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India-Pakistan

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2006-01-07

Americans support Musharraf Writing in the Jang, Hamid Mir said that Musharraf was supported not only because he was fighting terrorism, but also because he had held the 2002 elections and allowed the opening of new free media channels along with a policy of press freedom. This was what an American delegation said recently in defence of their policy. It should be recalled that when Pakistanis were clapping Musharraf’s takeover, the Americans had placed Pakistan under observation and the Commonwealth had kicked Pakistan out. Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Imran Khan Columnist Haroonur Rasheed wrote in the Jang that he knew Imran Khan and Qazi Hussain; and Imran Khan from very close. In the case of Imran Khan, his intimacy with him could be compared only to two or three of Imran’s family members. Yet both Imran and Qazi, as Pakhtuns, were identical in their characters. If they like someone, they will open their hearts; but if they reject someone then all the doors are closed. Qazi Hussain Ahmad was a Seljuq and the Seljuq Turks were known to be unforgiving in their anger. Both have been forgiving recently, Qazi in the case of MMA chief minister Akram Durrani attending the National Security Council and Imran Khan in the case of the earthquake. Imran Khan flared up after Australian Pakistanis sent him 4,500 tents and the government wouldn’t give him transport for them. He has built a hundred houses in the earthquake stricken area and will build 6,000 in all, and Qazi has spent Rs 2.5 billion on the stricken areas. But they must be less negative in their approach to President Musharraf for the sake of the nation. Pakistan’s dubious export Writing in the Nawa-e-Waqt, Sarmad Bashir stated that in the last two years, 139,000 Pakistanis were expelled from 47 countries. On November 25, about 22 Pakistanis drowned when their boat capsized near the Italian coast. Iran expelled 85 Pakistanis trying to enter without proper documents. In the last two years, nearly a thousand cases of document fraud cases were registered in Pakistan. Exorcist kills girl instead of jinn The daily Khabrain reported that in Agoki near Lahore, a little girl Iram was suspected by her parents of being possessed by a jinn. They called in a religious man, expert in exorcism, who began to apply red hot rods to her body. She was severely burnt, after which she lost her speech, followed by coma. She finally died, after which a case was registered against the fake pir. Qadiani in National Security Council! The daily Pakistan quoted Maulana Abdul Hafeez Makki of International Khatm-e-Nabuwwat Movement in Dera Ismail Khan as saying that Qadianis were the enemies of Islam and Pakistan and that there was Qadiani hidden inside the National Security Council. He said the teachings of Ghulam Ahmad Parwez were also a fitna (mischief) against Islam and the Aga Khan Board was a plot by the powers of kufr. Jinns occupy tree According to the daily Pakistan, a tree in Iqbal Pura in Rahimyar Khan has started giving off water. In the house of one Heera a beri tree had been acting strange for the past one month. It was giving one pail of water during the day. The miracle has attracted lot of local people who bring food for the jinns, which Heera said were occupying the tree. Heera thereafter became mujawir of the tree and has set up a big flag on top of the tree. Don’t spare the Qadianis! Writing in Khabrain, Yasir Mehmood Khan complained that columnist Amar Jaleel in his column had condemned Bhutto for apostatising the Qadianis while in fact it was his greatest act. In 1974 at Rabwa, students of Nishtar Medical College Multan were beaten up and Bhutto acted after that. But Qadianis were created by the British to weaken Islam. In fact, their faith was against the central belief of Islam. Bhutto was called Quaid-e-Awam because of this great feat. It’s no use talking to India Quoted in the Nawa-e-Waqt, ex-foreign minister Agha Shahi said that India had not budged an inch from its position on Kashmir while Pakistan was living in a world of dreams. He said talks on Kashmir should be open because secret talks and track-two discussions meant that nothing concrete had taken place. He said that the current process of negotiations was a waste of time. If Pakistan had to play the farce of talks, why should it retreat from its old stance? Pay maintenance for 10,000 years! According to the daily Pakistan, a court in Iran ordered a man to pay his divorced wife one gold coin every month for 10,000 years. The man had promised in the nikah document to pay her $15 million dollars on divorce as maintenance. Insulter of Quran embraces Islam According to the Nawa-e-Waqt, one Hindu woman Krishna Wati was in prison in Mardan for desecrating the Quran. Chief Justice High Court Peshawar Tariq Pervez was inspecting the prison when Krishna Wati approached him and said that she was greatly attracted to Islam and wanted to embrace it. The chief justice got her to recite the kalima after which she became Fatima Bibi. Chief minister preserves his brother’s smelly shalwar According to Khabrain, Chief Minister Sindh Abdullah Shah did a most extraordinary thing during his rule. His brother Ihsanullah Shah, deputy director food, was murdered in 1993 in front of his house in Karachi. Abdullah Shah ordered the archives department of Sindh to preserve the blood-stained clothes of his brother. The department spent Rs 48,000 treating his brother’s shalwar, shirt and vest, which Abdullah Shah did not reimburse. The clothes were given to the department after eight days, therefore they gave off a stench as a result of which two employees of the department fainted during treatment. Abdullah Shah of the PPP is an absconder from the law. Don’t be impartial! Writing in the Nawa-e-Waqt about the conference he attended in Dubai, organised by Dr Shahid Masood titled ‘Dialogue,’ columnist Irfan Siddiqi advised that Dr Shahid Masood should not be impartial in his comments because he was entrenched (morcha zan) behind a barricade and the Muslims thought of him as a strong advocate of their cause. The leader of ‘Dialogue’ was the strong man (mard-e-maidan) of the ideological army (nazriati sipah). Now that he had started his dialogue, the West-worshipping monopolists and sellers (khwancha firosh) of the West in Pakistan should start despairing. ‘Dialogue’ would be a think tank headed by Dr Masood. Mr Mujibur Rehman Shami told him not to be influenced by the thinking of his thank tank. Irfan Siddiqi said that he had been invited by the President of the United States to visit America in 2002 and that engaging in dialogue with the Americans was still his best memory. Irfan Siddiqi important man Writing in the Nawa-e-Waqt, Irfan Siddiqi stated that State Department official Robin Raphel was once told that she readily accepted the writings of certain journalists but she did not read Irfan Siddiqi on Afghanistan. On this, Ms Raphel said that she read Irfan Siddiqi and considered him a very important man of opinion. The columnist stated that he was taken aback at this.

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India-Pakistan

IJT slams minister for "secularising" education curriculum

2005-12-24

The Islami Jamiat Talba (IJT) protested and blocked GT road on Thursday to condemn Javed Ashraf Qazi, the federal education minister, for making secular changes to the educational curriculum, said Zubair Ahmad Gondal, the IJT central chief. The students chanted slogans and displayed banners inscribed with statements against the federal government’s pro-US policies and frequent changes in the educational curriculum. Said Rasool, a protestor, said that after 9/11, the government was bent upon secularising the education system in the country by various tactics. He said the introduction of the Aga Khan Board and deletions of Quranic verses pertaining to jihad were part of such tactics. The protestors demanded the federal government expel Javed Ashraf from the cabinet for his secular and anti-Islamic ideas and practices. They threatened that if the secular changes made recently in the curriculum were not reversed, they would start an unending series of protests.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

India will not agree to solution acceptable to Kashmiris: Qazi

2005-06-14

New Delhi will not agree to a solution of the Kashmir dispute that is acceptable to the Kashmiris, said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) president and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) ameer, on Monday. And who knows better than Qazi what Kashmiris will find acceptable? Addressing a five-day long workshop at Mansoorah, Ahmed condemned the attitude of the army generals and said that they were accustomed to luxurious lives and amassing wealth through the real estate business. The MMA leader criticised the army taking over the PTCL for security reasons and questioned the arrest of the protesting employees of the PTCL. He said that the PTCL had been handed over to US General Zinni in order to please the US. He feared that privatisation of profitable units like PTCL would cause instability. I'd say there's a lot more instability caused by Qazi's thugs roaming the streets and breaking things than by the privatization of an occasional industry. Qazi said that the troika of Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi had united against Muslims and the US had categorically declared war against Islam. He said that they were paying millions of dollars for a 'moderate and enlightened' Islam, which was actually a scheme to brush aside the real Islam. As we've pointed out in these pages a time or two in the past, the "real Islam" is neither enlightened nor moderate. In fact, it makes a fetish of ignorance and brutality. It's adherents are incapable of controlling their least impulse toward violence. I, for one, am gladdened by the fact that Washington, Tel Aviv, and New Delhi have united against Muslims of Qazi's stripe. The only unhappiness I feel, in fact, is that so far none of them has invested the minimal amount of cash that would be required to hire someone to put a large caliber round through Qazi's turban. He said that Gen Musharraf had allowed the creation of Aga Khan Board to revise the contents of text books in order to please the US. Yeah. The Ismailis aren't believers in All Islam, All the Time. They must be declared apostate and hunted down and killed, right Qazi? Qazi said that the nation had been divided on the basis of religion. And he's been at the forefront of the movement... He said that the MMA had proposed to observe 'Hurmat-e-Quran Day' every year in May to condemn the sacrilege of the Quran in Guantanamo Bay detention camps. Good idea. I pledge to observe 9-11 day every year, too... He said the West and its local agents had tried to malign Islamic movements by spreading a wave of terror in Karachi by setting KFC on fire and carrying out a bomb blast at Madinatul Ilm, following the murder of MMA leader Aslam Mujahid. It's not a bunch of wild-eyed, spittle-spewing, AK-waving Islamists who're conducting a wave of terror in Pakland, it's the West, trying to malign religious movements in Pakistan that most of us never heard of before the WoT. Malik Mohammad Asharf, JI deputy secretary general, also spoke on the occasion. Jamaat workers from across the country attended the meeting. Speakers from various walks of life and seasoned trainers will lecture the participants on various aspects of religion, politics and morality during the workshop.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Militant group's student wing denounces 'liberalism'

2005-05-16

LAHORE: Talaba-e-Jamatud Dawa will organise a series of seminars from May 17 to June 4 against liberalism, secularism and the establishment of the Aga Khan Education Board, said the organisation's president Hameeedul Hassan on Sunday. Talabe-e-Jamatul Dawa is the student wing of Jamatud Dawa,a religious organistion headed by Hafiz Saeed. Jamatud Dawa is the parent organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Hafiz Saeed's a raving lunatic... ... but does he have any distinguishing behavior ... Hassan and Asif Khurshid, the organisation's information secretary, said in a press conference that the Aga Khan Board followed America's agendas and it should not be allowed to make decisions about academic syllabi. They said that seminars would raise awareness about Islam, fundamentalism and anti-liberalism. A seminar will be held in Lahore on June 2.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2005-04-30

Asking for 'lift' from Bharat Sarerahe in Nawa-e-Waqt stated that no one could stop two kinds of people from going. One was headed for the abode of Allah and the other for India. Now actress Sana was leaving for India to act in Sunni Deol's two films. Even an 'antique' Mehdi Hasan could not be persuaded to get himself treated in Pakistan. He too has gone to his messiahs in India. Our signer Adnan Sami Khan was already in India asking Bharat to give him the lift (lift kara dai) he thought he could not get in Pakistan. Students attack musical evening According to Khabrain, a musical gathering arranged during a wedding inside the bridegroom's house in Dera Ismail Khan (NWFP) was attacked by the students of a religious seminary. The students were extremely violent. They broke all property and savagely beat up every member of the wedding party. At night, the clerics of madrassa Darul Ulum in the city learnt about the singing session and armed their students with sticks and axes and ordered them to attack. The wedding party ran away after the students opened fire too. The clerics warned the police that no future musical evenings would be tolerated. The police did not arrest anyone. Law & Justice Commission wants hand-cutting Columnist Azam Sultan Suhrawardi wrote in Khabrain that Law and Justice Commission was a body devoted to the education of law among the masses. In its recent press release it had repeated its demand for the punishment of cutting of hand and leg for theft under Islamic law. The law is already in force since 1979 when General Zia promulgated it. No punishment of hand cutting has been carried out in Pakistan but the country has been defamed in the world as a savage state. The government should tell the Law & Justice Commission not to release new press advice about old laws that have not been enforced because they were unenforceable because of defect in the evidence law today. The Commission would serve the country better by publicising laws which have been enforced. Its latest press release has caused a lot of consternation among citizens. Imran Khan's three facets Columnist Javed Chaudhry wrote in Jang that Imran Khan had three sides to him: cricket, charity and politics. In the first two departments his services would never be forgotten. He had achieved great success as a cricketer and a philanthropist. But in the field of politics in eight years he had achieved nothing. He should therefore turn away from politics and devote himself to the other two facets of his life. America imposed first martial law Quoted in Jang magazine Tariq Ali said that America got General Ayub to impose martial law in 1958 to prevent the election from being held. He said he was told this by Bhutto who said that in a cabinet meeting Ayub Khan said that America's was the only effective embassy in Pakistan. Therefore the martial law was imposed through him. Ban Cohen's book! According to daily Pakistan one MA Shaida of Lahore stated that book The idea of Pakistan by Stephen Cohen should be banned forthwith and its publisher in Lahore proceeded against for maligning Pakistan army and defending the politicians even though they were clearly responsible for harming the country. He asked for legal proceedings against the American author and member of a Washington think-tank so that Pakistan's name was saved from being sullied. The 'pir'-killer of Danga Daily Jang reported that at Danga in South Punjab one Zulfiqar took out the corpse of his pir from his grave and hung it from a tree. The police were unable to find a law under which to arrest him. Zulfiqar had made it a practice to drag the dead bodies of his spiritual guides and hang them for purposes of black magic. The villagers were shocked to see their dead pir hanging from a tree. Qazi and non-issues Writing in Khabrain author Raja Anwar said that Qazi Hussain Ahmad was a great leader who engaged in non-issues like mazhabi khana in passports and retention of General Zia's Islam in textbooks. He gave a non-intellectual definition of secularism by saying that it was against Islam and forgot that his beloved poet Allama Iqbal was the product of a secular system of governance in India. Passport does show religion! Reported in Khabrain, the new machine-readable passport immediately shows the religion of the Pakistani passport holder after it is inserted into the machine. However the passport does not show religion when looked at with bare eyes. Dr Amir Liaquat's fake degrees According to Khabrain, federal state minister for religion Dr Amir Liaquat Hussain who also hosted the TV programme on religion had fake PhD degrees from an unknown university in Spain. He bought his degrees for BA, MA and PhD from Trinity College and University located somewhere in Spain and got a certificate of temporary acceptance from the registrar of Karachi University in order to qualify for taking part in the 2002 election. His doctorate was done after 20 days of getting his MA degree. When asked to explain the minister declined to answer. Is English more civilised? Writing in Khabrain, Azam Sultan Suhrawardi stated that once he was watching Dr Israr Ahmad defending four marriages of men 'because their sexual desire was too much'. Since Dr Israr was talking to ladies, after some time he stopped talking in Urdu and said that he could now defend his stance only in English because 'such things' could not be discussed in Urdu in front of the ladies. Mushahid Hussain's two-way loyalty Daily Khabrain quoted senator Mushahid Hussain as saying that he had not been a renegade from the Nawaz League. He was in jail when the party itself fired him. Loyalty was always two-way, he said. He said unlike others he took no plots or other perks when he was in the PMLN government. He added that Senate elections were less 'expensive'. Well done, Governor Iftikhar Shah! Writing in Khabrain, Hafiz Sanaullah stated that it was good that General (Retd) Iftikhar Shah had left his post as governor NWFP when did because those who misjudged their time of exit had to pay with their lives. Governor Sikandar Khan Khalil was shot dead. Governor Hayat Muhammad Khan Sherpao was blown up by a bomb. Governor Fazle Haq was shot dead point blank on a road of Peshawar. Many retired governors of NWFP are dead to the people even though alive. But Iftikhar Shah would be remembered. As a young army officer he was an intelligent man and took the homoeopathic medicine called khalifas to activate his mind. Victimising Aga Khan Board Writing in daily Pakistan, Syed Asif Hashmi stated that Aga Khan Education Board was attacked by some uncivilised elements in the country when the Board inadvertently distributed a questionnaire about AIDS and other sexual problems to the institutions. Last year textbooks in Punjab were attacked but no one banned the Textbook Board in Lahore. The campaign against the Aga Khan Board was completely unjustified.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Nuggets from the Urdu Press

2005-04-23

Great Game in Balochistan Writing in Jang Nazeer Naji stated that last in November former US ambassador Robert Oakley went and met Nawab Bugti at Dera Bugti. After that, an organisation supportive of the PML government developed relations with the Baloch nationalists and thereafter a website appeared which was updated from London. What followed was terrorist attacks by BLA which no one owned up. Another Great Game was on in Balochistan and there was only one power which could be involved in it. Khushi Masih becomes Ghulam Nabi According to daily Pakistan one 75 year old Christian Khushi Masih used to sit outside a mosque in Pakpattan and listen to the mellifluous voice of the cleric Ghulam Rasul Naqshbandi. So musical was the voice of the cleric that one day Khushi decided to embrace Islam. After he became Muslim his name was changed to Ghulam Nabi and the town was overjoyed. It was not explained what happened to his legal Christian wife. Stephen Cohen bribed into writing book Writing in Insaf, Prof Naeem Masud stated that American writer Stephen Cohen had the guts to stand up in Lahore and say that Qazi Hussain Ahmad would not suit Pakistan while a liberal leader would. Stephen Cohen — as apparent from the name "Cohen" — was a Jew who had written on Pakistan army in the past and had been paid by those in control of Pakistan to write his present book The Idea of Pakistan. Had Cohen been familiar with the true spirit of Islam, its jihadi philosophy and its intellectual tradition he would not be a Jew but a Muslim and would have written his book differently. The fact is that Jews killed Hazrat Usman and Hazrat Ali from behind the scenes. They were also behind the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971. Cohen had spoken against the liberal leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad. He should not be given khuli chchuti to pronounce judgements on our leaders. Urdu columnists receive big money Writing in Jang, columnist Abdul Qadir Hassan alias Bhola complained that the rulers of today did not want bad news about them to be published but they wanted the columnists to praise them. These days an event is arranged after which a bevy of columnists writes about it in various ways in the weeks to follow. The columnist serving the ruler as a trend began in the Bhutto era and is now full-fledged. There were malpractices in it too as some columnists received big money from the rulers and were richer than other honest columnists. The newspaper owners didn't mind it as they too could use the 'paid' columnist to get in touch with the rulers. America Russia India in Balochistan According to Nawa-e-Waqt, two KGB spies had disclosed that America asked Russia and India to guard its interests in Afghanistan and Balochistan, for which American and Indian spies with resources had entered Balochistan in 2002 and stayed with Nawab Khair Baksh Marri and his son Balach Marri. After that a training camp for terrorists was started in Marri territory of Kohlu. Balach Marri was made the head of the Balochistan Liberation army (BLA) that started its campaign of terrorism in the province. Weapons and explosives were gathered in Kishan Garh a small locality near the Punjab-Sindh border with India. From this Indian locality, the munitions were sent through Punjab and Sindh to Balochistan. In 2002, there were 55 training camps for BLA in Balochistan where 550 terrorists took training. America wanted to control the trade routes of Central Asia and isolate China while India wanted China to stay away from the region. Hafiz Saeed's advice Writing in Khabrain, chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Tayba Hafiz Saeed said that his word of advice to President Musharraf was that he should read the Quran and study the hadith carefully and choose his course by avoiding the mistakes of past rulers. Musharraf's responsibilities were heavy and he had to restore Pakistan broken in half. The sacrifices made in Kashmir should not be allowed to go waste. Hindu banya was depriving Pakistan of waters. Friendship with India was going nowhere if not in favour of India. Mukhtar Mai and Mira Daily Jang reported two women under attack in Pakistan. Mira the actress was receiving death threats for acting in an Indian movie and kissing a Hindu actor in it. The other was Mukhtrar Mai of South Punjab who was receiving death threats from the men who had raped her in a gang-rape sanctioned by a village panchayat. Hindu is a snake Writing in Khabrain Shaukat Hussain Shaukat stated that a Hindu was a snake which became more and more poisonous if you gave it milk out of kindness. The Hindu will never refrain from biting you. He was expressing friendship because he wanted to retain possession of territories he had illegally acquired from Pakistan. A Hindu cared for only women, money and land, but a Muslim cared only for the Hereafter. Pervez Musharraf and America Writing in Jang, Asghar Nadeem Syed stated that looking at President Musharraf and his broad chest and his iron fist one presumed that he would be able to prevent the Americans from harming Pakistan or kill him. Bhutto too thought he was powerful but was hanged. When Pervez Musharraf was recently greeted in Multan as the guest of the city of mangoes, he should have remembered that General Zia had died because of a crate of mangoes in his C130 plane. Allama Muhammad Asad (1900-1992) Columnist Irshad Haqqani wrote in Jang that Muhammad Asad was an Austrian Jew Leopold Weiss who converted to Islam and became Muhammad Asad in his friendship with the House of Saud. After 1947, Allama Asad began research on Islam in Pakistan then served as Pakistan's deputy permanent representative at the UN under Zafrullah Khan. He was ousted because of Zafrullah Khan's dislike of him. In that Zafrullah was helped by Ahmad Shah Patras Bukhari. Asad lived in Spain and died there in 1992. His work was still lying unpublished with his wife. The column appealed that Pakistan should publish it. Pak students support homosexuality? According to Khabrain many people had demanded the resignation of education minister General Javed Qazi for allowing two girls and three boys students of class 9 to go to Canada to participate in a speaking competition in support of homosexuality. Jamaat leader Prof Ghafoor said this offence of the education minister who gave Rs 2 lakh to Canada-bound students came in the wake of Aga Khan Board's distribution of a questionnaire asking school children about their girl friends. Mufti Munib of Moon-Sighting Committee also condemned the participation of Pak students in the debate "if they were not opposing the motion".

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2005-04-17

Terrorists in Waziristan uncircumcised! Talking to Khabrain magazine corps commander Peshawar General Safdar Hussain stated that the terrorists in Waziristan were Uzbek and many of them were found to be not even circumcised as Muslims. Those captured knew nothing about Islam beyond the kalima. He said 600 terrorists had been captured in South Waziristan while 150 were killed. Seven years in jail for insulting Quran According to Khabrain a Christian in Chishtian in Punjab was sentenced by a civil judge to seven years rigorous imprisonment for insulting the Quran. (In prison, he could be killed by other Muslim prisoners). The Christian was in the business of doing taviz-ganda (magic cure) and was supposed to have insulted the Quran. Girls in shorts is no big deal Daily Insaf quoted President Pervez Musharraf as saying that it was no offence if the Pakistani girls wore nacker (shorts). He said Qazi Hussain Ahmad and his family went to the United States where the gori (white) girls wore shorts. They obviously did not mind that otherwise they would not have gone to the US. Why then was it objectionable to see Pakistani girls in shorts? Nawa-e-Waqt quoted Musharraf as saying that those who didn't like seeing girls clad in shorts should keep their eyes closed. Hyderabad cleric burns Quran According to Khabrain a pesh imam of Hyderabad collected separated and ragged pages of an old Quran and burnt them to get rid of them. As ill luck would have it, the pages flew up ands fell on the surrounding houses while burning. The entire locality came out in protest, took hold of the cleric and beat him till he was unconscious with grievous injuries. The people did gherao of Masjid Paretabad and sealed it. The cleric was handed over to the police who put him in jail. The town in Hyderabad became endangered with threats of widespread vandalism from the incensed people. Mira in more 'trubbel' Quoted in Insaf chief of Jamiya Naeemiya in Lahore Sarfaraz Naeemi condemned actress Mira for taking part in shameless film scenes in India. He said he had seen pictures of her different poses with a Hindu actor, which had greatly offended him. He said Mira should be punished for indulging in un-Islamic activities. Another cleric said that special NOC should be issued by the government to make sure that actors did not take part in shameless activities in India. According to Khabrain, religious leaders like Munawwar Hassan said that Mira was setting a wrong example for Pakistani youth. Engineer Salimullah said she should be banned from returning to Pakistan. Mira's mother said such films as Nazar were being produced in Pakistan all the time. Other film actors turned against Mira and asked for action against her. Secretary National Assembly harasses air hostess According to Khabrain, secretary National Assembly Saleem Mahmud accompanied Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain when he took a delegation to the UK after an earlier tour of the US. During the tour Mr Saleem Mahmood misbehaved after getting drunk on several occasions. While on a BA flight he harassed an air hostess for which he was arrested upon landing at the Heathrow Airport in London. He was taken to a police station. Mr Saleem Akhtar denied that he had got drunk and misbehaved during the tour or made any mischief with the air hostess. Sheheryar Khan in 'trubbel' According to Nawa-e-Waqt the wife of Mr Sheheryar Khan, former foreign secretary of Pakistan and current chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board, was seen embracing Indian foreign minister Natwar Singh and shaking with pleasure (jhoomna). The paper issued a picture from the India newspaper The Tribune to prove the point and said that normalisation with India was at the cost of the nation's honour and self-respect (qaumi hamiyat aur ghairat). Targeting non-political clerics According to Khabrain, the police had arrested from Rawalpindi Islamabad area 35 terrorists, out of a total of 90, who had come from the Northern Areas to kill the ulema who would not take sides in the sectarian conflict of the country. These men had confessed to killing the gaddi nashin of Barri Imam (Shia) shrine near Islamabad. The name of the organisation to which the 90 belonged was being kept secret by the intelligence agencies for fear of arousing countrywide passions. The name could be guessed by the fact revealed by the agencies that the gang of 90 had come down to commit violence during the Muharram ashura. Blaspheming teacher of Sargodha Reported in daily Insaf Prof Ibnul Hassan of Sargodha University was to take his class in business administration in the evening when he found that the entire class was saying its namaz in the nearby mosque. After the class was missed by students he gave them a dressing down on the return of the pious students. His remarks on their Islamic practice were taken ill by the students who then called upon Islami Jamiat Tulaba to protest. The protest spilled into the city where all the clerics denounced the professor as a blasphemer against the Prophet PBUH and hadith. The professor was apprehended after an FIR. Girl paraded naked Reporting from Mianwali Nawa-e-Waqt stated that one Shafi and his gang picked up an innocent girl, raped her and then paraded her naked in the streets of the village Kari Kheor. Shafi was convinced that a brother of the girl was involved in a relationship with his sister and resorted to the honour-based rape. Is 'dosakh' male or female? Writing in Jang Ataul Haq Qasimi stated that Mushfiq Khwaja who died recently was a great humourist in his Khama Bagosh columns, which he preferred to write for religious journals. Qasimi asked him whether dosakh (hell) was masculine or feminine. Mushfiq said that in either case it was not good for Muslims. Then he thought and said it was female because the Muslims were helplessly attracted to it. After Qasimi read him a couplet by a Hindu Urdu poet showing hell as masculine, Mushfiq said that for non-Muslims hell must be masculine, but for Muslims it had to be feminine. Aga Khan Board is Qadiani 'sazish' Reported by Nawa-e-Waqt Jamaat Islami leader Liaquat Baloch stated that Qadianis were behind the Aga Khan Board which was being imposed on Pakistan to change its ideology. Fatah Mubahala Conference in Chiniot also featured one new Maulana Jhangvi who said that those who removed the mazhabi khana would be removed from the face of the earth. Dr Safdar Mehmood on Stephen Cohen Writing in Jang Dr Safdar Mehmood said that Stephen Cohen wrote first on Pakistan army and was greatly welcomed by the ruling circles in Islamabad. His latest book The Idea of Pakistan was full of predictions which were negative. In the past Lawrence Ziring too was in the habit of predicting Pakistan's future. Ziring predicted Pakistan falling to Marxism and a revolution of the Left, but later refused to answer questions when his prediction was proved false. Scholars are supposed to study and analyse and not make predictions.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

35,000 people attend million-man march

2005-03-21

35,000? That's less than a million, right? (Where's my calculator?) The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has called President Pervez Musharraf a security threat to Pakistan and has alleged that the government has decided to hand over Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr AQ Khan to the US. Sounds good to me... Speaking at a "million man march" organised by the religious alliance at Tibet Centre on Sunday, MMA chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed said President Musharraf had compromised Pakistan's nuclear programme, which acted as a deterrent against foreign aggression, and had made the country's defence insecure. Qazi also blamed President Musharraf for misguiding the nation under the pretext of enlightened moderation, saying his (Musharraf's) term was aimed at presenting a brand of Islam acceptable to US and European governments. Earlier, before the US attacked Afghanistan, the president tricked the people by saying Pakistan came first and under the same pretext helped US forces attack a neighbouring country and occupy its territory. Otherwise we'd have attacked Pakistan, too. But Qazi doesn't believe that. He said Pakistan was made to promote Islamic values and to implement an Islamic system of governance, which meant not being dictated by foreign powers. He claimed that foreign powers had conspired against Islam and cited the government's decision to not include the religion column in the new passports, changing the blasphemy laws and handing over the country's education system to the Aga Khan Board. He also claimed that Pakistan's education system, especially its Islamic curriculum, would change once the Aga Khan Board took control of the education system.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Clerics seeking decree to declare Aga Khanis infidels

2005-03-07

"Let's get this straight: Nobody's a Muslim but us! Got that?" Difa-e-Islam Mahaz (Front for the Defence of Islam), an alliance of 22 Sunni religious organisations, is trying to get a fatwa (decree) from scholars of all sects including Shia and Ahle Hadith in Pakistan to declare Aga Khanis kafir (infidels), Dr Mufti Sarfaraz Naeemi, principal of Jamia Naemia, told Daily Times on Sunday. He said, "We have first called for a decree from local Sunni scholars and then the consensus will be made on a national basis to declare Aga Khanis, like the Ahmadis, non-Muslim. After that, no school considering them non-Muslim will join the Aga Khan Board (AKB)." He said this when asked to comment on the AKB issue, which was part of the main agenda of the Difa-e-Islam Mahaz meeting held at Jamia Naemia on Sunday afternoon. The other agenda included the recent amendment in Section 295-C (Blasphemy Law) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the abolition of the religion column in the new passport. He said Sunnis already considered Aga Kahnis non-Muslim. Asked what the problem was with having an Aga Khani educational board in Pakistan as thousands of students were already taking exams under the British (Christian) system, he said it was already clear that the British system was Christian. About discussions on Section 295-C (Blasphemy Law) of the PPC, Dr Naeemi said the meeting opposed the recent amendment in the aforesaid section, empowering only a superintendent of police level official to inquire into a blasphemy incident before lodging a First Information Report (FIR). He warned that the situation could also instigate common Muslims to react or attack such an accused if he were not arrested immediately. He feared that though this would be against the law, the government would be responsible for such a situation.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Nuggets from the Urdu press

2005-02-11

Clergy gave us Islam! Writing in Nawa-e-Waqt, Irfan Siddiqi stated that no 'enlightened' ruler, no 'clever' NGO, no 'ready-to-die' religious party had given Islam to Pakistan, but it was the lonely figure of the maulavi (cleric) who had kept to his job of inviting people to the rituals of Islam. It was the cleric who had lighted the lamp of faith in the face of all kinds of storm. And he despite his many weaknesses was better than the people who had hearts of stone. Give the award to AQ Khan! Writing in Nawa-e-Waqt, Dr Ajmal Niazi stated that during a ceremony of giving human rights award by the Human Rights Society of Pakistan to the great journalist and chief editor of Nawa-e-Waqt Mr Majeed Nizami, someone from the audience raised the slogan 'the award should be given to AQ Khan the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb'. The entire session agreed with the suggestion. Illiterate MPA caught taking BA exam According to Khabrain, an MPA who had only primary school education was caught by the police taking BA examination at Tando Jan Muhammad in Sindh. The man was Al Haj Mir Hayat Khan Talpur who had been elected five times to Sindh Assembly. He was taking BA finals in order to obtain a fake BA degree. When he was caught he began perspiring profusely and was greatly upset. PPP versus Aga Khan Board Secretary information of PPP Navid Chaudhry was quoted by Khabrain as saying that Jewish influence was being spread in Pakistan. He said that the Aga Khan examination board will be costly (mehnga paray ga) for Pakistan because it was dangerous. The real problem he said was of poor and rich students. Osama is our hero! Sarerahe wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt that according to one report the Pakistan government had refused the request of the American government to print 'wanted' ads about Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani press and TV. Islamabad was supposed to have said that the ads would create difficulties for it. The Americans did not know the mizaj of the Pakistanis. Osama was a hero for them and all the action taken by the US had not converted him to zero. Those Pakistanis who yearn for dollars and American approval should be patient.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

No talks with government, says Qazi

2004-12-24

The Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) will not hold talks with the government unless the ongoing government-MMA dialogue produces results, said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, MMA president on Thursday. That's called Islamic logic. Don't hold talks unless they produce results. Qazi, who is also the Jamaat-e-Islami ameer, said the MMA Supreme Council would decide about the agitation against the president's uniform in a meeting today (Friday). "President Musharraf will not be a constitutional president from January 1 if he does not hang up his uniform by December 31," Qazi told reporters after a Christmas party at the St John's Cathedral here. He said the 17th Amendment would lose its efficacy if the president did not hang up his uniform. "Our basic demand in the 17th Amendment was that the president would have to hang up his uniform by December 31 and if the government does not accept it, the amendment will have no value," he said. The JI ameer alleged that Musharraf was violating the Constitution. "He is a friend of America which is interfering in Pakistan's affairs and wants Pakistan to be a secular state," Qazi. He said the US wanted to change the syllabi of Pakistani schools and "Even the education minister says that there is no need to mention Islam in every textbook." He said the Aga Khan Board was part of the US global village agenda through which America wanted India and Pakistan to reunite.

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