan’s most influential leader to date. Pakistan today is what he made it to be — intolerant, retrogressive and reactionary. Forget the other three, even Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s influence in shaping Pakistan’s current character lags far behind Zia’s.

However, this coalition gradually fractured into three adversarial camps after their godfather’s death. Economic conservatives found the generals’ political and security obsessions obstructing their ability to mint money through peace and free trade with India.

Militant religious conservatives, ostensibly unhappy with slow-motion Sharia adoption, started pursuing it through force. So weak are liberals today that the most intense battles in Pakistan today are happening not between conservatives and liberals but among social, economic and political conservatives. Liberals are often mere bystanders and idle observers.

Whichever conservative group wins, commoners will not benefit, though many see economic conservatives as the least of the three evils. Unfortunately, this conservative in-fighting does not help the liberals. Going forward, the chances that genuinely or even nominally liberal parties will win elections are lower than those of one of the three conservative groups attaining power through elections, military revolt or militant revolt.

Thus, there seems to be no viable way for genuine liberals to attain power anytime soon. Fortunately, liberals take idealistic slogans like ‘I will either find a way or create one’ seriously. Thus, one hopes that grass-roots liberal groups will either find a way or create one to liberate Pakistan from the monotonous and suffocating conservative stranglehold.

The writer is a development and political economist and affiliated as a Senior Fellow with UC Berkeley.

murtazaniaz@yahoo.com

Questions for JI chief

Muhammad Ali Siddiqi

SIRAJUL Haq’s election as the Jamaat-i-Islami’s new emir raises some questions about the party’s policies at a time when the government is holding talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. At issue is the JI’s attitude towards terrorism — terrorism not as a theory but as the mode of war for enforcement of Sharia worldwide.

This ‘jihad’ has made militants target the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai to London’s Tube and buses to Times Square, the weapons ranging from AK-47s to a terrifying war tool — suicide bombing.

Every ideological party calls its ideology immutable but is forced by circumstances to change. The Soviet CP’s 20th Congress Party (Feb 25, 1956) was historic not only because Khrushchev denounced Stalin’s personality cult but also because he repudiated two cardinal principles of Marxism-Leninism by declaring: one, war with the capitalist world was not inevitable; two there were ‘different roads to socialism’. The Chinese called it revisionism. But Khrushchev had the courage to do so.

In India, the JI has dropped opposition to ‘Western’ democracy and takes part in elections because the party leadership now considers secularism a divine gift (see Irfan Ahmad’s Islamism and Democracy in India: the Transformation of Jamaat-i-Islami).

This ‘revisionism’ reflects the Indian JI’s pragmatism in a country where Muslims are in a minority. What about the Pakistani JI? Do the JI’s new chief and shura have the courage to admit that they have modified, amended or perhaps ditched the ideology as bequeathed by founder Maulana Maudoodi?

The pity is that the JI’s ‘revisionism’ is in support of ‘radical reactionaries’ whose actions and aims run counter to some of Islamic civilisation’s fundamental values such as regard for human life and abhorrence of fitna (civic disorder).

Throughout in his writings — from booklets and pamphlets to the six-volume magnum opus Tafheemul Quran — Maudoodi makes clear that enforcing Islamic hudood (punishments) and declaring jihad are the prerogative of an Islamic state and no individual or group has the right to arrogate this privilege to himself/itself.

Interpreting ayat 33 (‘Sura Bani Israel’) in three notes, the JI founder says no individual or group has the right to punish the guilty and that an Islamic state alone has the power to do so.

Significantly, his interpretation cautions against wreaking vengeance on the suspect in any form — such as killing the innocent, torturing the guilty and humiliating and abusing his body. This should be seen against the Taliban’s practice of mutilating the bodies of captured Pakistani soldiers or beheading them.

Maudoodi’s views on jihad are well known. He was arrested in 1948 when he said the tribal invasion of Kashmir was not a jihad because jihad is not a personal or group matter and that an Islamic state alone can declare it. Today his party is backing the ‘jihad’ of a conglomerate of ragtag groups who have murdered 50,000 Pakistanis.

Their targets have included Eid congregations, mosques during Friday and taraveeh prayers, schools, hospitals, funeral processions, peace assemblies and hospitals, besides military targets of a state founded on law and grounded in what Rousseau calls general will.

Incidentally, a militants’ website declares as ‘infidels’ those it is at war with. A recent headline on its website referred to the two Peshawar cops it had killed as murtad (apostate). The TTP also never fails to murder ‘other infidels’, especially the Chinese, because of the purported persecution of Muslims in China.

Interpreting ayat 72 of ‘Sura Anfal’, Maudoodi says the support for Muslims in a non-Muslim country cannot be given recklessly (he uses the word adha-dhund) but should be given in conformity with international law while upholding any treaty obligations the Islamic state may have with that particular non-Muslim country.

There should be no support, he says, that is violative of the Islamic state’s treaty obligations (Tarjumaé Quran-i-Majeed, mae’ mukhtasir havashi).

Finally, the question of waging war on Pakistan. Addressing a seminar in Islamabad, Syed Munawwar Hasan said people like Osama bin Laden lived in the people’s hearts.

This is difficult to swallow, because Pakistanis would shut their hearts tight if Osama bin Laden tried to gatecrash into their cardiac privacy after the Al Qaeda chief’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, officially declared war on Pakistan — a country governed by a constitution the signatories to which included JI leaders such as the late Prof Abdul Ghafoor and Mahmood Azam Farooqi.

Where does the JI under the new chief stand? Does it support al-Zawahiri’s war on Pakistan? If not, will the JI chief remove the misunderstanding? All ideologies are malleable: if the JI has chosen to ‘revise’ the founder’s ideology the new emir should have the courage to acknowledge this ‘revisionism.

The writer is a member of staff.

mas@dawn.com

The indictment finally

Babar Sattar

THERE is no reason to be neutral about the Musharraf trial. This trial is as much about Musharraf as it is about who possesses the power to alter the compact between the citizen and the state in Pakistan. The crisis of public morality and ethics in this country is caused not because we are too judgmental in public matters but because we are not. Our judgement is reserved for matters mostly private. Why should citizens who bear allegiance to the Constitution not have a view on the Musharraf trial?

In the interest of disclosure, there is nothing neutral about what follows. Musharraf is rightly being tried for treason. If convicted, in accordance with due process, he must be made to serve his sentence. The prescribed punishment for treason is death or life imprisonment. As someone opposed to the death penalty, one would like to see Musharraf behind bars for life. Not because Musharraf is evil, but because what he did was unconstitutional and how we deal with him will shape the kind of country we want our kids to grow up in.

None of the arguments made by Musharraf’s apologists support the view that Musharraf is innocent or deserves to be accorded preferential treatment. If you delve deeper there are essentially two arguments in his support. One, that Pakistanis are not fit for democracy. We deserve to be dealt with a stick and it is in our own interest to be subjected to ruthless authoritarianism. Thus there was nothing wrong with what Musharraf did. His flaw was that he wasn’t ruthless enough.

And two, Musharraf’s trial is not about rule of law, constitutionalism or justice. It is about revenge. Sharif and the judges are meting out victor’s justice. But we are essentially an opportunistic and morally corrupt lot who will dance to the tune of whoever assumes power by any means, fair or foul. We lionised Ayub and Zia, and also Musharraf post-1999. And we are doing it again to please the new masters by beating up on a poor general whose chips are down. In other words, let’s continue being the sordid hypocritical lot that we are and let Musharraf slide as well.

The predictions that Musharraf will be taken off the ECL and allowed to flee or else will be granted pardon by Sharif if convicted, are based on such appraisal of our leaders and nation. We seem comfortable with manifestations of elites being more equal than commoners. A former army chief who ruled this country for almost a decade, Musharraf is no ordinary man. So Pakistan’s universe — foreign friends, guardians of ‘ideological and territorial borders’, the ruling elite across institutions — will conspire to ensure that Musharraf is not reduced to a commoner.

The remaining arguments are all in favour of holding others accountable instead of letting Musharraf off the hook. Can two wrongs make a right? If 1999 was the original sin, why not pressure the PML-N into holding those saboteurs of the Constitution accountable instead of asking it to let Musharraf be? Judges who decided the Zafar Ali Shah case wronged the Constitution when they eagerly handed over to Musharraf the authority to amend the Constitution, which they neither possessed nor was theirs to give.

Can’t Musharraf call them as witnesses and argue that he was made to believe by judges themselves that the Constitution wasn’t something sacred that an all-powerful general couldn’t tinker with? If we have a checkered history of neither standing by the Constitution nor defending the principle of democracy, can’t we start now? If Musharraf or other army chiefs blundered in the past, must the present high command justify a wrongful past? If our judges and politicos were once complicit, must the present lot be stopped from treading a corrective path?

“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise,” Churchill had famously said. The world settled for democracy after all other forms of government were tried and found wanting. If Zardaris and Sharifs are running a rotten show, shouldn’t we push to heal our state of democracy instead of justifying what Musharraf did? Opposition to the Musharraf trial is fuelled by Pakistan’s upper middle class’s veiled disdain for average Pakistanis, a lot it finds unfit for democracy and in need of being civilised by authoritarian messiahs.

If Musharraf were an Allah Ditta and not a general no one in their right mind would even fathom the idea of letting him off the ECL. Those in support of his name being taken off are not arguing that he is not a flight risk, but that he should be enabled to flee in the ‘larger national interest’. Musharraf’s lawyers would need to be creative with legal arguments in a court to establish that keeping him on ECL is an abuse of authority, especially after his established conduct of refusing to appear before the court willingly.

In a world that isn’t made up of angels, ‘let he who has not sinned cast the first stone’ is essentially a claim for impunity by the powerful. Do we not hear such moral objections in the hundreds of cases decided by courts each day? It is about time we begin developing a consensus in Pakistan that all authority must flow from the Constitution and anyone who refuses to profess allegiance to it is as much of a traitor as someone who refused to profess allegiance to kings in the age when men ruled, not law. n

The writer is a lawyer.

sattar@post.harvard.edu

Twitter: @babar_sattar

Reforming the HEC

Shaukat Hameed Khan

IT is disturbing that the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission cannot find a single suitable person for the position of chief economist. It is even more disturbing that the Higher Education Commission still does not have a chairperson. Perhaps a different search committee could have done it differently. Perhaps, too, the HEC needs a chairperson who is not from public universities, and does not project himself alone.

One expected the maturation of our educational system to a level where scholars from other countries would eagerly seek admission in our universities. Our seats of learning should have attained the state where they commanded respect for their scholarship equally in the humanities, sciences and engineering.

A university is a seat of learning and inquiry, with the highest standards of integrity and innovation, and of contribution to the pool of human knowledge, based on the concept of a self-governing community of scholars. Irreverence is, and must be, its basic pillar. Students need to develop the attributes of classical education (using knowledge in the social context), as well as the spirit of inquiry and reasoning.

This must be supplemented with a sympathetic awareness of their own cultural and historical traditions as well as that of others, and of course the ability to organise and communicate their thoughts and arguments.

Regrettably, this has not happened. The HEC remains fixated on investing in infrastructure, or mere numbers (enrolments, research publications and their ‘marking’ system). Many publications are plagued by plagiarism. A ‘leading’ mathematics professor publishes a paper a week! Vice-chancellors are accused of plagiarism, sexual harassment, and poor diligence in issuing fake degrees.

Pakistan’s universities have generally failed to create graduates who can engage in fulfilling careers as teachers, researchers or entrepreneurs. The HEC is in real danger of becoming the bloated University Grants Commission which it replaced.

The HEC needs to be reformed and reinvigorated. This cannot happen with a commission which has political appointees as its members. It cannot be done equitably if Azad Jammu & Kashmir, or Gilgit Baltistan, are not represented. It is not enough to churn out PhDs or publications, or establish Offices of Research Innovation and Commercialisation if the approach is bureaucratic and parochial.

Higher education is in financial distress globally. In Pakistan, public universities depend excessively on state funds, and also resort to ‘self-financing’ resulting in serious distortions. Universities have received Rs240 billion since 2007, and expect large annual increases without serious review. The HEC’s Medium-Term Development Frameworks 2005-15 projected expenditures of Rs1,150bn, with a throw-forward of Rs600bn. This is unsustainable in an economy under stress and a tax-to-GDP ratio of 10pc. Private universities are more efficient.

Oxford University is the UK’s biggest landlord, and needs no state support. We need to recall the traditional concept of waqf for our major mosques and madressahs, and endow each university with land in order to generate critical revenues, supplemented with endowments from alumni and businessmen. The provinces have yet to foot a fair portion of the costs.

Internal and external efficiencies in public universities, and within the HEC, must be improved in order to enhance the decision-making framework. First, reduce costs and enforce a moratorium on new development projects for five years. Why did the HEC allocate Rs227m for three separate departments of biotechnology/biology at the Punjab University in 2013, and what are the outcomes of billions spent on the Third World Centre for Science & Technology at Karachi or so-called centres of excellence? The universities should fund a tenure-track system themselves with stricter promotion criteria, while the process which pays faculty for publication and research supervision is misused and should be closed. There are too many dubious publications in local/online journals.

Internal efficiencies will improve with higher student-teacher ratios, reducing non-academic/academic staff from 2:1 to 1:3, combined with better balance between the workloads and functions actually performed by professors versus their compensation. US states insist on minimum faculty loads. This will have a salutary effect upon the ‘teach-hop-teach’ syndrome exploited by roaming visiting faculty.

Research will improve in the engineering, medical and social sciences on one campus and will ‘civilise’ engineers and scientists, while allowing social sciences to better participate in the evolving relationship between science and society. Currently, universities have little say in public policies as the social sciences are badly neglected.

External efficiencies are poor. Decent employment among graduates is problematic and the ‘business school’ bubble has burst; economic relevance is missing, except in the IT sector. Imagine research in regional history without proficiency in Persian/Arabic. Result: only secondary sources are consulted.

Industry/academia linkages are missing, with hardly any products or processes emerging from engineering universities. The Foreign Faculty Hiring Programme needs a major rethink; universities welcome even mediocre persons, so long as the HEC pays.

There are genuine concerns regarding substandard degrees after the devolution of higher education to provinces, but the HEC too has erred in confusing autonomy with independence. While strong provincial HECs as components of the federal HEC are necessary, we must focus on colleges to resolve the continuing mismatch between two- and four-year programmes.

Finally, the process of research funding needs to be implemented by an organisation different from the HEC. A strengthened Pakistan Science Foundation can bring the private sector into the loop leading to better academia-industry linkage.

The writer is the vice-chancellor of the CASE Institute of Technology, Islamabad, and a former member of the President’s Committee which recommended the establishment of the HEC.

Frenemies

Zarrar Khuhro

WILL they or won’t they let him go? And no, this isn’t about Musharraf, as I’m sure you’ve had your fill of the whole ‘if we say he’s leaving every single day, one day we’ll be right’ mantra that you’ve been subjected to by the media. This is about Jonathan Pollard.

An American citizen of Jewish extraction, Pollard was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in 1987 for the crime of selling state secrets to Israel. Despite massive pressure from Israel, where he’s considered to be something of a national hero, and much lobbying by Israel’s allies in the US political system he has remained behind bars.

Now, Pollard is back in the news, amid speculation he could be released as an incentive for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue with what is charmingly referred to as the Israel-Palestine peace process.

What’s interesting from a Pakistani perspective is the fact that Israel has spied, and continues to spy in and on the US. After all, we tend to look at these two countries as two halves of the same whole. But do a little digging and names like Ben-ami Kadish and Stewart Nozette pop up, along with one person whose work you may be familiar with.

That’s Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan (Fight Club, Pretty Woman) who confessed to having spied for Israel since 1973. Along with helping procure nuclear triggers, he also aided South Africa’s apartheid regime with its public relations, as a quid pro quo for their supplying Israel with uranium. If that’s not surreal enough, take a look at BBC’s documentary: The Secret Life of Uri Gellar.

This claims that the famous spoon-bending mentalist worked as a ‘psychic spy’ for Mossad and the CIA alike, using his abilities to locate Syrian nuclear facilities and influence Soviet leaders. Apparently, he drew the line at using his powers to stop a pig’s heart. Thankfully, this means that model Bar Refaeli remains the only bona fide Israeli heart-stopper.

But onto more serious stuff. In August 2012, Edward Snowden provided The Washington Post with a secret congressional budget request calling for “increased investment in … offensive counterintelligence against key targets, such as China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba”.

That’s quite a ‘wow’ moment, seeing Israel in the same category as Pakistan and China. But then, one should refer to an Associated Press story from 2012, which quotes US intelligence officials as saying that Israel is the number one counterintelligence threat to the United States in the Middle East.

Essentially, this means that US secrets in that region are safer from Iran and other ‘enemies’ than they are from its most allied of allies. The same piece claims that at least two CIA station chiefs in Israel have reported break-ins and that their communication equipment had been tampered with by Mossad agents.

To those who like looking into such things, it’s no surprise. After all the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, had in 1996 declassified a report stating that Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally” — including, but not limited to, stealing military technology.

And then there’s a detailed four-part series by Fox News in 2001 on Israeli espionage in the US. It still exists on the internet, even though Fox removed it from its website. Still, to have something like this run on what is considered a pro-Israel news channel is similar to having an anti-Taliban oped print in daily Ummat.

You tend to sit up and take notice of such a thing.

But why would Israel, which receives unstinting US support, spy on its greatest benefactor? For one thing, it’s because that’s what nations, especially obsessively paranoid ones like Israel, do. Because what you don’t know can in fact hurt you and because, simply put, it’s easy. Given the kind of access Israel has on Capitol Hill, what would be remarkable is if it didn’t go the extra mile and keep tabs on the US itself.

It is, in fact, the US’s importance to Israel that makes it a prime espionage target. Tel Aviv needs to know what Washington is thinking, and needs to know what the US knows about those Israel considers enemies. Naturally, this doesn’t always sit well with the US. A few years back, a report in Foreign Policy claimed Mossad agents posed as CIA agents to recruit anti-Iran rebels in Balochistan. To quote a US official: “They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.”

This should be food for thought both for those who scoff at the possibility of foreign involvement in Pakistan and also for those who view the US and Israel as one entity. Reality is rarely that simple.

The writer is a member of staff.

zarrar.khuhro@gmail.com

Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro

Who’s afraid of CII?

Zohra Yusuf

LATELY, more and more voices are being raised for the abolition of the Council of Islamic Ideology. The strongest demand has come from the Sindh Assembly which, through a unanimous resolution passed on March 31, asked the federal government to get rid of this body citing recent anti-women views expressed by it. Earlier several civil society organisations and women’s rights groups had made similar demands.

The CII has lately hogged the headlines with a flurry of opinions and recommendations that, if considered, would roll back whatever some positive legislation, enacted over several decades, has managed to achieve for women’s rights.

Its first salvo was against DNA testing in cases of rape. DNA tests, in most countries that prefer to live by the rules of law and justice, are considered the most conclusive evidence not only in instances of rape but in other crimes as well. As long as DNA test reports are not accepted as primary evidence in rape cases by Pakistan’s judicial system, the conviction rate for rape will remain negligible and survivors will continue to be denied justice.

Recently, two successive sets of opinion expressed by the CII raised alarm bells. The first pertained to polygamy. In its infinite wisdom, the CII declared that, contrary to the provisions of the Family Laws Ordinance, the permission of the first wife is not required for a man to contract a second marriage.

It should be noted that the Family Laws Ordinance, promulgated in 1961, has been under attack from the religious right since the time it was proposed; the formation of CII strengthened the opposition. The last effort made by the CII to nullify or water down its provisions was during the government of Gen Pervez Musharraf.

More recently, the CII trained its guns on children, decreeing that the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 was contrary to the Sharia which recognised adulthood as reaching puberty, regardless of age. It opined that parents and guardians had the right to marry off their children whenever they attained puberty. While this deplorable practice is still prevalent, at least there is legal protection for minors which the CII is keen to snatch away.

Moreover, Pakistan is committed under international conventions that it has signed, such as Convention on the Rights of the Child and Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, to bring national laws in conformity with accepted international standards.

So who is afraid of the CII?

Successive governments, it seems. It would not be fair to blame the PML-N alone. The current Council of Islamic Ideology was formed by the former PPP government and its chairmanship given to Maulana Sherani of the JUI-F in exchange for support in parliament.

However, fear of extremist ideology, when it surfaces under the tag of ‘Islam’ is so pervasive that some PML-N leaders quickly echoed the CII’s recent views on child marriage, rather than support the amendments to the Child Marriage Restraint Act proposed by their own party MNA Marvi Memon. She was simply proposing raising the minimum age of marriage to 18, harsher punishment for those violating the law and making clear the jurisdiction of the courts in such matters.

Questions have been frequently raised on the need for the CII when the Constitution of Pakistan itself has many Islamic provisions, and the overwhelming Muslim majority in parliament makes the passage of any law contrary to Islam impossible. Moreover, parliaments in Pakistan have been traditionally conservative, choosing to err on the side of caution when it comes to matters related to Islam. In 1974, a relatively more liberal parliament declared Ahmedis to be non-Muslims and, even today, members shy away from any discussion on reforms in blasphemy laws.

Although it enjoys constitutional status, the CII’s role is advisory only. Set up under the Constitution of 1962 as the Advisory Council of Islamic Ideology, its entity was retained in the Constitution of 1973, though the word ‘advisory’ was dropped. It was possibly most active, much to the detriment of citizens’ rights, during the military regime of Gen Ziaul Haq.

During this period, laws passed on its recommendations include the Hudood Ordinances, 1979, encompassing the Zina ordinance, the Ehteram-i-Ramzan Ordinance 1984 and the Qanoon-i-Shahadat Ordinance 1984. The Federal Shariat Court was also established on the CII’s advice. The spate of legislation ostensibly based on Sharia, witnessed during the Zia regime, is a clear indication that any government, should it choose to entrench itself in the name of Islam, will find a willing ally in the CII.

Any ambitious ruler can easily manipulate this religious body to recommend regressive legislation that will create dictatorship in the name of Islam. And that is a danger to watch out for.

The writer is a freelance contributor.

The state’s lost narrative

Muhammad Amir Rana

THE debate on extremism often gets muddled when it comes to the issue of narrative. A segment of Pakistani society believes that there is a need for developing counter narratives to defeat extremist ideologies and forces in the country. Nonetheless, extremists claim they are the custodians of the mainstream narrative in the country which the state has compromised under external obligations and compulsions.

The state is struggling to wrest back control not only of its territories but also its religion-based narrative of nationalist identity that it lost to the militants. This grand religious-ideological narrative has remained an essential component of the strategic doctrine, foreign policy and the socio-political structures of the Pakistani state.

It appears that the Pakistani state is concerned about the extremist interpretation of this grand narrative — the extremists define and explain it in a purist and exclusive perspective — and wants to make it moderate and accommodative. A former head of the ISI, while describing the chemistry of the country’s grand narrative at a seminar in Islamabad, focused on its three basic elements ie democracy, jihad and nuclear deterrence. Extremists and the state, including the political leadership, have divergent views on democracy.

The Taliban and their affiliate extremist groups are against the concept of democracy itself, but others have different interpretations of democracy. For religious-political parties, democracy is all about electoral politics which they believe provides space to accommodate different sects and ethnic groups that exist in the country. Political parties possessed of a moderate, secular outlook including the PPP, the Awami National Party, and the nationalist parties of Sindh and Balochistan have divergent views not only on the concept of democracy but also regarding the other two components of the grand narrative.

These parties are still the prime target of the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s affiliate terrorist groups such as Jundullah. A faction of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has clearly stated that the ceasefire announced by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan does not apply to these political parties not only because of their divergent views but also due to their accommodative attitude towards the militants’ rival religious sects.

Interestingly, these parties have reservations about the peace process with the Taliban but when in power themselves, they did little to challenge the extremist narrative. Their accommodative behaviour further caused their political space to shrink, and eventually the Taliban did not even allow them to run their electoral campaigns freely.

The government and their ideological allies including Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf have no major differences with the Taliban except over the latter’s use of violence as a strategic choice to achieve party objectives. The government and its allies use the militants’ use of violence as a countering argument and tend to build a narrative of victimhood.

Government officials, opinion leaders and even analysts do not hesitate to exaggerate the figures of terrorism victims, and they add to it as randomly as they wish. According to many of them, the number of those killed in terrorist attacks has crossed the figure of 55,000. Once, a former interior minister increased terrorism-related fatalities from 22,000 to 25,000 within a week.

Interestingly, the media and opinion leaders not only take these figures seriously but also use them to increase the weight of their argument. But the fact is, nobody wants to believe in official figures. According to independent sources, casualties among terrorists constitute about 30pc of these figures.

However, the actual statistics of the victims of terrorism would be still quite high even without being exaggerated. Indeed, the state must consider the lives of all its citizens equal and should own the responsibility to protect them. The narrative of victimhood not only exposes the flaws in the government’s threat perception but also creates an impression that state institutions are weak.

State institutions do not face such weaknesses in their counter-insurgency campaign in Balochistan. The reason is clear. They see the Baloch insurgency purely from a security perspective, and no narratives or ideological hitches are involved.

No doubt, the extremists are the beneficiaries of the confusion over the grand narrative and they are expanding their support bases across the country. The expansion in their support base translates into more human, financial, and logistic resources for the militants.

Pro-extremist economic interests grow with the passage of time and gradually they enter politics, and the grand narrative, which the state believes in, becomes a tool in their hands.

Obviously, it’s always difficult for the state to restructure its vision and to create new narratives because this demands a complete transformation of the social contract of society. And there are no signs that the state wants to readjust its vision. This can be seen in the way a wave of extremism has begun in interior Sindh.

The option left to the state is to stop the exploitation of its grand narrative but the question is how can this be done? In this context, are talks a rational choice?

The writer is a security analyst.

Not this way

Cyril Almeida

RULE of law. Slamming the door shut on future coups. Righting wrongs of the past. Upholding the Constitution. Democracy! Rubbish.

RULE of law. Slamming the door shut on future coups. Righting wrongs of the past. Upholding the Constitution. Democracy! Rubbish.

Musharraf shouldn’t be tried. Not for what he’s been charged with. And not for the reasons he’s being tried.

Forget all that nonsense the Saad Rafiques of this world are spouting. Musharraf is being tried for two reasons. One, the guy he chucked out is back in power. Two, a Musharrraf trial is politically advantageous.

Advantageous because both left and right have their reasons to hate Musharraf: left because of the BB assassination, right because of Lal Masjid and the war on terror.

Within a month, he had to give up his uniform. Within three months of that, he suffered a crushing electoral defeat. Six months later, he lost his presidency.

So, we want to either chuck Musharraf in jail for life or sentence him to death by hanging for sending home a bunch of judges — the biggest of whom got his job back, remember — and putting a few of those judges under house arrest for a few days?

Yes, they are screaming and yelling, it’s the principle that matters. He overthrew the Constitution.

OK, let’s work with that for a minute.

Everything — everything — that Musharraf did in November 2007 was only possible because he had already grabbed power in October 1999.

Nothing — nothing — that he stands accused of would have been possible if he was not already in power in November 2007.

There’s an original sin here: October 1999.

If it’s a principle at stake, that overthrowing the Constitution is unacceptable, then it’s 1999 that Musharraf should be on trial for.

Ah, but then the excuses start trickling out. Well, 1999 is complicated because the Supreme Court validated the coup and parliament ratified it by amending the Constitution later.

It’s an interesting argument. Interesting because it suggests that there are circumstances in which a coup can be validated. And that ’99 is different from ’07 because ’07 was validated neither by the courts nor parliament.

But then, what exactly is the principle here? That Musharraf got away with 1999 but didn’t get away with 2007? So chuck him in jail or hang him for trying and failing to do again the thing he once tried and succeeded in doing?

That doesn’t sound like much of a principle worth defending, or even much of a principle at all.

If coups are unconstitutional, then coups are unconstitutional. If that’s the position, if that’s the principle, then it really can’t be argued that 1999 is more complicated than 2007.

And yet, here we are with an indictment for just the lesser sin.

Since apparently context does matter, let’s also have a look at the immediate context.

At the very moment Musharraf stands indicted and folk are exulting the rule of law, the government that has had Musharraf indicted is dialoguing with the TTP.

If that isn’t treason, then what is? Chucking out a bunch of judges and immediately losing your uniform, your job and your government as well?

The rule of law — a phrase used far more than it is understood — doesn’t work in isolation. It cannot be strengthened selectively. You don’t get rule of law by sending Musharraf to jail and rewarding the TTP with freedom. Really, you don’t.

OK, but everyone already knows this is about politics.

Musharraf’s trial is a political decision made on political grounds by a political prime minister.

But there’s also a political reason to oppose this trial on these charges in this context.

Say Nawaz stands firm. He overrules the army, he has Musharraf convicted and he sends to jail the man who once sent him to jail.

Don’t for a second think that isn’t a possibility; it is. Nawaz, if he really, really wants to, really, really can get his way on this.

But here’s the problem, the political one: do we want to be in that political world just now where Nawaz can have Musharraf convicted and sent to jail over the objections of the army?

Already, a bigger picture is emerging of Nawaz as an unreconstructed politician. Wherever he’s had the chance, he’s shown us the old Nawaz. The same policies, the same ideas, the same tendency to choose self-interest over national urgencies. The only thing that we haven’t seen yet is the arrogance — but, if the rest is starting to look like same ol’, same ol’, then surely that’s just a matter of time.

Do we really want Nawaz to start to believe he’s all-powerful once again?

Remember what happened the last time he convinced himself of that?

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com

Twitter: @cyalm

A toothless commission

Basil Nabi Malik

And yet, Pakistan has an abysmal record in tackling rights violations. Human Rights Watch alone, in its World Report 2013, painted a sorry state of affairs in Pakistan where sectarian violence, enforced disappearances and intolerance towards minorities were cited as some of the worrying indicators.

It was perhaps as a result of this, and of international obligations, that Pakistan felt the need to establish a National Commission for Human Rights in pursuance of the National Commission for Human Rights Act, 2012.

The 2012 act implicitly recognised that constitutional provisions and legislation for redressing rights grievances were already present in Pakistan. It also acknowledged that the available mechanisms of redressal had not been effective in arresting human rights violations. Hence, the legislature sought the establishment of the commission for greater transparency, and more effective redressal of issues resulting from infringement of rights.

Unfortunately, the act appears to have fallen short of its goals. Firstly, despite the passage of almost two years, the commission is reportedly yet to be constituted. This shows lack of seriousness on the part of the government.

Secondly, its scope has been limited to the right to life, liberty and dignity of man, including political and women rights, as contained in various international instruments.

The right to life, liberty and dignity in international instruments largely revolves around the protection of an individual from arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearances, capital punishment and all positive actions associated with the protection of such rights.

Hence, by limiting the scope of the commission to rights as envisioned under international instruments, as opposed to their broader equivalents in domestic legislation, the legislature has on the face of it narrowed the human rights discourse coming within the purview of the commission.

Thirdly, the commission has no authority to reprimand any violator of human rights in any manner whatsoever. In fact, as per the act, even if an inquiry has been satisfactorily concluded against any individual, the commission can at most issue non-binding recommendations to the government urging action against the culpable individual. This in itself showcases the legislature’s short-sightedness in creating a forum focused on human rights violations, without empowering it to tackle even the most obvious of infractions.

Further, in an attempt to ensure transparency, the commission is required to publish its findings and/or reports for public consumption. However, the utility of such a measure has been limited by the commission’s dependence on the federal government and other agencies to complete its tasks.

For example, although it is enabled to inquire into human rights violations by way of suo motu actions or complaints received, amusingly, the commission appears more of a post office in terms of complaints regarding the armed forces. It is to forward them to the government, and wait for its response. Once received, it could either decide not to proceed with the complaint, or issue non-binding recommendations to the federal government to take action against the said violator solely on the basis of the information provided by the government.

As if this were not enough, the commission appears to have also been barred from investigating the affairs of intelligence agencies on its own motion. If any complaint is received, the commission is to simply forward the complaint to the competent authority (which interestingly has not been defined in the act). Upon receiving a response, it may or may not recommend action on the basis of the reply of the competent authority.

Quite clearly, then, the establishment of the commission is fraught with difficulties. The commission has been denied effective powers, barred from effectively inquiring into the activities of the armed forces and its agencies, and inherently lacks transparency. Sadly, and in the larger scheme of things, it appears that the commission will have as much of an effect on the human rights situation in Pakistan as a single drop of water would have in the ocean.

The writer is an attorney-at-law.

basil.nabi@gmail.com

Twitter: @basilnabi

Pigeonholed mindset

Khadim Hussain

AS a general principle, states which remain at peace with their neighbours stand better chances of development, growth, peace and prosperity. The fact that neighbouring countries usually have differences over border issues and dichotomies of political interests cannot be ignored.

However, what has helped keep the two apparently opposing realities from spilling over into conflict zone is the formation of regional blocs. The best example is the formation of the European Union, which has not only provided space for neighbouring countries to negotiate conflicting interests but has also opened up new avenues of political, economic and strategic cooperation.

Keeping this in view, we can disentangle the love-hate relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan. While there are only main areas of conflicting interests, there are a dozen in which both countries can cooperate to the advantage of their peoples. The two areas of concern are the Durand Line and the fear of uprising among ethnic Pakhtuns living on both its sides. These have clouded understanding on myriad other converging interests.

The first stereotype that has become endemic in political, security and academic circles in Pakistan is the perception of a homogenous Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ‘Northern Alliance’ as opposed to ethnic Pakhtuns in the east and south of Afghanistan. It is perceived that the Northern Alliance represents pro-Indian and anti-Pakistan forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban represent pro-Pakistan and anti-Indian forces. It is further perceived that the Taliban represent the ethnic Pakhtun population, Pakhtun nationalist feelings and the Pakhtun yearning for liberation. Nothing can be further from the truth.

The Northern Alliance came into being in 1996 to fight the incumbent Taliban administration in Kabul and broke apart in 2001. Though it mostly consisted of Tajik and Uzbek warlords, it also had Pakhtun representation. Abdul Qadir, a well-known Afghan leader of Nangarhar, an eastern province of Afghanistan, was also a part of the Northern Alliance. At present, the Taliban are not only fighting the Afghan administration dominated by ethnic Pakhtuns but are also in a minority in south and east Afghanistan.

We can make a credible prediction that even if there is civil war in the near future, it will be fought between the Taliban and an alliance of Pakhtun tribes in east and south Afghanistan and the future Afghan administration. We can predict this on the basis of the fact that two among the three strong candidates of Saturday’s presidential elections, Ashraf Ghani and Zalmai Rassoul, were ethnic Pakhtuns from southern Afghanistan. The third strong candidate — Abdullah Abdullah — is half-Pakhtun, half-Tajik.

The most important fact in this regard is that the Northern Alliance ceased to exist after 2001.

The second stereotype seems to be a corollary of the first. A section of the Pakistani mainstream media is busy depicting Afghanistan’s democratic transition as chaotic and one that lacks credibility due to the Afghan Taliban’s capacity to disrupt elections. There are two realities ignored in this sweeping generalisation.

First, whatever the result and aftermath of the current elections, the fact that Afghans voted in large numbers on Saturday has been confirmed. And in the run-up to the polls, large public meetings were held regularly by candidates in urban and rural Afghanistan.

Second, if we compare the current security situation in Afghanistan to the one in Pakistan during the 2013 elections, we can reach some conclusions. Three months before the elections in Pakistan and a few days after, “298 people lost their lives and 885 others were injured between January 1 and May 15 across Pakistan in 148 reported terrorist attacks on political leaders and workers, and voters, and 97 incidents of political violence” according to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies.

Moreover, three political parties in Pakistan were virtually blocked out of the electioneering process in KP, Karachi and Balochistan. On the contrary, we saw far fewer attacks and casualties and greater participation of people over the past three months in Afghanistan in the run-up to polls there.

Importantly, women and youth participation seemed far higher. In fact, one of the strong presidential candidates had a woman running mate in the elections.

Academia, media and political and security elite in Pakistan need to rethink their understanding of the importance of Afghanistan as an independent sovereign state. The people of both Pakistan and Afghanistan can benefit from a realistic understanding of the complex relationship between their two countries.

The writer is a political analyst based in Peshawar.

khadimhussain565@gmail.com

Twitter: @khadimhussain4

DAWN Media Group, Haroon House, Karachi 74200, Pakistan

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National News

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Editorial News

TTP’s somersault

Tax focus on lawmakers

False strokes

System in disarray

Healthcare shortcomings

Locker heist

A veiled warning?

Restive Balochistan