Police bar Ahmadis from entering worship centre
By Azam Khan
RAWALPINDI: Complying with the demands of the locals, the police on Friday barred Ahmadis from entering their worship centre in Satellite Town, Rawalpindi.
Leading the locals, businessman Sharjeel Mir told The Express Tribune that three days back on a consensus, it was decided to prevent any sort of worship in the centre. …
Read more » The Express Tribune
By Dr. Ahmed Makhdoom, Malaysia.
And, this is the reality in this country known as ‘Pakistan,’ where poverty-stricken, shirtless, shelter-less and loaf-less innocents are dying under the open skies and the voracious vultures have a field day and greedily feast on the bodies of the dead.
A large number of people affected by last year’s heavy monsoon rains took out a procession in Samaro town on Wednesday, calling upon the government to provide them permanent shelter, food, health and education facilities to enable them to lead a normal life again. Who will hear their wails and screams of help?
A hate campaign against the Ahmadiyya community in Rawalpindi has been brewing for the last many months. A massive protest rally against the community has been planned by extremist elements for Sunday, January 29th, 2012 in Satellite Town area of Rawalpindi city.
Through this petition, we urge the Federal Government and the Government of Punjab to immediately take notice of, intervene and put an end to this ongoing hate campaign against its fellow citizens.
The least the government can do is protect its citizens. We urge the government to provide adequate security to the vulnerable Ahmadis under attack on Sunday.
News: http://alufaq.com/pakistan-hate-campaign-ahmadis-satellite-town-rawalpindi
Read more » http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-ongoing-anti-ahmadi-hate-campaign-in-rawalpindi
– Dress modestly: Masked men enter girls’ school, thrash students
By Azam Khan
RAWALPINDI: In a first for the garrison city, sixty masked men carrying iron rods barged into a girls’ school in Rawalpindi and thrashed students and female teachers on Friday.
The gang of miscreants also warned the inmates at the MC Model Girls High School in Satellite Town to “dress modestly and wear hijabs” or face the music, eyewitnesses said.
Fear gripped the area following the attack and only 25 of the 400 students studying in the college were present on Saturday. The school employs 30 female teachers.
Attendance in other educational institutions also remained low. After hearing about the attack, all schools in the city shut down, an official of the Rawalpindi District Administration (RDA) told The Express Tribune.
A student of the girls’ school managed to inform the administration of the nearby boys’ high school of the attack. “[However,] the armed gang was so powerful that we could not rescue our teachers and colleagues over there,” Noail Javed, a grade 10 student, said.
In-charge of MC High Schools in Rawalpindi issued a notification to the heads of all girls’ schools to take pre-emptive measures to avoid such incidents in future. According to the notification, a gang comprising 60 to 70 miscreants entered into the school from a gate that was “strangely open”.
All the MC school heads were assigned the responsibility of protecting the students by the notification. A school headmistress wishing not to be named said, “How is it possible for us to protect the students from such elements. The city administration should review its security plan.”
The notification also suggested that the heads should not inform the students about the situation, so that they are not alarmed into skipping school. ….
Read more » The Express Tribune
– London Post journalist’s mutilated body found in Lahore
By Asad Kharal
LAHORE: The mutilated body of 28-year-old Faisal Qureshi, web editor of The London Post, was discovered by his brother Zahid and Johar Town police from his residence in Lahore at around 2am on Friday.
The FIR regarding the incident states that the body bore torture marks and that the deceased journalist’s throat was slit open. The police have taken the body into custody to conduct further investigations.
The London Post recently published a story regarding Muttahid Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain’s alleged escape to South Africa. Zahid Qureshi claims that his brother had been receiving death threats in the past week from men who said they were from the MQM.
Zahid told The Express Tribune that he immediately became suspicious when he called his brother late last night but was unable to get through to him as his mobile was switched off.
He proceeded to go to his brother’s house in Johar Town, to find that the gate had traces of blood on it. Zahid notified the police, who arrived at the scene and entered the house to find Faisal dead.
Zahid claims that this was a target killing and that his brother was murdered because of the news he had published regarding the MQM. ….
Read more → The Express Tribune
– A telephonic address – by Hakim Hazik
We trust in God and his midil cilass apostles. We believe in Hazrat Uzi. We think he biraught His bilessings and piratection to the United nation. His out istanding cantribution to humanity and the Gireat Port City was the Uzi sub machine gun and the machine pistol. This has allowed the rule af la to established in our community which is able to live in peace and fire upon the brigands and sub human ambulance dirivers firam the comfort af their own homes or as they dirive by on their jaunty motor bikes.
This has allowed them piratection and the piratection money, which can be collected, on schedule and with no fuss. This has made it possible for the Gireat Port City Istate to take giant istrides in business and caamrus.
This City Istate is home to the Refugee Nation. This nation was ispecially chosen by God to trek across the Rajputana Desert and populate the arid Arabian Sea coast. It was due to the vision and tenacity of your Quaid that this city rose like a miracle from the uninhabited sands and became the beacon of peace and pirasperity in the region, where peepil live in harmony and islaughter one another in a liberal and damociratic fashion.
As ambulances flit to and firo, carrying the dead and the dying, with sirens iscreaming and biloo lights filashing, we can look back in satisfaction and say with piride that we have achieved what our ancestors had direamed af, by the banks of Jamna. If you want to see a heaven on earth, you must visit Orangi Town, Kasba Colony and the Isplit Hill. This is the land af milk and honey. This is the piramised land.
It was us who biraught the bilessings af civilisation to this backwater. I am the most impartant arrival in this city since Mohammad bin Qasim. Istudents af history will remember that he went back to Damascus in a gunny bag. To commemorate his martyrdom we have introduced this noble custom in the Port City. In addition, we hanour the lucky few, chosen far this tireatement, by removing their heads first. (Their eyes even before that). This custom is another cultural mile istone.
We isport the Kashmir caaz. For this, our nation has made gireat sacrifices. This is the core issue and has to be salved before all other issues. Although we isport the composite dialogue, there won’t be any peace in the region unless United wins the two seats. Only then the issue will be resolved amicably and we shall jyne the gornamint. After this we shall be able to make piragress on Siachen and Sir Creek. However, let this be very cilear: We will never compromise an the kmishnary system and we will never give up the kunda system. We want the mayor and we want the kunda. This is the foundation istone af our ideology.
The Peaceable Governor may come back but what we really need is the Son af the Soil to leave. We did nat come to this city naked or hungry. But if the Son af the Soil is nat careful, he may leave in such an istate. He may have to take Birather Biloo Iskies with him. He can go to Islamabad ar he can go to Damascus. The choice is his.
Courtesy: → ViewPoint
ISLAMABAD – The arrest of Brigadier Ali Khan, a senior officer of the Pakistan army, for his alleged ties to Hizbul Tehrir (HuT), a banned Islamic militant group believed to be working in tandem with al-Qaeda under the garb of pan-Islamism, has brought into the open conflicting Islamists and reformists ideologies that have split the military’s rank and file for a decade.
Pakistani armed forces spokesman Major General Athar Abbas confirmed Khan has been arrested due to his links to the HuT and was being interrogated by the Special Investigation Branch of the Military Intelligence. The brigadier, who had been posted at the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the army in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, was taken into custody on May 6, hardly three days after the May 2 killing of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in a US military raid in Abbottabad. …
Read more:→ ASIA TIMES ONLINE
By Eunice Yoon, CNN
The authorities here are obviously nervous. My crew and I are sitting in a local government building being questioned by six propaganda officials.
One of them is scribbling down our credentials in a worn pocket-sized notebook. My producer, Steven Jiang, is talking non-stop to one officer who looks especially nonplussed.
We traveled to the manufacturing town of Xintang to investigate why thousands of migrant workers suddenly took to the streets just a week ago.
We knew the unrest was triggered by what appeared to be a minor event — a pregnant migrant worker and her husband got in a scuffle with city officials and she ended up falling on the ground.
However, the ferocity by which this dispute exploded in a massive conflagration, pitting thousands of enraged workers against hundreds of riot police, took many by surprise.
The unrest seems to belie the image of China as a bustling economy going from strength to strength, enriching the lives of millions across the country, especially in the industrial south. But the problem is many people feel they are not getting their fair share of the rapid growth. …
Read more: → CNN
It was embarrassing enough for the people of Pakistan to find out that Osama bin Laden was living in their midst for years. Even more shameful was the realization that their politicians are incapable of questioning the security apparatus of the country. The masses rallied and protested and faced hardships for months to kick General Pervez Musharraf out of power. They voted the Pakistan People’s Party, the most widely-based and allegedly liberal party to power, believing that democracy has been restored.
Though the leader of the government, President Asif Ali Zardari has been blamed for everything going wrong in the country and is regarded as a corrupt individual, until now there has been a perceived upside that Pakistan is being led by an elected government and not a military dictatorship.
This illusion of so-called civilian supremacy silently burst like a bubble when the head of the ISI, General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, and the Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani were called before the parliament to answer for their incompetence related to the May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. The agenda was to inquire about the U.S. attack and why the state security apparatus was unaware of Osama bin Laden’s presence.
But what happened during the closed door meeting revealed once again that the real power in Pakistan still lies with the army and the ISI, not the politicians.
It had been suggested that heads would roll, the foreign aid and the big chunk of national budget that the army receives would be scrutinized. The parliamentarians dropped the ball again and lost another opportunity to exert their authority over other institutions of the state. Once again it became clear who really runs Pakistan.
The last time a civilian government had an opportunity to put the army in its place was in 1971, following the Pakistan army’s defeat in the war that led to the loss of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s then-president and founder of the Pakistan People’s Party, got off to a promising start by placing former dictator General Yahya Khan under house arrest. He re-organized the Pakistan Armed Forces and boosted the military’s morale. But Bhutto also restored their hubris. Years later, his own appointed Army Chief, General Zia ul-Haq, would overthrow Bhutto’s government and send him to the gallows.
During Zia’s 11 year rule, the Russians invaded Afghanistan and withdrew. The army grew so strong that even after Zia’s death in a plane crash, the new chief of the military did not allow the democratically elected Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, to tour the country’s nuclear facility. She was labelled anti-Pakistan and an American agent.
It is ironic to witness that the opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), which was created with the support of the army to counter the PPP’s popularity, is now asking the tough questions about covert operations and the finances of the military.
By snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Pakistan’s ruling party, Bhutto’s PPP, is losing its chance to demonstrate leadership and moral authority. They failed to hold the army accountable for the thousands of civilians and security officers killed in the war on terror in Pakistan. They did not press the chief of the generously-funded army to explain how OBL could have lived in a military garrison town for six years.
These are the same parliamentarians who extended General Kiyani’s tenure. The same parliamentarians who extended ISI Chief General Pasha’s tenure. The boastful parliamentarians who had promised to leave no stone unturned roared like lions for the cameras but behaved like lambs behind closed doors.
It was reported that opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar tried to deliver a speech during the question and answer session, only to be snubbed by General Pasha in front of a full house. Pasha claimed that he ‘knew’ why he was being targeted by the opposition leader, alleging that Nisar had asked him for a personal favor, which he, as DG ISI, refused to extend. An embarrassed Chaudhry Nisar was said to have been taken aback as Pasha continued with his ‘counter-attack’.
Then the tail furiously wagged the dog. General Pasha reportedly offered to resign. Rather than demanding that the ISI chief step down immediately, apparently the parliamentarians did not accept his resignation.
The state run television channel could have returned to its heyday of running prime time programming that kept the country glued to their sets by recording that “closed door” meeting to broadcast later as a drama — or farce.
Some idealistic Pakistanis hoped that the U.S. would finally question the secretly played “double game.” After all, the U.S. supported extensions of Kiyani’s and Pasha’s tenures, claiming that keeping the chiefs in their positions would help to continue the war on terror in an orderly fashion. The U.S. abandoned the people of Pakistan by siding with the army once again, pledging support and failing to attach any strings or conditions to the military aid it provides.
Cowed by Kiyani’s and Pasha’s brazen displays, Pakistan’s parliament passed a resolution that drone attacks should be stopped and that the operations like the one carried out on May 2nd won’t be tolerated in future.
The parliament has an obligation to explain to the public not only how and why Osama bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, but why the Taliban continues to carry out its bloody operations, and why al Qaeda leaders have been given safe haven. The risk of allowing these questions to remain unanswered is that the military will gain more strength over the civilian government.
The parliamentarians who are supposed to represent the people of Pakistan abrogated their responsibility for the sake of staying in office for few more months, while at the same time making it clear who the country’s rulers truly are.
Courtesy: Wichaar
NEW YORK: Taliban has been given a free-run in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province bordering Afghanistan and its hardscrabble capital city of Quetta, which has been declared off-limits by Pakistani military to US predator strikes.
The outfit’s military chief Mulla Abdul Qayyum Zakir , ranked number two after Mullah Omar, and his men are operating with impunity in the high-desert landscape and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence ( ISI )) seems to be giving them a free hand, ‘Newsweek’ reported.
“They are coming and going in groups without end,” says a senior Quetta politician, an ethnic Pashtun.
“Whatever the Taliban is doing is supervised and monitored by the [Pakistani] intelligence agencies”, he said.
Old hands among the insurgents say it reminds them of 1980s Peshawar, where anti-Soviet mujahedin operated openly with the ISI’s blessing and backing, the magazine reported.
The free rein to the Taliban fighters, the magazine said comes at a time when the terror outfit is planning its biggest surge- Operation Badr, the spring offensive in Afghanistan, where it is hoping to push in every single cadre.
The magazine however said that the Taliban preparations were overshadowed by the America’s commando assault which felled the al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
The assault has left Taliban cadres and commanders stunned, despondent and uncharacteristically worried, ‘Newsweek’ quoted Zabihullah, a senior Taliban adviser. “It conveys a message to all Taliban leaders that no one is safe”.
The new Taliban military chief 38-year-old Zakir, a former Guantanamo inmate who was released to Afghan authorities holds eight to ten meetings a day in Quetta’s teeming, impoverished ethnic-Pashtun neighbourhood trailed by half-a-dozen aides on motorcycles.
‘Newsweek’ said, thousands of Taliban slogans cover the walls in and around the dusty frontier town of Kuchlak, some 14 kilometres northwest of Quetta. “The Only Solution Is Jihad Against the Invaders,” says one. “Mullah Omar Is a Dagger Raised to Strike Each Occupier,” says another.
A local government councillor says the area’s mosques and madrassas are packed with insurgents in need of temporary lodging as they head back to Afghanistan. Way stations have been set up all over the region in rented houses, he says, and swarms of Taliban pass through town on motorbikes every day. Most carry Pakistani national identity cards. “They’re enjoying the hospitality of the ‘black legs’ [derogatory slang for the ISI],” he says. He worries that the local culture is being Talibanized.
At least 20 local madrassa students have disappeared, most likely to join the fight in Afghanistan, he says, and Taliban backers are even trying to stop the traditional music and dancing at weddings. “‘How can you sing and dance when we’re dying?’ they tell us.”
A senior intelligence officer says he’s heard that Mullah Omar considers this year an important test for Zakir. “Our emir is giving Zakir a chance to prove himself,” he says. “If he does well, he stays; if not, there are others who can take over.”
Of course, no one has seen Omar since he fled into the mountains on the back of Baradar’s motorcycle nearly 10 years ago. And Zakir might do well to remember what happened to Osama bin Laden.
Courtesy: The Economic Times
LAHORE: Pakistan’s most populous province has cancelled six aid agreements with the United States in protest over the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, its law minister said on Friday.
Pakistan hailed bin Laden’s death as a big step against militancy but was incensed by the raid in a garrison town not far from the capital, saying it was a violation of sovereignty.
The operation severely strained already uneasy ties between the United States and Pakistan, whose cooperation is needed to stabilise Afghanistan.
“We have cancelled six MOUs (memorandums of understanding) with the United States in the fields of health, education and solid waste management,” said Rana Sanaullah, Law Minister of Punjab, the country’s political nerve centre. …
Read more : DAWN
– PML-N demands independent probe on bin Laden
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s opposition leader Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday demanded a full independent investigation over Osama bin Laden’s presence in the country, rejecting the government’s internal military probe.
“We completely reject the prime minister’s committee. It is powerless and cannot investigate the matter in depth,” he told a news conference shortly after returning to Pakistan from medical treatment in Britain.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday announced that a lieutenant general would head an inquiry “to get to the bottom of how, when and why” bin Laden had been hiding in the garrison town where he was killed by US forces. …
Read more : DAWN
– Parachinaris await next broken promise
Frustrated by lawmakers and politicians’ apathy and enraged by the negligence and indifference of the government and security apparatus, scores of youth and children from Parachinar held a protest march on Monday against the continuing siege of their town and killings of innocent commuters by militants.
Carrying coffins bearing the names of people brutally killed by extremists on their shoulders, the protesters marched from National Press Club to parliament house where the lower house was in session. The most noticeable thing in the rally, held on the 19th consecutive day of their peaceful protest, was the sight of young children wearing white shrouds. According to a press release issued on Monday by the youth of Parachinar, all the protesters were demanding was for the government to clear and open the Thal-Parachinar Road, which has been blocked for the last four years, and the continuing blockage of the road has created a plethora of problems for the people of the area. …
Read more : The Express Tribune
ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI: Pakistan’s most influential Islamist party urged its followers to hold mass protests on Friday to demand their government withdraw its support of the US war on militancy after US commandos killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad.
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), one of the country’s biggest religious political parties, said the United States had violated the sovereignty of key ally Pakistan by sending its own forces into the garrison town of Abbottabad to kill the al Qaeda leader.
Pakistan’s support is key to US efforts to combat Islamist militants, and also to fighting against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
“Even if there was any sympathy for the Americans that would dissipate after the way they crushed and violated our sovereignty and our independence,” JI chief Syed Munawar Hasan told Reuters on Thursday. …
Read more : DAWN
– Insecurity envelops Balochi Hindus after a series of abductions. Many are emigrating.
by Mariana Baabar
In the inhospitable terrain of Balochistan, perennially outside Islamabad’s shrinking circle of control, marauding gangs have made it a habit of targeting people even on days of celebration. It was so with Maharaj Lakhmi Chand Garji, the 82-year-old head priest of the ancient Kali Mata Mandir in the town of Kalat. …
via- Globeistan -Read more : OutLook
Suicide bomb strikes Pakistan hospital
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 10 (UPI) — At least nine people were killed and 28 wounded in a suicide bombing at a hospital in northwestern Pakistan Friday, police said.
The target was the gate of the al-Zuhra hospital and maternity center in Pass Kalay, a town in the district of Hangu, Police Chief Abdul Rashid Khan told CNN. …
Read more : UPI
Municipal officers differ on why a ban is desirable
LAHORE: Town municipal officers (TMOs) across Lahore continue to grapple with the idea of banning women as vendors in Sunday Bazaars as was announced by Ahad Cheema, the DCO, two weeks ago.
The actual implementation of the order, for which Cheema had not given a reason for, still seems distant. In the Sunday Bazaars set up at Ravi Town and Iqbal Town, among others, female vendors were seen selling as usual without any opposition by the local market committee representatives. ….
Read more : The Express Tribune
by Jamil Hussain Junejo, Bin Qasim Town, Karachi
The society where man has to strive hard for the attainment of its basic rights, there people don’t even think of the rights of the animals. If in normal situation, animals are deprived of their rights, then it is very hard of think of the lives of the animals in any disaster.
At the time of inundation of Tando Hafiz town, Distrcit Thatta panic gripped the people who rushed to save their lives. But a local resident Khameeso Mallah preferred to save his dogs, while leaving his abode. In his understanding people would be rescued by boats standing there and nobody will come to rescue animals. It might be surprising for neighbourers that how he was taking risk of his live, saving dogs, but he did. He saved all the four dogs.
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