Monday, November 19, 2012

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4Pakistani.com

Four killed in Balochistan violence

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 12:45 PM PST



QUETTA: At least four people were killed and a bullet riddled body was found in Balochistan on Monday.

The bullet riddled body was found in Murgab area of the Turbat city, district of Kech.

Turbat Police Station constable Mohammad Azam told The Express Tribune that some passersby spotted the body and informed the police. The security officials rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area.

The body was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital for an autopsy. The deceased was identified as Niaz Ahmed, a resident of Belecha Turabt.

"The dead received bullets in his head and chest," hospital sources said, adding that they were the cause of his death.

The motive behind the killing could not be ascertained as yet however his relative Mohammad Bahshir registered a case against unknown persons.

In another incident, at least two people were gunned down in Killi Umer area of Chagi district.

According to sources, unknown armed men entered a refugee camp and opened fire, killing two. The deceased were taken to a hospital, where they were identified as Nadir and Fath Muhamad.

Another man was gunned down in Saryab Road area near Karachi Bus stop.

Police said the attack was carried out by unknown armed men riding a motorcycle. The attackers opened fire on a private coach cleaner on the Saryab Road, killing him on the spot. Soon after the incident, the police rushed to the area and deceased was shifted to Quetta Civil Hospital.

The dead was identified as Shahmsullah, resident of Airport Road, Quetta. The motive behind the killing could not be known.

In yet another incident of violence, a man was killed and two others sustained injures near the RCD Highway in Nushki.

According to the Balochistan Levies sources, a private company's gas tanker was on its way from Iran to Quetta, when unknown armed men riding a motorcycle opened fire on it. The attack killed one and injured two others. The victims were taken to a nearby hospital. The deceased was identified as Hameedullah and the injured as Samiullah and Mohammad Siddiq.

Weather patterns: Early fog delays and threatens commuters

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 11:44 AM PST



LAHORE: Raza Kharal, who lives in Tayyaba Gardens near the Faizpur intersection of the Motorway, has been late for work every day for the last week. "This year the fog has come early," he says. "I'm late for work by an hour on good days."

Residents of 10 housing societies and five congested settlements on the outskirts of north and west Lahore use four interchanges to get on to Canal Bank Road and enter the city, but fog causes delays of an hour or two daily.

"Getting onto the Canal and into the city is a major hassle," says Yasir Jamil, a resident of Begum Kot. "I sometimes get to work at noon and then have to leave by five so I can get home safely."

But being late is one of the less serious consequences for commuters. Last year, Kharal lost an uncle in a fog-related accident. A cameraman for a news channel, his uncle was returning home from work late one night. He drove into a tractor-trolley transporting iron rods.

"The visibility was less than five feet. Trucks without headlights loaded with sugarcane and iron rods on the interchange and the Motorway are a real hazard," says Kharal.

In 2009, the Lahore High Court instructed officials of the NHA and Transport Department to take notice of heavy vehicles commuting across Punjab without headlights. Kharal says he has been using the interchange for the last four years and would estimate that 90 per cent of heavy vehicles run without headlights.

The National Highway Authority closed major highways in the early mornings several days over the past week. Jamil says that the first day of reduced visibility was November 11. "I got to work about three hours late," he says

According to the Met Department, dense fog pockets have been seen in Model Town, the farms around the Punjab University's New Campus and in the city's outskirts, beyond Thokar Niaz Beg and near the Wagha border crossing.

Muhammad Rizwan, the chief meteorologist in Lahore, said he couldn't say if the fog had arrived earlier this year than last. He said that temperatures in October and November had been similar to last year. If there was more fog, it was likely because of higher dust levels due to a number of large ongoing development projects in the city, he said. "Dust is a catalyst in forming fog when the temperature drops," he said.

Muhammad Tahir, an official of the Environment Protection Department, said that the lack of mitigation measures taken to settle dust levels across the city, particularly in areas where development projects were taking place, would facilitate the formation of fog as the temperatures drop further.

Uzma Hanif, who wrote Fog Hazards in Punjab for the Pakistan Journal of Meteorology, said a positive relationship exists between fog and dust, but mean temperature and humidity also factor in. She said that fog develops when the daily mean temperature drops below 15.5 degrees Celsius and reaches 80 per cent humidity for cities in northern Punjab.

She said that Met Office data for the last 30 years indicated a change in the pattern of weather and rainfall in the region, which influence the formation of fog. She said that in future, the region will see more and more smog, which is a mixture of fog, dust and carbon soot.

Highway closures and accidents

Jamal Zeb Khan, the staff officer to the DIG (Motorway), said that there had been one car pile-up on the Motorway last year, but no fatalities in fog-related accidents.

But an NHA official told The Tribune that there were 117 deaths in fog-related accidents on GT Road between Lahore and Gujranwala from November 2011 to January 2012. Another 300 people were injured.

Khawaja Imran Raza, the SSP for GT Road from Thokar Niaz Beg to Multan (M5), said there were far more built-up areas along GT Road than the Motorway. "Dense fog settles in pockets, particularly along areas with rivers and pastures," he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2012.

Students mark G-B Independence Day

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 10:42 AM PST



ISLAMABAD: 

At a time when Pakistan is faced with sectarian, ethnic and political violence the youth needs to join hands and make concerted efforts to promote peace and harmony.

Advisor to the PM for Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), Attaullah Shahab said this while addressing a ceremony marking the 65th Independence Day of G-B at Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology.

The event was aimed at sharing moments of joy with the students belonging to G-B.

Students presented tradition dances and songs.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4th, 2012.

Israel is a terrorist state: Turkey PM

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 09:41 AM PST



ISTANBUL / DOHA: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described Israel on Monday as a “terrorist state” in carrying out its bombardment of Gaza, underlining hostility for Ankara’s former ally since relations between them collapsed in 2010.

His comments came after nearly a week of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip. An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza on Sunday.

“Those who associate Islam with terrorism close their eyes in the face of mass killing of Muslims, turn their heads from the massacre of children in Gaza,” Erdogan told a conference of the Eurasian Islamic Council in Istanbul.

“For this reason, I say that Israel is a terrorist state, and its acts are terrorist acts.”

Ties between Israel and Turkey, once Israel’s only Muslim ally, crumbled after Israeli marines stormed an aid ship in 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip. Nine Turks were killed in clashes with activists on board.

Italy, Qatar urge immediate ceasefire

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and his Qatari counterpart urged an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on Monday, as Israel and militants in the Palestinian enclave traded fire for a sixth straight day.

“We are very worried about the escalating violence,” Monti said at a joint news conference in Doha with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani.

“A ceasefire must quickly be reached to allow the peace process to begin as soon as possible,” he told reporters according to an official translation.

The Qatari prime minister described the events in the Gaza Strip as “unacceptable” and echoed his counterpart by calling both sides to commit to a ceasefire.

“We are for a return of calm. But this must happen clearly and no side must be allowed to continue to assassinate or initiate side battles,” said Sheikh Hamad. “A truce must be observed from both sides.”

Israel launched its Gaza operation on Wednesday by killing a top Hamas military commander in an air strike, and Palestinian militants responded with rocket fire.

As fighting continued on Monday, ceasefire efforts gathered steam, with senior Hamas officials in Cairo saying Egyptian-led talks on Sunday with Israel were “positive” but now focused on the need to guarantee the terms of any truce.

Monti said his government was in contact with “Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority, as well as Qatar’s emir and its prime minister”.

Meanwhile the Gaza death toll reached 95 in the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in four years. Three Israelis have been killed and more than 50 injured by rocket fire since Wednesday.

The Qatari emir also called for “lifting the oppressive blockade on Gaza.”

In October, Qatar’s emir was the first head of state to visit Gaza since the Palestinian group Hamas seized it from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in 2007.

‘Govt has failed’: Panjgur press club shuts down to protest journalist’s killing

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 08:40 AM PST



QUETTA: The Panjgur Press Club (PPC) General Body announced on Monday to close the press club for an unknown period to protest against the killing of a registered journalist Rehmatullah Abid.

Members of the General Body of the PPC including Abdul Waheed the President PPC and vice president Qadir Bakhsh Sanjarani condemned the killing of Abid, a local journalist of Panjgur, announced three days of mourning in his honour and the closure of the Panjgur press club for an unknown period.

All journalists from the district attended the meeting and demanded that security for journalists should be ensured. They said they would further decide about a future course of action in their next meeting.

They paid homage to the slain journalist and sent condolences to his family.

They said that the attack on Abid was an attack on free media and said that the government has totally failed to protect the journalists who are working in Balochistan.

They further revealed that the murderer was yet to be arrested and due to government helplessness, journalists in Balochistan were feeling insecure to continue their work.

They said that PPC journalists had always played their role by being unbiased but under the given circumstances, they were feeling highly insecure and have thus decided to close the press club for an unknown period of time.

It may be mentioned here Rahamatullah Abid a local journalist of Panjgur was gunned down on Sunday by unidentified men.

Journalists are often threatened over their reporting in Balochistan. Late last month, sons of a journalist linked with Express News were shot at and killed.

Bus conductor gunned down in Quetta

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 06:38 AM PST



QUETTA: A bus conductor was gunned down on Saryab Road in Quetta, Express News reported Monday.

According to police, unknown gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a bus stand located on Saryab Road and killed the conductor, identified as Shamsullah.

Police reached the site and shifted the body to Civil Hospital and initiated an investigation.

The gunmen fled the scene.

Earlier on Sunday, a journalist was gunned down in the Washbood area of Panjgur district of Balochistan.

After the tragedy: Rekindling hope among schoolchildren

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 05:37 AM PST



BAGH: 

Six kilometres north of Bagh city, a winding gravel road rises up along a mountain side near Paddar Nullah. Twisting and turning treacherously, the road reaches a height of around 6,000 feet, narrows down to a dirt path, and ends in front of an open steel gate. Beyond the gate, the slanted, red-brick roof of an elegant two-storey building can be seen.

This is the new home for the government boys high school of Dhal Qazian. Its predecessor, an old, shed-like structure built in the early '70s, was destroyed when the earth under it shook on the dreadful morning of October 8, 2005.

Now, seven years later, more than 300 students from Dhal Qazian and two nearby villages study at this state-of-the-art, earthquake-resistant building, which was reconstructed by construction firm CDM Smith under the USAID's Pakistan Earthquake Reconstruction and Recovery Programme (PERRP).

The school is equipped with spacious classrooms, furniture, a library, an examination hall and a playground. The school's two science laboratories are being used by students from 12 other public schools of nearby villages and towns.

"We couldn't have expected such a grand school building being built here for centuries to come," Raja Roshan Johar, the district education officer of Bagh, said at an earthquake anniversary ceremony held at the school.

The school's in-charge teacher, Muhammad Shabbir, said the reconstructed building has made the Dhal Qazian community look at the brighter side of life.

"It's difficult to forget the images of the earthquake, but the reconstruction of the school has taught us lessons of self help and to share each other's grief to get over the tragedy," he said.

CDM is also about to complete reconstruction of a government girls high school behind the building for boys.

Principal of the girls school, Afifa Batool said she and her teaching staff had to console students who had lost their loved-ones in the disaster and help them deal with the tragedy. The new school building, she says, will help them achieve that.

"While the children lost something or someone in the earthquake, they have also found something with this reconstructed school. I hope this can be a new beginning for them."

The Dhal Qazian schools are two of 27 public schools reconstructed by USAID and CDM in Bagh district. Of the 27 schools, 15 have been completed while the rest are expected to be completed by June 2013, vice president of CDM and chief of PERRP Tarek Selim said.

PERRP was launched in 2006 to plan, design and build earthquake resistant buildings in Bagh district of Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Mansehra district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to replace schools and health facilities destroyed during the earthquake.

Once completed, the programme will have built 77 buildings in the two districts, including 15 basic health units and one hospital. The reconstructed buildings will help provide education to around 17,000 children and health services to around 300,000 residents, Selim said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8th, 2012.

Karachi violence: Bomb attack kills 3 near Imambargah

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 04:35 AM PST



KARACHI: 

A powerful bomb went off near an Imambargah in the Abbas Town neighbourhood of the city Sunday evening, killing three people and injuring over a dozen.

The bomb was planted on a motorcycle, which was parked at a dairy shop located at a stone's throw from Jamia Masjid-o-Imambargah Mustafa, according to witnesses and police.

"The motorcycle was parked by a young man who bought something from the dairy shop and walked away, leaving the two-wheeler behind," one witness told The Express Tribune.

The dairy shop, a nearby beauty parlour and a delivery Suzuki pickup bore the brunt of the explosion.

The bomb weighed around five kilograms and it was set off with a remote-control, Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) officials said, adding that ball bearings were used in the device to inflict maximum casualties.

Inspector General Police (IGP) Sindh Fayyaz Leghari confirmed three fatalities in the blast. Two of the victims – identified as Sajid Hussain and Azhar Hussain – died on the spot while the third expired on way to a hospital.

Sources put the number of injured people at 15. And a spokesperson for Rangers said several paramilitary troops guarding the Imambargah were among the injured.

DIG District East Shahid Hayat said the Imambargah had three security barriers, manned by paramilitary Rangers. This prevented the attacker from approaching the building, he added. A statement issued by the Rangers endorsed DIG Hayat.

Soon after the blast, irate community members gathered at the site to protest the bombing. They also prevented the authorities from inspecting the site. Some of the protesters also fired gunshots into the air to vent their anger. The resulting confusion led to a brief clash between protesters and paramilitary soldiers. A Rangers official and a protester were allegedly injured in the melee.

Several Shia community leaders rushed to the site to placate the situation. Speaking on the occasion, Allama Nasir Abbas termed the bombing a conspiracy by a "third force" to create differences between Shia and Sunni communities.  He appealed to his community members to show restraint.

In the same breath, however, he hit out at the government and law enforcement agencies saying that the bomb attack proved they had failed to provide security to Karachi's residents.

But AIG Iqbal Mehmood said that the attacker could not get to his target due to the security arrangements put in place by the authorities. He added that the security agencies had prior reports about the threats terror attacks. All petrol and CNG stations in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighbourhood and nearby areas, especially those dominated by the Shia community, have been closed after the blast.

Police officials learnt that the motorcycle used in the attack was registered in the name of one Naeem. Police have reportedly raided Naeem's residence. However, details of the raid were not available till late in the night.

Without naming any group, police officials said the attack might have been masterminded by banned outfits. IGP Leghari has constituted a four-member team to investigate the blast.

Abbas Town is among the areas declared sensitive by the police during Muharram. Jamia Masjid-o-Imambargah Mustafa is situated near the residence of prominent Shia cleric Allama Hasan Turabi, who was killed in a suicide attack in 2006.

Edited by Zeeshan Ahmad

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2012.

Former JI chief escapes suicide attack in Mohmand

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 03:34 AM PST



SHABQADAR: A female suicide bomber detonated her suicide vest soon after fomer Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad's convoy passed through the Ghaiba Khwar area in the Haleemzai tehsil, a political administration official said on Monday.

Political Administration Official Shamsul Islam told The Express Tribune that the blast occurred at 11:15am and injured three people.

Islam said that Ahmad was on his way to Haleemzai tehsil to address party activists and administer the oath from the new inductees of the party. "He remained safe in the explosion," the official added.

He added that after the explosion, security forces along with paramilitary troops reached the site and cordoned off the area.

Medical Superintendent Dr Jehangir at Ghalanai Headquarters Hospital while talking to The Express Tribune said that three injured persons, hailing from Peshawar, Swabi and Mohmand were brought to the hospital and were administered with initial treatment. "They are now in stable condition," Dr Jehangir said.

Earlier in October, eight people, including police personnel, were injured in two explosions in Swabi district, when Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti's motorcade was passing through Mall Road, a kilometre away from the city of Swabi.

Hoti was on his way to inaugurate the Swabi-Jehangira Road, when a stationary motorcycle exploded moments after the convoy sped past.

The rebranding of Hafiz Saeed

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 02:33 AM PST



Lately, Hafiz Saeed of the Jamatud Dawa (JuD) seems to have emerged as one of the stars of Pakistan's media, giving interviews to anchors, all set to eat out of his hands. Many in the print media have also joined hands in selling the JuD as if it was always peaceful. On social media, which is infested with youth, who have little sense of history, an artificial distinction is drawn between the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) that brings a militant image of Mumbai to mind, and the JuD, presented as a welfare organisation. The unprofessionalism, lack of training and ignorance of the media is to the JuD's advantage.

Without getting into the 'dos and don'ts' of the claim regarding the JuD being nothing else but a welfare institution, there is a concerted effort to fashion a new image of the militant outfit and make Saeed look like Santa Claus. More importantly, this narrative-change is happening in the West as well. The Pakistani deep state may have its need to fashion a new image of the JuD, but it is tougher to understand why this dressing up is being done by the West. For instance, in the past couple of years, two publications — which are essentially doctoral theses done at top British universities such as Oxford and Cambridge — were produced that aimed at rationalising the JuD and its activities. While Humaira Iqtidar has projected the Jamaat-e-Islami and the JuD as entities, which will eventually secularise society, Masooda Bano in her book has presented the JuD and other religious zealots as "Rational Believers". Bano has tried to awkwardly fit new institutional economics with her study of madrassas and in doing so, tried rationalising militants including that of the JuD. Both ladies are well anchored in British academia.

In the media, there are several British and American journalists who insist on focusing on the JuD's welfare work as if this could be an alternative activity that could become more central to the organisation than jihad. Many inside and outside Pakistan seem impressed with the JuD's assistance during the 2005 earthquake and the 2010-11 floods. This new narrative tends to put the JuD's jihadism on the back-burner. These journalists are happy to buy the argument, which is peddled by the ISPR or even some people in Pakistan's Foreign Office, regarding the JuD being a necessity as it has tremendous capacity to deliver during a crisis.

Saeed's recent interview by CNN was pretty intriguing. He comes out in the interview as radical but principled and human, offering the US help after Sandy despite the bounty on his head. He is also shown as fairly flexible, a man who has agreed to give an interview to a woman despite the fact that he would not break bread with her as she is a woman. We are also told that he doesn't even hide despite the bounty. No probing questions are asked and we don't even get a sense that the anchor has a grip over the evolution or history of the LeT/JuD discourse. The question was what was being said to a foreign audience, which was the main target of this CNN programme?

Why is the Western media and academia willing to give Saeed a positive spin? Why is he being given greater intellectual space that would make him more palatable? It is as if there is a willingness to deal with most of his idiosyncrasies and explain it as intrinsic to his religious belief as long as he promises to stay away from violence.

We could actually be witnessing a process of détente between the West and the JuD for two obvious reasons. First, the strategic community in the West may consider it important to isolate al Qaeda from its other partners around the world. Since LeT/JuD is considered a potential al Qaeda partner, it would make sense to lure it into a conversation and establish certain rules of the game that may allow the organisation to continue with radicalism, as long as it does not graduate into violence.

Second, this is actually coming to grips with the most important reality that the Muslim world is drifting towards the religious right even in Turkey, Tunisia and many other countries. The West has probably also realised its limitation to change this reality. For example, look at some of the Western countries like Britain, where university campuses are brimming with Hizb-ut-Tehrir (HuT). The agreed upon rules of the game in the UK are that as long as HuT does not engage in violence, it will be allowed to exist. However, the British state will also remain vigilant that it does not allow the kind of violence that happened in 2007.

Returning to Saeed in Lahore, perhaps, the West will now not have an issue if the JuD chief manages to get the majority behind him and gets into power just like the recent happenings in Egypt. But that is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future because the religious right or political right wing is not Saeed's monopoly. All prominent parties in Pakistan today are right wing in their operations if not thinking. Resultantly, the voters have a range of choices and not one. Even within the radical-militant-political framework, there are other entities contesting for power like the Sipaha-e-Sahaba Pakistan. In any case, Saeed would have to cover a lot of ground converting people from the Deobandi and Barelvi schools of thought to the Ahl-e-Hadith school of thought.

The head of the JuD may not be electable but he could still help in steering public opinion, especially amongst the radical element. Perhaps, the West thinks it is worth engaging with Saeed as many have engaged with another latent-radical leader like Imran Khan. The search is probably for someone who could neatly organise what is suspected to be a radical population under a banner and helps negotiate with them. The US would certainly not like to be caught on the wrong foot as it was in 1979, at the time of the Iranian revolution. Washington was caught supporting a pro-West Shah when the population was on the opposite side. A better option may be to have partners as Muslim societies drift towards a non-pluralist culture.

A war between the West and the Islamic religious right might not be a logical direction. The religious radical leadership could be as susceptible to negotiation with the West as others, as long as some power adjustment was made. It is just a matter of finding the right radical.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2012.
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