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India-Pakistan

Nuggets From The Urdu Press

2012-07-29

Retired diplomats and columnists Columnist Nusrat Javeed confided in Express that he was reporting from Islamabad for the past decades but could not help noticing that Pak diplomats had a way of becoming great columnists after retirement. They posed as great world wanderers (jahan-deeda) who had solutions for all problems of foreign policy. They appeared in English dailies with their hair appropriately blackened to hide their senility and wrote insincere and dishonest opinion while appearing to be great philosophers (buqrat). Faisal Saleh 'King of Corruption' Reported in Jinnah Federal Minister Housing and Works Faisal Saleh Hayat was the king of corruption in the PPP government with relatives ensconced in high bureaucratic offices easing his corrupt practices (haer-pher). Now the officers had appealed to the Supreme Court to look into the activities of Mr Hayat. They complained that Mr Hayat was in the habit of getting wrong things done through verbal orders for which he had his frontmen. He took 12 percent at the time of tendering and took 2 percent monthly as his share. Dawood Ibrahim locations Daily Nawa-e-Waqt reported that India had given to Islamabad locations within Pakistain where the most wanted Indian smuggler and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim could be found. Among the various places where Dawood Ibrahim could be seen enjoying Pakistain's hospitality were houses in Islamabad and Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... . Along with Mullah Umar and the Haqqani brothers, Ibrahim's presence in Pakistain is denied by Pakistain. No confederation with India, please! Reported in Nawa-e-Waqt a number of highly respectable citizens led by Dr MA Soofi said that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... politicians and railways minister Ghulam Bilour had gone bonkers recommending that Pakistain join India in a confederation. They said the statement was ghaddaari (treason) against Pakistain. They said that those like Bilour who recommended the confederation were on the payroll of the Americans. Nor would the Indians be keen on the idea, and who can blame them? They have enough Muslims of their own. After Haqqani, Dr Afridi Columnist Nusrat Javeed wrote in Express that first Pakistain caught hold of Husain Haqqani and called him traitor on the evidence provided by an enemy of Pakistain Mansoor Ijaz, blaming Haqqani through red-capped persons that the Americans could not have got to the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse... if Haqqani had not issued numberless visas to American spies. Then after the case against Haqqani became a fiasco because Haqqani bravely ran away to the US, Paks got hold of Dr Afridi who has now been convicted by a jirga in the Khyber Agency on charges that had nothing to do with the death of Osama bin Laden. Because when you're an army with a country, laws and stuff are for the rubes -- you can do as you please, including venting your spleen on the man who helped demonstrate the extent of your jihadi vileness. Roedad Khan's secrets Columnist Nusrat Javeed wrote in Express stating that retired interior secretary Roedad Khan was vociferous about thieves and dacoits (chor lutairay) ruling Pakistain and how they deserved to be removed by the Army. But the columnist recalled how during the East Pakistain crisis when General Yahya threatened East Pakistain with dire punishment it was Roedad Khan in the top bureaucracy who was heard complimenting the dictator for taking a tough line. And no doubt his wife was among those pleased that the West Pakistan soldiers were improving the beauty of the East Pakistanis by giving their women so many light-skinned babies. Historian and wandering ghosts World famous Pak historian Dr Safdar Mehmood Who? wrote in Jang that his spiritual mentor Sarfraz Shah Sahib had revealed to him that when people sleep their souls start wandering around and seeing incidents they don't see in real life. That is why often people recognised a new place as a point they had visited before. The historian then propounded the theory that human consciousness didn't register the wandering of the soul but got occasional glimpses of them. Lovers burnt by panchayat Daily Jinnah reported that in Multan two lovers were called to the panchayat after it was discovered that they had a liaison. The Panchayat decided that the two should be burnt to death. One Aftab Bhutta carried out the sentence and burnt the lovers. After that the panchayat expeditiously departed at a goodly pace but nine people who sat as judges were hauled by the police but the two lovers were most likely to succumb to the burns. Pakistan, Land of the Pure. Good and bad views of Balochistan Famous retired general of Steel Mills fame Abdul Qayyum wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt that in a seminar in Islamabad Mushahid Hussain and Hamid Mir made good speeches on Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... but it was a pity that Mushahid Husain and his party had joined the PPP coalition. Unfortunately, some speakers led by Asma Jahangir spoke against the Army and it appeared that in their eyes the only enemy of Pakistain were the Army and the ISI. That certainly is one point of view... Zardari overdid it! Writing in Jang Saleem Safi stated that the Army did not want to be excessive in its response to American actions nor to be too intense, but it hoped that some firmness would be good to improve Pakistain's financial position. But President Zardari was scared of the coming elections and wanted to be to on the right side of anti-American public passion and therefore decided to be inflexible towards the Americans. Thus he took a line quite contrary to the Army's plan. This step led to Pak-US relations hitting bottom. Meera attacks Reema Reported in Express famous filmstar Meera said that another Pak filmstar Reema had given proof of her lack of intelligence by marrying an aged (buzurg) doctor in the US. She said she was highly ungrateful and selfish by not inviting Mira to her wedding. She said that she had broken a decade-long oath of not talking to Reema by assenting to work in her movie for free but she had ignored her. The poor darling! Dr Afridi and Mangal Bagh Reported in Nawa-e-Waqt Dr Shakeel Afridi was convicted by a tribal court for collaborating with the terrorist organization Lashkar Islam led by Mangal Bagh F...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency... . (The paper did not name the organization lest it kill its news hounds and simply said kaaladam party.) The report said that Lashkar Islam denied that Dr Afridi ever had links with it. But it said that if they ever got hold of Dr Afridi they would kill him. Dr Afridi deserves sympathy Columnist Saleem Safi wrote in Jang that Dr Afridi was convicted for treason but such generals as Musharraf, Mehmood Durrani, Hameed Gul, Asad Durrani, Aslam Beg ...occasionally incoherent retired four-star general who was the Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army, succeeding the creepy General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, after the latter was rubbed out died in an air crash in 1988. The general was involved up to his hairy ears in the Mehran bank scandal, shuffling millions in public money to buy or lease politicians, and is believed one of the prime movers in the sale of Pak nuclear technology to Iran. He ranks second only to Hamid Gul in the volume and flavor of his anti-Western vitriol.. , etc, who were found undermining the state were never considered as traitors to Pakistain. ISI too had an agreement of cooperation with CIA but Dr Afridi was being hunted down. Dr Afridi and family are being persecuted without giving them the benefit of the doubt. Finance Minister turns Christian? Oh noes! Reported in Jang Canadian-Pak finance minister Punjab Rana Asif had dual nationality and therefore should not have been elected to the assembly but then he compounded the blunder by turning Christian and thus abandoning Islam which attracts the unofficial penalty of death. This was claimed by Tehrik Insaf leader Inamullah Niazi. He said Nadra record showed the Christian minister as Moslem. Budget shortcomings Writing in Jang Hamid Mir stated that Budget 2012-13 had increased the money to be spent on PM's house garden from Rs14 million to Rs19 million while India was leaving Pakistain behind by spending record amounts on the Indian military. Pakistain Navy and Air Force deserved boost to their budgets not the PM's garden.

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India-Pakistan

Lal Masjid operation: SC moved for registering cases against 22 persons

2012-05-09

[Dawn] A former nazim ...small time big shot, the chief elected official of a local government in Pakistan, such as a district, tehsil, union council, or village council... of Jamia Hafsa on Monday approached the Supreme Court seeking direction to the police to register cases against 22 persons, including former President Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... and ex-Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for their alleged role in the killing of innocent people and desecration of the holy Koran during the Lal Masjid operation in the year 2007. On May 4, separate complaints were lodged by 11 people against the 22 persons with the Aabpara police. The police registered the complaints in its daily diary and issued separate numbers to the complainants. The police also sent the complaints to its prosecution department for legal opinion. When contacted, Advocate Tarqi Asad, the counsel for petitioner Maulana Abdul Qayyum, the former nazim and teacher of the seminary, said a request was also made to the apex court to take up the matter on Tuesday (today) when another identical petition would be heard. The petition named as respondents the secretary interior, inspector general of Islamabad police and the station house officer (SHO) of Aabpara. The court was requested to order the SHO to register criminal cases against those responsible for the deaths of the innocent persons and desecration of the holy Koran. "Deaths caused during the operation were in violation of Articles 9, 10, 10-A and 14 of the constitution. Besides, desecration of the holy Koran is against the sentiments of Mohammedans and a violation of Article 20," the petition said. It stated that as per finding of the apex court on October 2, 2007, 103 bodies had been recovered from the premises out of which only 16 could be identified. The remaining were handed over to their families, but 12 of them were not accepted due to lack of identification. The petitioner added that as per statements of principal Majida Younus alias Umme Hassan and a former student of Jamia Hafsa, Ayesha, recorded in the same court order, about 1,300 orphan students were on the premises who remained untraceable. "The number of those killed was very high but only 103 deaths were admitted by the respondents." The petitioner stated that in the court's order it was also admitted that 662 persons were tossed in the clink Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! and later released. "But the fact is that most of them were never released and they were either killed or are still in detention." The claim can be verified from the statement of one of the legal heirs of the victims, Ghulam Mohammad that he had seen his son when he was tossed in the clink Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! but his whereabouts was never known afterwards. The petitioner claimed that another man -- Muzammil Shah -- had informed the court during the last hearing that his son Mohammad Ali was alive till July 6, 2007, but after that nothing was known about him. In view of the order, legal heirs of the victims had been filing applications with the police and civil authorities from time to time requesting them to register criminal cases against the responsible persons. However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... they were told that only the Ministry of Law and Justice could allow registration of such cases. The petitioner pleaded that FIR be registered on charges of murder and desecration of the holy Koran against the former president and prime minister as well as Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, former federal and state ministers Mohammad Ali Durrani and Tariq Azeem, former religious affairs minister Ijazul Haq, former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri, former Chief Minister Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, former environment minister Faisal Saleh Hayat, director crisis management cell Javaid Iqbal Cheema, General (retired) Javed Majeed, then director general (operation) Rangers General Hussain Mehdi, former secretary interior Syed Kamal Shah, former IGP Islamabad Iftikhar Ahmad, former deputy commissioner Islamabad Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, former SSP Islamabad Capt (retired) Zafar Iqbal, former chief commissioner Islamabad Khalid Pervaiz, former DIG Islamabad Shahid Nadeem Baloch, former DG ISPR Waheed Arshad, former chairman CDA Kamran Lashari and those who participated in the operation. Besides, the petitioner also prayed the court to set aside the December 27, 2011, agreement signed between Umme Hassan and the government under which the victims' families would not make any claim or get any case registered against anyone in future.

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India-Pakistan

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2012-01-29

Indus commissioner flees to Canada Reported in Jang, Pakistan's Indus Waters Commissioner for two decades - as opposed to four by India - fled to India after it was discovered that he had colluded with India in the building of dams on Pakistani rivers - especially the Nimo-Bazgo dam - against the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty. His office in the water ministry was attacked by teams of investigators led by army officers.   Dr Baqir was a drug addict Reported in Jang, Dr Baqir Shah who was mysteriously shot to dearth in Quetta after, as police surgeon, he had reported that Chechen men and women were not killed by their own hand grenade as claimed by police but by bullets fired by Pakistani personnel, had been dubbed a drug addict by Balochistan government which has announced that his murder was owed to personal rivalries.   Wukla persons on the attack again Reported in Mashriq, a group of lawyers attacked an employee of the banking court of judge Naseer Ahmad and rendered him senseless. After the thrashing by aroused wukla the court employees at once locked up the banking court to avoid further damage at the hands of the lawyers.   Jamaat Ali Shah denies he fled country Quoted in daily Pakistan, former Indus Waters Commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah said in Canada that he was surprised by news that he had run away to Canada after violating exit-control orders against him. He said he had come to Canada to look after his ill mother and despite retirement from his job he had informed the concerned authorities before departing Pakistan. He said he was available to answer any charges.   Democracy ill-suited to Pakistan Famous columnist and TV personality and distinguished civil servant Oria Maqbul Jan was quoted by Express as saying that democracy was not suited to Pakistan and only an Islamic Shura system would bring order in Pakistan.   Hashmi attacks Nawaz Quoted in daily Pakistan, Javed Hashmi who deserted PNLM to join Imran Khan's Tehreek Insaf said that Nawaz Sharif had made a deal with Musharraf before leaving his supporters for Saudi Arabia. He said he should apologise for the deal.   Give a billion dollars, take electricity! Famous nuclear scientist Samar Mubarak Mand told Mashriq that if the government gave him a billion dollars he will give Pakistan the electricity it needs for the next many centuries. He said he was already producing electricity from coal in Thar and was prepared to make even diesel if the government allowed him the money to do so.   After Aila Malik, God safe Imran Khan! Writing in his paper Jinnah, Chief Editor Khushnood Ali Khan stated that after the joining of Aila Malik of Q-League, Tehreek Insaf of Imran Khan had reached an extreme position. If Aila Malik and Samaira Malik are the support system of Tehreek Insaf then God support Imran Khan (Khuda hi hafiz).   PPP wants a weak Pak Army Famous foreign minister and son of General Ayub Gohar Ayub told daily Pakistan that the PPP was always determined to weaken the Pakistan Army. He said Bhutto tried to do it by creating federal security force as a counter. In the shape of a memo Zardari had asked for help from the army of another country against the Pak Army.   Dr Safdar Mehmood's new history Monthly Naya Zamana revealed that in a recent article that Pakistan's renowned historian Dr Safdar Mehmood had stated that late Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani had told him that a teacher of Usmani had appeared in his dream to ask him to repose trust in Jinnah. Dr Mehmood had written that former IG Police Balochistan Ch Fazlul Haq had told him that Maulana Usmani had told him that Jinnah had told him that Holy Prophet PBUH had appeared in Jinnah's dream and told him in the UK saying Jinnah go back to India and lead the Muslims. Usmani said that Jinnah has insisted that this dream of his should not be revealed to anyone.   Rehman Malik thanks Taliban too soon Reported in daily Pakistan Mullah Umar spoke as a leader of all Taliban - Pakistani and Afghan - and ordered that the Taliban should stop attacking Pakistan Army and Pakistan Taliban to concentrate more on attacks on the Americans. Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik thanked the Talban but soon the attacks restarted in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa; and Mullah Umar confirmed that he had not advised Taliban to stop attacks on Pakistani targets.   Pak Army attacks Pak Police Columnist Hamid Mir wrote in Jang that an ASI was doing duty at Secretariat Chowk in Islamabad when the Army Chief was scheduled to pass through. He was told by am army officer to move his men away from the spot which he did. After 15 minutes the same army officer returned with a posse of men and held him from the throat and took him and his men away in a truck and held them as hostages at another place. After release the ASI tried to lodge a complaint with the police station but was not allowed to do so.   Jamaat Ali Shah helped Indian Army at Siachen Reported in Jang Indus Waters ex-commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah facilitated the building of India's illegal Nimo-Bazgo dam so that Leh could get electricity which means that Indian soldiers at Siachen would get the benefit of more comfort through use of electricity.   Mengal warns Baloch rebels Quoted in daily Pakistan great Baloch leader Sardar Ataullah Mengal stated in Karachi that the Baloch rebels should think twice before revolting against Pakistan because it was not certain that they will thus get independent Balochistan. He said if there was no Pakistan there would be no freedom for the Baloch.   Syeda Abida on warpath Quoted in Jinnah PPP leader Syeda Abida Hussain said that to save Haqqani and the PPP Zardari had gambled away everything including the party tickets which were to be given to her and Fakhr Imam. The tickets for Jhang constituencies were to be given to Faisal Saleh Hayat and Raza Hayat. She said the decision to join Imran Khan had not yet been taken.   Akram Sheikh's male chauvinism Reported in Mashriq Asma Jahangir said that after its independence and restoration of judges the Supreme Court had not come up to the expectation and hopes of the people. She said clash of state institutions was not good for the state but it was not against the law to criticise the decisions of the Court. The Court had become limited to just a few cases. Many senior lawyers reacted to lawyer Akram Sheik's article in a newspaper criticising Asama Jahangir as an example of Sheikh's male chauvinism. They said Akram Sheikh as lawyer of Mansoor Ijaz had attacked Asma who was a respected lawyer of the Bar.   Double Shah gets 14 years Reported in Express, Double Shah the fraudster from Punjab who had defrauded hundreds of thousands of innocent people across the province of Rs 5 billion promising to double their deposits overnight has been sentenced to 14 years in jail. His victims still had faith in him. The Court also fined him Rs 5 billion.

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India-Pakistan

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2011-10-10

Zaid Hamid is 'munkar-e-Rasul' Chief Editor Jinnah opined that the TV programme in which Zaid Hamid (rightist) and Marvi Sirmed (leftist) were made to confront each other, proved Marvi won the argument because Zaid Hamid is a denier of Prophet PBUH as detailed in the book 'Kazzab' by Mian Ghaffar. The False Prophet Yusuf Kazzab had declared Zaid as his successor as false prophet. Marvi was helped by Allah to win the argument against Zaid Hamid. Zaid has since ruined many homes by misleading the wives of other people. There is an interesting story of a marriage which will be told. (Zaid is divorced.) Imran Farooq killed on Altaf's order Daily Mashriq reported that two MQM killers Khalid Shamim and Hammad Siddiqi had told the police they had killed an MQM leader Imran Farooq in London on orders from the MQM boss Altaf Hussain 'because his faction was becoming too strong'. After this discovery by the police, the MQM leadership in Pakistan has been asked to go underground. Pakistani literacy rates hits bottom Reported in Jang Pakistan had fallen below Nepal in national literacy rate and was 157th in the list of 173 countries. Only Afghanistan in South Asia fared worse than Pakistan. In the past year despite pledges Pakistan spent the lowest amount of money in history on education and less than any other country in the region. Zulfiqar Mirza is 'double-edged' sword Humorous politician Hafiz Husain Ahmad was quoted by Jinnah as saying that the rebel PPP leader from Sindh Dr Zulfiqar Mirza had turned out to be a double edged sword. He was making a reference to Hazrat Ali whose sword was named Zulfiqar. Dr Mirza was now dangerous for MQM and his party PPP, thus making him double-edged. How we broke Indian resolve Daily Nawa-e-Waqt quoted a Rangers company commander Sheraz Mirza as saying that he fired the first bullet in the Indo-Pak war of 1965 and one brave Pakistani soldier destroyed the resolve of the Indian army by taking down seven Indian tanks. His company stopped the Indian army for four and half hours with ordinary weapons. It was a glorious victory! Glorious, I say - Allah be praised. The Indians even now are committing suicide in the passes of Kashmir. Fehmida Mirza and Saifur Rehman Writing in Express Abbas Athar stated that after Fehmida came to Islamabad to live in a rented house with her two daughters in 1997 as first time elected member of the National Assembly, PML's accountability hunter Saifur Rehman sent camera crews to haunt her and to extract confessions against Asif Zardari but to no avail. Dr Mirza's PhD thesis! Writing in Jang Hamid Mir stated that he once met Dr Zulfiqar Mirza who handed him a thick file saying it was his PhD thesis. Mir looked through the file and found that ten year old information in it accused Wali Khan family, Akhtar Mengal, Akbar Bugti and Bashir Qureshi as Indian agents. It also included MQM as agents of India trying to undo Pakistan. It says the same about Amir Khan who has since returned to the MQM fold but he is also dubbed Iranian agent. Pakistani cadet thrown out of Australia Daily Nawa-e-Waqt reported that a Pakistani Air Force cadet studying at a college in Australia was caught red handed photographing a girl naked. Ubaid Fayyaz was given bail but was soon deported back to Pakistan. Pak Air Force said it had called the cadet back from training. Pakistani held for terrorist connection Daily Jinnah reported that one Bashir Ahmad was arrested in Virginia US for terrorism after he confessed that he had taken training for terrorist acts in Pakistan under Lashkar-e-Tayba and that he was personally linked to the son of the leader of Lashkar, Hafiz Saeed. He said he was ousted from the terrorist camp because he was found too young for the job. The Jamaatud Dawa spokesman in Lahore denied that Bashir Ahmad, a juvenile, was ever connected to Lashkar. Zulfiqar Mirza the 8th PPP rebel Daily Jang reported that Zulfiqar Mirza was the 8th PPP rebel speaking out against PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari. Earlier rebels were Aitzaz Ahsan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Safdar Abbasi and Naheed Khan. Also included were Israr Shah and a Benazir loyalist Anwar Beg who were thrown out of the party. Zulfiqar Mirza accuses Babar Ghauri Quoted in daily Pakistan Dr Zulfiqar Mirza stated that MQM leader and minister in charge of the Karachi port Babar Ghauri had made trucks full of weapons to disappear and was responsible for MQM illegally making Rs 1.5 crore daily from the port as 'bhatta' for each container. Mirza a creature of Zardari Writing in Jang Hamid Mir stated that according to Dr Zulfiqar Mirza he was Zardari's class-fellow at Pataro Cadet College after passing which Mirza had joined medical college. He said he passed through tough times after marrying Fehmida Mirza and in 1984 he was shunted out of the army for not voting in the General Zia referendum. He was taken in PIA on the sifarish of his father in law. A second hand car was gifted to him by Zardari who also bought a fridge for him because there was no cold water in his house. In 1989 Zardari made Mirza leave PIA and got him a sugar mill permit after which he became a powerful industrialist with a PPP ticket to enter the National Assembly as a PPP MNA. Faisal Saleh Hayat accused of graft Daily Jinnah reported that federal minister Faisal Saleh Hayat was taking home Rs 14 crore per month from Pak PWD department. The graft was accepted through his maternal uncle Khalid Kharal, cousin Haider, and favourite touts. Graft was also accepted from officers after first threatening them with transfers and postings. There is also two percent commission on all transactions. PPP too involved in Karachi disorder Ex-interior minister and governor Sindh General (Retd) Moinuddin Haider stated in Nawa-e-Waqt that it was not only the MQM which should be held responsible for the disorder in Karachi but also PPP as everyone was involved in 'bhatta' and target-killing. He said Karachi was now worse than Beirut where ethnic war had unfolded for 15 years. Asama Jahangir tells truth Headlined in Mashriq leading Pakistan lawyer and president of Supreme Court Bar told the court that MQM, Sunni Tehreek, Jamaat Islami Sipah Sahaba, and other banned jihadi organisations were bus    y talking bhatta in Karachi. She was speaking in front of the Karachi bench after a suo moto notice. Red-capped False Prophet! Writing in Jinnah Hafiz Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi stated that red-capped false prophet or 'kazzab' Zaid Hamid was named one of the killers of Maulana Saeed Jalalpuri in Karachi and is now going around lecturing in universities and colleges pretending to speak on behalf of state agencies. Ashrafi claimed that he was able to prove that Zaid Hamid was indeed the successor of Yusuf Kazzab and was challenging him to munazira (debate).

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India-Pakistan

PML-Q to resign from government

2011-10-05

[Dawn] The Pakistain Mohammedan League-Q has decided to quit from the government. The decision took place in a Parliamentary Committee meeting held in Islamabad led by Party head Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. Senior leader of PML-Q Faisal Saleh Hayat confirmed the resignation to DawnNews. He said that his party members have resigned from the federal cabinet because the Pakistain Peoples Party has failed to resolve the energy crisis. Hayat further said that the government never fulfilled their demands which were conditioned to the join the government. He said that a letter has been submitted to the Speaker of the National Assembly to allot PML-Q opposition benches in the National Assembly.

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India-Pakistan

Inquiries into 21,741 stolen passports cases still going on

2010-09-05

[Pak Daily Times] Inquiries into the cases of 21,741 passports stolen from the regional passport offices of the country since 1999 were still going on, Daily Times learnt on Saturday. The international travelling documents had either been stolen or had gone missing from the various regional passport offices of the country, an official of the Interior Ministry revealed. According to the official, "Around 21,741 passports were either stolen or had gone missing from more than 12 regional passport offices of the country from April 1999 to June 2004." He said that hundreds of inquiries, on the orders of the high-ups of the Interior Ministry and the Immigration Department had been conducted without any proper result or headway. The official said that the Interior Ministry had also formed a number of inquiry committees to look into the matter but nothing concrete had been found out yet. The Passport and Immigration Wing in the Interior Ministry had information about the stolen or missing passports, which had been collected from different regional passport offices. Although some investigative reports had suggested the Interior Ministry take action against the passport office officials who had been involved in the illegal activity but no action had been taken against the officials concerned yet. The National Assembly's (NA) Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had taken a serious notice of the matter on July 19 and had decided to form a special committee consisting of MNAs and senators to probe into the matter and answer the questions surrounding this mystery. In 1999, around 500 passports had been either stolen or gone missing from the regional passport office of the Tribal Areas, which was under the control of a political agent appointed by the government. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly NWFP, aka Terrorism Central home secretary had conducted an inquiry into the matter but that investigation also produced no result. In another shocking development, 184 passports had gone missing from the regional passport office in Muzzaffarabad on April 12, 1999. The local police had started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the suspects but no progress had been made in this inquiry as well. An investigation team from Islamabad headed by Passport Director Shahzad Anwar had conducted an inquiry into the matter but failed to achieve any result. In August 1999, 1,960 passports had gone missing from the Dera Ismail Khan, Pearl of the Pashtun Lands regional passport office. As soon as this incident had taken place, Office Superintendent Abdul Aleem had proceeded on leave while Assistant Director Muhammad Anwar had been made the in-charge in his place. No inquiry had been carried out into the matter while both Aleem and Anwar were now enjoying their respective retired lives. In March 2000, 1,121 passports had been stolen from the Sialkot regional passport office but a departmental inquiry could not find any culprit in this regard. The passport thefts had occurred when Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat and Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao were the country's interior ministers. Shakeel Ahmed, an affectee, appealed to President Asif Ali (Ten Percent) Zardari to look into the matter.

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India-Pakistan

Army stopped from entering Jacobabad airbase: Gen Shahid

2009-12-08

Former chief of General Staff (CGS) Lt-Gen (retd) Shahid Aziz has said he, along with other senior Army officers, opposed to give Pakistan's airbases to the US but the then president and chief of Army Staff Pervez Musharraf did it without informing his corps commanders. Former CGS and former chairman of the NAB Shahid Aziz made this revelation while talking to Hamid Mir in Geo TV's show "Capital Talk" on Monday night. He said the Pakistani troops were moved from Quetta to Jacobabad for taking control of the local airbase, but "we were surprised when our troops informed us that the US Army had not allowed them to enter the Jacobabad airbase." He said that after sometime, he came to know privately from a PAF officer that the US had also taken over the Pasni airbase and as the CGS, he was not aware of all these developments. Shahid Aziz said Pervez Musharraf took most of the sensitive decisions without informing his corps commanders. Responding to a question, he said Pakistan never benefited from the US presence in Afghanistan. In fact, India is using Afghanistan to destabilise Pakistan and this is happening under the nose of the US troops in Afghanistan, he said, adding Pakistan must say goodbye to the US war on terror now. He admitted that Pervez Musharraf, his COS Hamid Javaid and Tariq Aziz forced him to close down the investigations against Benazir Bhutto and when he refused to implement the orders, he was asked to resign from the NAB chairmanship in July 2007. He said Musharraf was also responsible for facilitating many criminals through the NRO and he would definitely provide evidence against Musharraf in any court of law, if summoned. Former interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat also agreed that Pakistan must keep its distance from the US in the so-called war on terrorism. He claimed that India and Israel were involved in sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan.

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India-Pakistan

PM slams Gojra incident

2009-08-04

[Geo News] Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on Monday condemned the Gojra incident in which innocent members of minority community lost their lives. "Federal government and the political parties condemn the Gojra incident," the Prime Minister said in the National Assembly after a joint resolution was adopted against the heinous act. Condemn and be damned. The fact is, Pakistain is an Islamic country and feels no obligation to protect its üntercitenry. They're not members of the Master Religion, so they're there to be exploited and murdered for fun. The Russians showed the usefulness of allowing the peasants to go a-pogramming at regular intervals. And the Russians and Pakistanis have a history that goes back to the Great Game days. He said he has talked to the Punjab chief minister who has said that a judicial commission has been formed whose report will be shared with the house. That'd be the Punjab chief minister whose cops couldn''t be bothered to nip the murderous rampage in the bud, before it got out of hand. He expressed his sorrow over the loss of innocent lives in the incident and said he has asked the minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti to do the damage assessment. The affectees, he added, will be compensated according to the report to be filed by the minister. You can't compensate the dead. Sure they will. Like India passed on the compensation to the Bhopal victims. Which is to say the government will keep the money. What do the poor need with more money? It just spoils them, everyone knows that. Earlier, the house adopted a unanimous resolution read out by Shahbaz Bhatti. PML (Q)'s Faisal Saleh Hayat also read out a separate resolution and the two were clubbed together by the deputy speaker. The resolution expressed grief and sorrow over the killings and urged the relevant authorities to take meaningful action against the culprits. I'll bet "meaningful" doesn't involve hunting down and killing all the members and associates of Sipah-e-Sahaba, does it? It'd be pretty meaningful to level Jhang and sow the place it stood with salt, but that won't happen. Instead, some of the bastards will be arrested, many of them years from now, and they'll be let off for lack of evidence by the Lahore High Court. It urged the government to ensure protection of the minorities in accordance with the sayings of the Quaid-e-Azam and 1973 constitution. It's been sixty years, and they haven't gotten around to doing that yet. Sixty years from now they'll be killing the last half dozen non-Muslims in Pakistain because some holy man thought they mighta maybe ripped a page out of a Koran. No, because the holy man thought he'd get to bed one of the beautiful madrassah boys with faces like pearls if the lad got to run amok a bit first. The resolution said that the incident is one of the blackest spots in the human rights history of Pakistan and a violation of Quaid-e-Azam's philosophy. The incident's just another page in the chronicles of Islam. Nothing will be done and it'll be quickly forgotten. The desecration to the Koran will be remembered, though it never happened.

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India-Pakistan

PML-Q stages walkout during address

2009-03-29

The second address to the joint sitting of parliament was not smooth sailing for President Asif Ali Zardari as parliamentarians of the PML-Q staged a walkout, raising slogans against horsetrading in the Punjab. The walkout ended after a few minutes when some federal ministers convinced them to return to the house. The PML-N had announced that it would listen to the speech of President Zardari silently but members of the PML-Q turned up at the session with a different frame of mind. Soon after the recitation of verses from the holy Quran, PML-Q parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat stood up to raise a point of order. However, National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza did not allow him to speak, saying that no point of order could be raised according to rules when the president was to address the joint sitting of parliament. At this, PML-Q President Senator Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Amir Muqam, Riaz Pirzada and all the party members also stood up. Some of them, including Awais Leghari, Riaz Pirzada, Marvi Memon and others, shouted slogans of "No to horsetrading and Lotacracy in the Punjab" while thumping their desks. Dr Fehmida Mirza, time and again, requested the protesting parliamentarians to take their seats as slogans being raised by them would leave a bad impression on diplomats and other dignitaries who were watching the proceedings from the galleries. The speaker said the concerns of the PML-Q members were true but it was not the proper way. However, they did not pay heed to the speaker's request. In the meantime, the speaker invited President Zardari to address parliament. But, he delivered the first part of his speech amid an uproar created by the PML-Q parliamentarians. The PML-Q parliamentarians, however, walked out of the house after the speaker ignored their point of view. Later, talking to newsmen outside the Parliament House at the end of the session, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said if the Punjab Assembly session was not convened by tomorrow, they would consider the last one month's confrontation between the PPP and the PML-N a sham (Noora Kushti). PML-Q parliamentary leader Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat said President Zardari did mention the history of 'Changa Manga' in horsetrading but no practical steps were announced to end this bad practice. He said the politics of the forward bloc had been gaining momentum after the February 18 elections and their party's mandate was hijacked by the PPP and the PML-N, which formed Balochistan and the Punjab governments respectively. He warned that if members of the PML-Q forward bloc did not return to the party, the leadership would move the court to apply the Defection Clause on these MPAs. He said the PML-Q had forwarded a three-point formula for the formation of the Punjab government to end the evil of horsetrading, but now the party had decided to play a neutral role in the province.

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India-Pakistan

We won't let foreigners investigate suspects: PM

2008-12-16

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the National Assembly on Monday that he had turned down a request that Britain be allowed to investigate those detained after the Mumbai attacks. There would be entirely too many distasteful revelations. The prime minister's comments came in his policy statement before the start of a debate on national security in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks. He said the British request came at a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday, but he told his British counterpart that if there was evidence against those arrested after the attacks, they would be prosecuted under Pakistani law. He made it clear that Jamaatud Dawa's 'welfare activities' would not be blocked, as "thousands of people are benefitting from them". Gilani, however, said the government would now monitor these activities. Gilani said that Pakistan was committed to peace in the region, but if war is thrust on the country, "we will give [a] befitting response ... the nation, the army and the political leadership is united, and we can defend our national sovereignty". "We condemn terrorism wherever it is ... terrorists have no principles, religion, faith, boundaries or scruples," he said. Prime Minister Gilani thanked the opposition and treasury for being united on issues related to national security. Gilani said he had also called several world leaders in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, and they in turn spoke with Indian leaders to tell the neighbour they "fully support Pakistan". The opposition criticised India for 'trying to destabilise Pakistan' after the attacks, and said Pakistan's response should be 'stern'. Makhdoom Javed Hashmi of the PML-N assured the government that the nation would support it on issues related to national security. Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat of the PML-Q said it was because of the government's 'foreign policy failure' that India was threatening Pakistan.

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India-Pakistan

Afia Siddiqui flown to US for trial

2008-08-05

Dr Afia Siddiqui, "missing" with her three children from Karachi for six years, was underground in Pakistan and Afghanistan all this time. She was arrested on July 21 this year from Kabul and has been flown to the United States to face terrorism-related charges. Contrary to several newspaper reports over the years, including recent ones, Dr Siddiqui has never been in Pakistani custody and neither in that of the US, until her arrest barely two weeks ago. She left the US in early 2003 as the net around her was tightening, since she was believed to be involved in offering her scientific expertise and other help to Al Qaeda or related groups. Dr Siddiqui, along with her three children, took a cab from her mother's house in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in Karachi on March 30, 2003, to take a flight for Rawalpindi, but never arrived at the airport. The family, it appears, was not unaware of Dr Siddiqui's whereabouts although it kept claiming otherwise. So when do they get arrested? On April 1, 2003, the then interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat denied Pakistani authorities had arrested the scientist. He was reported to have said a day later that Dr Siddiqui was connected to Al Qaeda and was absconding. Dr Siddiqui, who spent 10 years at prestigious American academic institutions, completing her PhD in genetics, returned to Pakistan in 2002 but went back to the US in February 2003, apparently to look for a job appropriate to her qualifications. She returned to Karachi by the end of February 2003 after renting a post office box in her name in Maryland for receipt of her mail. It has been claimed by the FBI that the box was hired for Majid Khan, allegedly a member of Al Qaeda residing in Baltimore. At the time, NBC reported that the Pakistani scientist had been arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of facilitating money transfers for the terror networks of Osama Bin Laden, a report her mother called "absurd".

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India-Pakistan

Zardari's frozen money will be released

2008-06-30

ISLAMABAD — The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has asked the authorities concerned to unfreeze and release all bank accounts and properties of Pakistan People's Party Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, which were frozen in connection with corruption cases against him. 'In the light of court orders, NAB has directed all authorities concerned, including the Sindh chief secretary, to unfreeze all bank accounts and properties of Mr Zardari, as cases against him have already been dropped under the National Reconciliation Ordinance,' NAB chairman Navaid Ahsan told reporters. Gomez is in the chips again ... He said the decision was taken a couple of days ago by NAB on the directive of an accountability court. The Sindh chief secretary has been given the task to unfreeze the bank accounts and properties wherever they existed. 'I cannot give you the exact details of Zardari's frozen bank accounts and properties,' he said, adding that the chief secretary was in a better position to say anything on the issue. A former federal minister, Faisal Saleh Hayat had alleged that the frozen cash money totalled about Rs1.77 billion. The Rawalpindi accountability court had quashed seven corruption cases against Zardari. Under the NRO, all corruption cases against politicians and bureaucrats registered since the Oct 1999 takeover had been dismissed. The cases dropped against Zardari include illegal payments relating to the purchase of tractors and construction of a polo ground inside the Prime Minister's House, kickbacks and commissions in several government contracts. However, a money-laundering case is still pending against him in Switzerland. Betcha the Swissers fold within the month, particularly if Gomez agrees to pay a 'token' fine ...

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