M WAQAR.....
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
--Albert Einstein !!!
NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.''
تل ده وی پثتونستآن
The life of a Pakistani politician is fraught with life-threatening situations. In recent years, several high-profile politicians have been assassinated: former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, and Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti in 2011. The dangerous trend has continued this month with the targeting of lower-profile candidates running for office in the upcoming May 11 parliamentary elections. In these instances, the Pakistani Taliban or religious extremists were the perpetrators, choosing their targets for either "un-Islamic" secular and progressive values or their perceived cooperation with the United States against Pakistani militants and in the war in Afghanistan.
Beyond the tragic loss of life, the assassinations have the added casualty of limiting the space within which Pakistani leaders can safely operate. Taliban attacks have pressured willing and able voices against extremism into silence on issues — such as minority rights, girls' education and trade with India — that Pakistani society must publicly debate in order to fully embrace and institutionalize them. Those who remain vocal do so at great personal and professional risk: Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman faces charges in Pakistani courts for her support of revisions to the blasphemy law.
In the context of upcoming polls, even more worrisome is that the specter of assassination and violence could affect the election outcome, and potentially the representation of key Pakistani constituencies. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan announced the group's intention to target candidates and party workers affiliated with the ruling coalition's Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM). ANP and MQM candidates and activists have already been injured or killed-fear tactics intended to directly handicap the ruling coalition's chances of returning to power.
Another side effect of the Pakistani Taliban's killing spree is that the specific pressure on the ANP could skew the Pashtun vote. After the 2008 election, many had high hopes for the secular party based in the Pashtun-concentrated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. But even then security threats from the Pakistani Taliban prevented ANP from fully taking advantage of the mandate the voters had given it. ANP was viewed as a potential counter to the influence of religious parties like Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), which swept national and provincial elections during the Musharraf years as part of a coalition of religious parties known as the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.
The Pakistani Taliban's renewed targeting of ANP could improve the chances of religious parties who have, in the past, shared common ideological ground with them. The influence of religious parties has typically been downplayed, but what they are selling might have a new buyer. A survey conducted by the British Council earlier this year revealed that 38 percent of Pakistani youth surveyed believed Islamic law is better suited for Pakistan than democracy.
But the Pakistani Taliban has also threatened some religious parties, such as JUI, for cooperation with the federal government. The real worry is not the return of religious parties but the disenfranchisement of Pakistani Pashtuns, who may decide to stay at home on election day to avoid violence. This is the last thing the Pakistani state needs in a province that borders the ungoverned tribal areas and where the notion of a greater Pashtun homeland-"Pashtunistan"-exists in spirit if not fully in practice. ANP also faces threats in Karachi, where the growing Pashtun population has become ensconced in the city's gangland-style political culture. Any handicaps for Karachi's Pashtuns in the upcoming elections could also potentially worsen the security situation there.
The PPP, which led the previous government with ANP as a coalition partner, faces similar challenges in reaching voters. President Asif Ali Zardari has been reluctant to participate in large public rallies during this campaign, and for good reason. The memory of the 2007 assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, following a rally in Rawalpindi is still fresh among PPP leadership. Fears of assassination have kept Zardari out of the public eye for most of his term and now limit how much his son Bilawal Bhutto, the PPP's heir apparent, campaigns on behalf of the party as well.
Bhutto could have rallied the party's base at a time when the PPP needs it the most. Besides the PPP stronghold of interior Sindh, nowhere else is PPP guaranteed to dominate. Voter outreach is especially critical in north and central Punjab, the traditional domain of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and where Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has made inroads. Most elections analysts believe that if PTI can continue to tap into PML-N's base of support, especially among urban educated youth, then PPP's chances in Punjab are inadvertently strengthened. It can also benefit from the fact that the strength of PTI's "tsunami" appears to be tapering off. If PPP can access voters who are falling off the PTI bandwagon, it could have a chance in chipping away at PML-N's lead. But PPP cannot rely solely on PML-N's failures or PTI's wane.
For the time being, Pakistani Taliban threats continue to keep the most influential PPP politicians far from Punjab where it matters the most. Even more tragic is the possibility that ANP will be forced to boycott the elections. While much of the elections focus has been on the historic political transition afoot in Pakistan, the threats serve as a reminder of the tough road ahead for whoever manages to survive and come out on top.
By Karen DeYoung
BRUSSELS — Secretary of State John F. Kerry began talks here Wednesday with top leaders from Afghanistan and Pakistan, trying to revive lagging efforts to persuade them to work together on peace negotiations with the Taliban.
The meeting came amid a new round of recriminations between the two governments, and rising nervousness on both sides of their shared border over the fast-approaching departure of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan.
As he ushered Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani through the door of a secluded estate outside the Belgian capital, Kerry called “the road forward” a “crucial transformation period.” The two leaders, standing on either side of him, did not exchange glances, and their demeanors were far from warm.
Obama administration officials, who have long said that a negotiated settlement with the Taliban was the only way to truly end the Afghan war, see the window closing for negotiations and the establishment of cooperative relations between the South Asia neighbors.
The Taliban walked out of preliminary talks with the United States more than a year ago, charging bad faith and suspending negotiations over a possible prisoner swap in which five Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be released in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier held by the militants in Pakistan since 2009.
With this year’s fighting season well underway, U.S. intelligence officials believe the militants are divided between senior, Pakistan-based leaders and ground commanders inside Afghanistan over whether to wait out the U.S. departure or to join the Afghan political process in hopes of winning influence at the ballot box next year.
Afghanistan has charged Pakistan with playing a double game, publicly saying it favors talks between the Taliban and Karzai’s government, while privately keeping the Taliban leadership on a tight leash to prevent the negotiations from getting off the ground.
Pakistan insists it does not control the Taliban. But it fears post-withdrawal chaos next door will undermine its security and wants to preserve its leverage with influence over the militants.
The administration has tried to bring the two governments together in tripartite talks for the past several years. While there has been some progress, with an increase in cross-border trade and pledges of further cooperation, they remain mutually wary and occasionally hostile.
Afghanistan has charged the Pakistani military with firing across its border in the rugged mountains, where militants operate on both sides, and alleged that Pakistan aided militants who killed 12 Afghan soldiers this month in Konar province.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan and the U.S. military with failing to go after militants of the Pakistani Taliban, a separate group it charges has sanctuaries on the Afghan side.
A Pakistani agreement to host a meeting between top religious leaders from both countries remains unfulfilled. Pakistan holds a number of top Taliban leaders in detention and agreed, in earlier U.S.-sponsored talks, to release them to Afghanistan’s High Peace Council to participate in peace talks. Although some were released late last year, U.S. and Afghan officials charged they were not placed in official Afghan hands, but simply let go. Those Taliban on the top of the Afghan list remain in Pakistani custody.
The border between the two countries has long been under dispute, and Afghanistan does not recognize the so-called Durand Line drawn by the British last century. This month, Karzai angrily charged encroachment when Pakistan constructed a border gate in mountainous territory that, Karzai insisted, belong to Afghanistan. Hundreds of Afghan students in the city of Jalalabad, near the frontier, demonstrated with anti-Pakistan slogans.
The Obama administration is juggling its relationship with both governments. Kerry, who interacted with top Afghan and Pakistani leaders for years as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, clearly hoped his participation in Wednesday’s talks would break the ice.
“We are going to have a trilateral and try to talk about how we can advance this process in the simplest, most cooperative, most cogent way, so that we wind up with both Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s interests being satisfied — but most importantly with a stable and peaceful Afghanistan,” Kerry told diplomats at a NATO meeting here Tuesday.
Karzai also attended the NATO meeting, to discuss alliance withdrawal plans in 2014, and used it as an opportunity to invite the participation of Pakistan’s military leader, who maintains tight control over his country’s foreign and defense policies.
Pakistan has only a transitional government at the moment, with elections scheduled for next month. Although there is no foreign minister in place, Kayani was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani.
After the meeting at Truman Hall, the residence of the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kerry will return to Washington.
A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on Tuesday urged Japan to adhere to its commitments after a group of 168 Japanese lawmakers visited the Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are honored alongside the country's World War II casualties.
Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily press briefing that no matter in what form and identity, the intent of the Japanese leaders' visits to the Yasukuni Shrine is to deny the history of Japanese militarist aggression.
Japan's neighbors in Asia and the international community should be highly alert to their behavior and intentions, according to Hua.
She urged the Japanese side to take meaningful action to win the trust of the international community, in order to avoid harming itself and others or isolating itself.
Only when Japan learns from history can it embrace the future, said the spokeswoman.
People across Russia have been celebrating the 143rd birthday of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin and two revellers in a North Russia village went too far, and ended up beheading a statue of the leader of the Bolshevik revolution.
The offenders then sheepishly took the severed statue's head to the local police station.
The villagers are like many in modern day Russia who still consider Lenin's role in history as positive. The latest opinion poll shows 57% of Russians see Lenin in a good light. More than half consider him a good person, and getting on for two thirds think his birthday on April 22nd is worth remembering.
More than 60% of Russians would like to see Lenin's body properly buried. It currently remains on view in the mausoleum on Red Square. However a quarter think he should not be moved. The poll shows a swing towards reburial from a year ago.
Researchers also asked what was the people’s attitude to renaming Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg into Leningrad, how it was called from 1924 till 1991. Only 30 percent of those polled said they supported the move.
The issue of Lenin’s burial is one of the oldest controversies in Russian politics and the discussion usually heats up around the time of Soviet holidays and anniversaries. The burial is usually supported by nationalists and religious groups close to the Russian Orthodox Church and Communists always brand such attempts as a provocation.
However, it was President Putin who opposed the move in his speech before an assembly of his supporters in December 2012. “They are saying that the Mausoleum is against our traditions. Why so? We can see holy remains in the Kiev-Pechora Monastery and in other places,” Putin said, hinting that Lenin would remain on display in his glass coffin at least for some time.
To Russians,Lenins' Tomb is a great tribute to hero who overturned Feudal rule of Tzars. Which should be preserved for creator of modern Russian state. Without Lenins' Socialism, Russia may have collapsed in WW2. Which brings up the obvious; Anti-Lenin comments are made by Westerners who preferred Russia as a Feudal nation instead of Strong independant. Sure am positive NWO Bilderburgers for Western Hegemony Globally see it that way...Stan Dinsmore
Four months after a vicious gang rape left a 23-year-old physiotherapy student dead and triggered a national outcry over the treatment of women, more protests ignited in New Delhi after another brutal rape -- this time the victim was a five-year-old girl.
Two men have been arrested in the case. Authorities say the girl was abducted, locked in a house and raped repeatedly. She was found semiconscious three days later and doctors removed foreign objects from her genitals, including candle pieces and a small bottle.
"In a capital city, we cannot provide protection to a young girl," said Bhagyashri Dengle, the executive director of Plan India, an organization that works to help underprivileged children.
The girl's family said that police officers had tried to bribe them to keep quiet about the case.Senior police officials have ordered a separate investigation into those allegations.
Clapping, chanting and holding signs that read "Enough is enough," protesters re-emerged in the nation's capital. They waved money at the police officers alleging corruption and ineptitude.
Then, there was another slap in the face, advocates said, when a Delhi police officer was taped pushing and swatting a female protester on Friday, fueling even more outrage.
"Things have not improved," Dengle said of the police. "There is no fear, no sensitization, no awareness if a policeman, held responsible for law and order, is behaving this way to women."
A New Delhi police spokesman said that the offending officer has been suspended.
After a student was raped by seven men in a bus in Delhi in a case that brought international attention to India in December, authorities created stricter laws and vowed to increase the number of women working in the city's police stations. But the latest rape case begs the question -- has anything really changed in India since December?
"There is anger, frustration and introspection," said Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the Population Foundation of India, a group that works on women's health and rights. "Tragically, the people's mindset hasn't changed. Police behavior hasn't changed. Political behavior hasn't changed."
But there are other issues at play, women say.
The gender issues facing India are "deep rooted," Dengle said. "It's the status of women. It's the male mindset. It's not going to change overnight."
On a given week, sexual violence appears daily in the national newspapers -- a 16-year-old allegedly raped by her father, a landlord convicted of raping a tenant, a rickshaw-puller caught raping his 10-year-old daughter, a 19-year-old boy raping a 12-year-old mentally disabled girl, a 25-year-old raping his cousin, and a man throwing acid on his wife's private parts.
While these cases haven't triggered demonstrations, they indicate regularly reported attacks on women and children.Earlier this month, India's president signed a law bringing stiffer anti-rape laws, introducing the death penalty for repeat offenders, and imprisonment for acid attacks, human trafficking and stalking. It also punishes public servants, such as a police officer, who "knowingly disobeys" the laws required in an investigation.
"Our government has moved with speed in strengthening the law to be able to deal more effectively with offences against women," said Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister on Sunday. "But, this is only a small part of what needs to be done.
"The gruesome assault on a little girl a few days back reminds us once again of the need to work collectively to root out this sort of depravity from our society."
Children are even more vulnerable, said Dengle. Many girls don't feel safe using public toilets, walking to and from school where they're teased by males, she said. They can't trust rickshaw drivers who take them to school.
The Asian Centre for Human Rights reported that child rape cases jumped from 2,113 cases in 2001 to 7,112 in 2011 in India.
Some families restrict women and girls' mobility because of the risks, said Aparajita Gogoi, the National Coordinator for the White Ribbon Alliance, which is a grassroots campaign for women's health, at a U.N. Foundation panel for journalists that took place earlier this month.
The practice is long-standing, Dengle said.
"Parents feel scared that girl can be abused on the way [to school]," she said. "The best thing [they think] is to keep her at home and this was happening even before all these rape cases. Girls didn't feel really safe."
In a late, sunny afternoon in Delhi, the dusty streets are crowded with mostly men. The women appearing in public are in groups or accompanied by other men.
A survey supported by UN Women found 95% of females in New Delhi said they felt unsafe in public places. Comprised of 2,001 females and 1,003 males, the survey was conducted before the December 16 rape case of the physiotherapy student.
Three out of four men in the survey agreed with the statement, saying "Women provoke men by the way they dress" and two men out of five fully or partially agreed that "Women moving around at night deserve to be sexually harassed." Fifty-one percent of men reported that they had sexually harassed or committed violence against females in public spaces in Delhi, according to the survey from the Safer Cities Free of Violence against Women and Girls Initiative.
For any substantial change, Indians have to address the way girls and women are treated overall, advocates say.
Women are in danger even before they're born, said Ruchira Gupta, the founder of ApneAap, a women's organization.
Sex-selective abortions, which are illegal in India, continue as the sex ratio, shown in the 2011 census, dwindled to 940 females to 1,000 males.
Having a girl means the family would have to pay dowries, which are also illegal in India.
"Should girls survive, often they get less food than their brothers, they're pulled out of school early to help at home or get married," Gupta said. "They may have babies before their bodies are fully formed and and consequently die of maternal mortality or become victims of dowry or sex-trafficking. All this may not happen to one single girl but at least one or more of these things could happen to an average girl in India."
Half of girls are married before the age of 18, U.N. reports find. India accounts for 19% of the global maternal deaths, according to U.N. report from 1990-2010.
Gogoi, a health advocate, laid a scathing critique during a panel discussion with journalists: "Our culture doesn't place much value on women's lives."
The other problem is that women are seen as objects of desire, said Dengle.
"We have to break gender stereotypes," she said, supporting new classes to teach gender equality. "All this education needs to happen at the school level. They need to be sensitized and educated on respecting women. Our education system lacks that."
The Bahraini government has postponed indefinitely a visit by Juan Mendez the UN special rapporteur on torture.
According to the country's official news agency the trip has been called off "until further notice".
This comes just days after the release of a US State Department report on human rights in Bahrain which spoke of "significant" violations including torture in detention.
The Gulf kingdom has been wracked by civil unrest for two years.
The violence has left at least 50 people dead.
An independent enquiry established by King Hamad al-Khalifa in 2011 found that there had been numerous abuses. The king accepted the report and promised accountability and reform.
But human rights organisations in Bahrain and outside the country say that the promised reforms are happening either too slowly or not at all. And they allege that human rights abuses are continuing.
The US State Department Bahrain 2012 Human Rights Report spoke of "serious human rights problems," including "citizens' inability to change their government peacefully; arrest and detention of protesters on vague charges, in some cases leading to their torture in detention; and lack of due process in trials of political and human rights activists".
Mr Mendez had originally intended to visit Bahrain in 2012 but that too was called off. Pointing to this second postponement Brian Dooley of US based Human Rights First called the decision "a huge blow to the credibility of Bahrain's reform process".
"It seems like the Bahrain regime is frightened of what more international scrutiny might reveal. It's very telling that they've shut Mendez out again," said Mr Dooley.
A spokesperson in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) described the decision as "disappointing" and noted that Alistair Burt, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State had raised the issue with the Bahraini government "stressing the importance we and the international community place on the visit".
The FCO said: "We hope that a new date for this visit can be found soon."
Afghan President Hamid Karzai will travel to Brussels on Tuesday to met U.S. Secretary of State of State John Kerry and senior Pakistani officials to discuss the flagging Afghan peace process, an Afghan presidential spokesman said on Monday.
The meeting had been arranged by Kerry in order to repair relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, following weeks of tension relating to border disputes and the peace process, Karzai's chief spokesman, Aimal Faizi, said in Kabul.
Pakistan must play a positive role in bringing stability to Afghanistan as foreign troops prepare to leave in 2014, the head of NATO said on Tuesday, before a U.S.-chaired meeting that will try to ease friction between often feuding neighbors.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will host talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior Pakistan officials in Brussels on Wednesday, with the aim of calming tension over border disputes and the stalled peace process.
"If we are to ensure long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan we also need a positive engagement of Afghanistan's neighbors, including Pakistan," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters as alliance foreign ministers met in Brussels to discuss NATO's mission in Afghanistan.
Wednesday's U.S.-chaired meeting is part of a series of on-off discussions between Afghanistan and Pakistan at the behest of the United States. Rasmussen said he would meet Karzai later on Tuesday.
Afghanistan has grown increasingly frustrated with Pakistan over efforts to pursue a peace process involving the Taliban, suggesting that Islamabad is intent on keep Afghanistan unstable until after foreign combat forces have left at the end of 2014.
U.S. officials hope that Kerry, who has a good relationship with Karzai, can bring the parties back to the negotiating table and make constructive progress on an issue that has long-term security implications for Washington.
Kerry said on Monday the aim of the meeting would be to "try to talk about how we can advance this process in the simplest, most cooperative and most cogent way, so that we wind up with both Pakistan's and Afghanistan's interests being satisfied, but, most importantly, with a stable and peaceful Afghanistan."
TENSION
The talks follow weeks of tension with Pakistan over their 2,600 km (1,600 mile) border and stalled peace efforts.
Although there have been several meetings in Western capitals over the past few months in which representatives of the Taliban have met Afghan peace negotiators, there have been no signs of a breakthrough.
Kabul accuses Pakistan of harboring the Taliban leadership in the city of Quetta and using militants as proxies to counter the influence of India in Afghanistan.
As well as Karzai and Kerry, Wednesday's meeting will include Afghanistan's defense minister, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, and Pakistan's foreign secretary, Jalil Jilani, the U.S. official said.
NATO-led forces are expected to cede the lead role for security in Afghanistan this spring to Afghan soldiers, 12 years after the United States invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban government harboring Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader who masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities.
Most foreign combat forces are due to pull out by the end of 2014, leaving a smaller NATO-led training mission behind and a U.S. force to fight militants.
The White House has yet to decide how many U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after 2014 and this could be a factor influencing both Taliban and Pakistani strategy. Much depends on progress in negotiations with Karzai on a Bilateral Security Agreement to define the future legal status of U.S. forces.
NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on February 22 discussed keeping a combined NATO force of between 8,000 and 12,000 troops. That compares to combined NATO forces of about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan now.
General James Mattis, the head of the U.S. military's Central Command, said in March he had recommended keeping 13,600 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014.
Pakistan's liberal Awami National Party says it cannot run its election campaign in northwestern areas because of the attacks on its leaders by the Taliban. The right wing appears set to benefit.
The Pakistani Taliban has killed hundreds of secular Awami National Party (ANP) officials in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the last five years. But of late, the banned militant group has increased its attacks on the ANP leaders. This puts the ANP in a difficult situation as it cannot campaign freely for the May 11 parliamentary elections.
Former railway minister and senior leader of the ANP, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, was injured in a suicide bomb attack last week while campaigning in Peshawar. Around 18 ANP workers were killed in the attack claimed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
It is not the first time that the Taliban have targeted an ANP leader. The ANP - the former ruling party of the strategically important Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan - has lost hundreds of its workers and a number of its senior officials over the last few years. The Taliban have named the ANP, the former ruling party of President Zardari, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) as its prime targets because of their secular credentials and their opposition to Islamic extremism in the country.In December, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, a 69-year-old former provincial minister and senior leader of the ANP, was assassinated by the Pakistani Taliban in Peshawar. Bilour was an outspoken critic of the Taliban and Islamic extremism.
No campaign for the ANP
The ANP complains it cannot run the election campaign smoothly in the present situation where its leaders are targeted and its public gatherings are attacked by the militants.
"The ANP is unable to campaign properly in this situation. It is true that their campaign has been badly affected," Shahid Ullah Jan, a human rights activist in Peshawar, told DW, adding that the ANP leaders were justified in demanding additional security.
But the caretaker government, which was instated after the PPP finished its tenure in March to conduct "free and fair" polls, hasn’t done much to address the ANP’s concerns. The ANP criticizes the interim government, the election commission, and other political parties for not standing up in support of it. It claims that by not unequivocally condemning the extremists, the government and mainstream political parties are strengthening the Taliban and giving their sympathizers undue advantage in elections.Experts are of the view that conservative parties like Imran Khan's Tehreek-e-Insaf and former PM Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League, and Islamic groups like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami are benefiting from the ANP's quandary. These parties are believed to be "sympathetic" towards the Taliban and other Islamist groups.
Khan - who has emerged as one of the forerunners in upcoming elections, particularly in northwestern areas - wants to negotiate with the Taliban and stop Pakistan's support to the US in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. Unlike the ANP, the Khan's party is able to hold huge rallies and public gatherings even in towns which are considered the Taliban strongholds.
'Unpopular war'
The ANP, the PPP, and the MQM are the only mainstream political parties in Pakistan which openly criticize the Taliban and support the fight against extremism. But the ANP's stakes in Pakistan's fight against terror are higher than those of any other political party in Pakistan. The ANP is a pre-dominantly Pashtun organization, as is the Taliban. Losing the battle against the Taliban means losing political power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The ANP, whose long history of secular politics goes back to the time of its founder Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (also known as the Frontier's Gandhi), has ruled the province for many decades. Due to growing extremism in its own constituency, nonetheless, it has seen a plunge in popularity over the years.
The ANP’s supporters, analysts believe, are already unhappy with the governance of their party during the last five years.
According to DW's Peshawar correspondent Faridullah Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been badly affected by the "war on terror" and many people are against US drone strikes in the semi-governed northwestern tribal areas. In his opinion, many people held the ANP responsible for this situation. It was something that right-wing groups were benefiting from, he said.Political experts like Malik Siraj Akbar, who is based in the US, are critical of Pakistan's response to the Taliban and the menace of terrorism. Akbar told DW in an interview that the main reason why liberal Pakistani parties faced a dilemma was that Pakistan had not officially owned the war on terror.
"Pakistan is not ideologically convinced that it is its war."
For this reason, counter-extremism and counter-terrorism experts in Pakistan say liberal parties have not been able to get the masses behind them in the fight against terror.
Peace talks
The ANP - like the PPP and the MQM - appear to be in an ideological dilemma. Not only the Pakistani state, but now the US, too, wants to talk to the Taliban and make its peace with the militants.
"So what is the future of the parties like the ANP and the PPP who have been supporting the onslaught on the Islamists?" asked Dr. Riaz Ahmed, a political activist in Karachi, who described why he believed the attacks on the ANP leaders had increased. "Politicians who want an offensive against the extremists are now a hindrance in the negotiations with Taliban. They are being removed from the scene," Ahmed told DW.
Islamic parties have always been demanding that the government must make peace with the Taliban.
Muhammad Shah Afridi, a conservative member of parliament from Khyber Agency - one of the semi-governed tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan - told DW that if the US and NATO could negotiate with the Taliban then Pakistan should do the same."War is not the solution to this conflict. We will have to talk (to the Taliban)," Afridi said.
The ANP leadership, too, has welcomed the US' initiative of "peace talks" with the Taliban, but experts believe it is not enough to convince the Taliban that the ANP is a "friend." There are many in the ranks of the ANP who still oppose the Taliban and want the party to run its election campaign on an anti-Taliban slogan.
And there is the dilemma: If the ANP goes all out against the Taliban, it is likely that the militants are going to bomb its rallies and kill its leaders, hence sabotaging its election campaign; and if it tries to appease the Taliban, it is going to lose its traditional support.
If the primary goal of an interim government is to organize free and fair elections, Balochistan’s caretaker government headed by Chief Minister Nawab Ghaus Bakhsh Barozai seems to be failing to perform the job. Almost a month after his appointment as the caretaker, Mr. Barozai has not formed his cabinet. He has been running the affairs of the provincial government all alone with the help of provincial secretaries. As the date for the general election approaches, Mr. Barozai’s challenges also keep increasing.
The state of law and order is going from bad to worse. The Baloch armed groups have increased their attacks on election offices, rallies, candidates and official installations. They have also called upon the voters to stay at home on the election day.
Mr. Barozai has done too little to ensure transparency in the elections. A recent report published in Akhbar-e-Jahan, a respected Karachi-based Urdu language weekly, is deeply alarming. The report says that most ministers of the previous government are still using government transportation and residences. These ministers are contesting elections this year as well and they are using the official machinery for their own benefits. The caretaker government should take immediate notice of this malpractice and ask all politicians to vacate official residence and return the vehicles.
Mr. Barozai should also fulfill the standard requirements of a caretaker government by appointing caretaker ministers for different departments. It is not easy for one man to run the whole show, particularly in a troubled place like Balochistan. Mr. Barozai should share the burden of his responsibilities with other ministers as all critical issues, such as the rehabilitation of the earthquake victims and establishing peace during the election season, require sufficient attention. People with a good reputation and commitment to public service should be given preference in forming the interim cabinet.
Voter lists finalised by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) have shown a 236% increase in the number of female registered voters in Khyber Agency.
According to the ECP’s 2008 voters list, the total number of people registered from Khyber Agency was 194,256, with 156,973 male and 37,283 female voters. This time, there have been 142,507 new registrations.
The spike may be attributed to the increase in the number of women getting Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC).
The total number of registered voters in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) is 1,616,601. Out of this, 1,063,807 are men and 552,794 are women.
Interestingly, this time round the highest number of female voters is in Bajaur Agency — 132,366. The lowest number was recorded in North Waziristan with 11,704 female voters.
From Khyber Agency a total of 336,763 registered voters comprise 211,495 males and 125,268 females. The total number of voters in Khyber Agency has increased by 73.4% since 2008.
The highest increase in the ratio of female voters per 100 male voters had also been recorded in Khyber Agency.
An ECP official told The Express Tribune, “One of the main reasons for the increase in registered voters is the fact that those who get their Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC) made, automatically get registered with the ECP and then we verify them with the address they provide.”
He added the former government’s Benazir Income Support Programme required a valid CNIC, thus more women got their cards made and as a result the number of registered voters increased.
The ongoing military operation in Khyber Agency has left many families displaced. They are forced to live in camps and register for ration cards which also requires them to get CNICs made. This has also impacted voter registration, said an aid worker, who will be observing the electoral process.
He added law and order in Landikotal and Jamrud subdivisions of the agency is better than other areas of Fata. In these areas, women do not fear registering themselves for CNICs and casting vote.
IN its recently released report on the 2007 showdown between the state and militants holed up inside an Islamabad mosque, the Lal Masjid commission has absolved the army of responsibility for the debacle. Instead, blame has been placed on the shoulders of Gen Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz and members of the cabinet at the time. But before the state files murder charges — as recommended by the one-judge commission — we must ask whether these recommendations are in consonance with some aspects of the affair that need greater critical appraisal. In other words, the sensitive nature of such an investigation should have entailed far broader terms of reference for the commission than merely affixing blame and focusing on compensation issues.
There are three crucial aspects of the Lal Masjid operation that can be considered independently of the report: a) the military operation that resulted in clearing the mosque of militants and the death of many civilians was an institutional decision, not solely that of Gen Musharraf, who was then army chief; b) the situation in the capital had been allowed to come to such a pass that a military operation became necessary; c) the operation was badly mishandled, resulting in the death of all those who were inside the complex, not just the militants. True, there was justification for the operation. The Lal Masjid militants had challenged the writ of the state in the heart of Islamabad. Aside from the seminary students’ moral policing in the capital, Sharia ‘courts’ were set up inside the mosque and there were a number of fire-fights with the police, paramilitary and army even before the military launched its operation. Heavy weaponry was stashed inside the place of worship — and later used by militants during the siege.
While the details of the siege itself were covered extensively by the media, very little is known about the identity of the armed militants who were in control of the mosque complex and their agenda. Here is where a bigger probe is needed; and also to answer what went on inside the complex during the operation and what prompted the military to act in a way that there was no survivor to give an alternative version of events. It can only be hoped that a wider probe will also summon army officials. Fact and fiction must be separated before blame is affixed on those responsible for carrying out a flawed operation and those whose terrorising tactics were getting out of hand.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan made public on Monday a list of eminent intellectuals, journalists, writers, anchorperson and news-agencies that were paid by the previous PPP Information Ministry through its secret fund. The Supreme Court list contains itemized particulars of those expenditures for which the information ministry now does not claim privilege or secrecy. The list of disbursements, totaling up to 1.7 billion rupees, was uploaded on the apex court's website in accordance to its directive issued earlier during the day. The official document given to the Supreme Court of Pakistan exposes more lies of the PPP Information Ministry. In days to come, more lies, betrayals and follies of the PPP government and its minister will continue to surface. No matter how far the lies of the PPP are buried under the secret bribes that the previous regime used to hire some of the media 'gurus'. The then media darling the Federal Information Minister Qamaruzzaman Kiara often used to the 'hired media dons' to befool, belittle and ridicule his opponents on the TV channels' screens.
There is no provision of secret funds in the Constitution of Pakistan or in any other law around the world. Yet the practice of misusing the state funds collected from the cruelly taxed money pops up more often than not--especially in states notorious for bad governance. Of course, the Pakistan Peoples' Party government, unfortunately, is one of them. No the time has come to fix looting and plundering or misuse of the states resources. Every single beneficiary of the secret funds should be exposed without any exception and relaxation. Mostly the PPP government misused the funds for pro-government news agencies, newspapers and TV channels for its publicity and hiding the facts. The payments had been made under the head of advertisement and direct cash payments, however, are very rare that may provide a window for the former rulers to get off the hook. The aspect, hopefully, will be guarded against and looked after properly. Regardless of the response of journalists named in the list, the Supreme Court of Pakistan should go one step ahead in exposing all black sheep amongst the severing or the retired judges, generals and journalists. For ages, the allegation of corruption against these three communities are making headlines but being the sacred cows they have never been questioned in the past. Now the Supreme Court of Pakistan has initiated the process of accountability starting from the journalists. These bribed media-owners, editors, reporters, anchorpersons, politicians and bureaucrats should be taken to the task. Rightly, the court had frozen the funds of the information ministry. The last day heroic of former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf of sanctioning a summary for the payment of Rs 1.32 billion for media campaigns--should also be thoroughly probed and a detailed audit of the accounts of the ministries concerned be carried out. The media is one of the pillars of the state and media practitioners are the non-governmental ameens of the state and the rights of the countrymen to the extent that the people with clear conscience including the former US president Thomas Jefferson preferred to live in a country where no government but the free press is firmly in place. Solution to all problems of Pakistan too lies in having free, fair and independent press. Thus much desired and long-standing demand of the nation of cleansing the media industry too should be taken far more seriously. The corruption, abuse of powers and misuse of the state funds for personal gains or in the name of the 'national interests' can only be stopped forth with provided the abusers and the beneficiaries are thrown out of the fray. Just political rhetoric has neither born fruit in the past nor will it do any good for the future of the country. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken cognizance on number of issues ranging from corruption to law and order situation in the country. The cases are either pending or yet to produce desired results to the nation for one reason or other. The apex court should come down hard on the latest revelations of the PPP government 's bid of corrupting media houses and the workers there in. All those involved in the process should be brought to book immediately. The real across the board accountability--not mere the political rhetoric--the country needs the most. Otherwise, the opportunists, one way or the other, would continue to tarnish the image of the country at home and abroad.
The White House says President Barack Obama will observe a moment of silence Monday to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.
Obama will pay tribute to the victims at 2:50 p.m. Monday, the time the first of two bombs exploded last week near the marathon finish line. The president will mark the moment privately at the White House, with no press coverage.Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has also asked his state's residents to observe a moment of silence Monday afternoon. Bells will toll across the state after the minute-long tribute to the victims.
The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings will not be designated an enemy combatant, but will instead face criminal charges in civilian court, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.
"This is absolutely the right way to go and the appropriate way to go," Carney said of the case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Despite being seriously wounded and heavily sedated, Tsarnaev is answering brief questions from his hospital bed by nodding his head, a source with first-hand knowledge of the investigation told CNN Monday.
Authorities are asking the 19-year-old if there are more bombs, explosives caches or weapons, and if anyone else was involved, the source said.
Investigators are going into Tsarnaev's room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston every few hours to ask questions in the presence of doctors, the source said.
It wasn't immediately clear what he may be communicating.Tsarnaev, who is on a ventilator and restrained, has been hospitalized since authorities took him into custody Friday night after finding him hiding in a boat in the back yard of a Watertown, Massachusetts, home.
His injuries include a wound to the lower half of his body and a neck wound, the source said. It wasn't clear when he received the neck wound.
Tsarnaev had also lost a lot of blood and may have hearing loss from two flash-bang devices used to draw him out of the boat, the source said.
Investigators believe Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were behind the attacks that killed three people and wounded more than 170 others a week ago Monday.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died early Friday at a hospital after a shootout with police.
The developments came the same day as memorial services for two people killed in the bombings and a planned moment of silence to honor victims.Elder suspect's wife
With one suspect dead and the other hindered in his ability to communicate, investigators are eager to speak to Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife, Katherine Russell, to see what she might know about incidents leading up to the bombings.
On Monday, her attorney said she learned of her husband's alleged involvement through news accounts.
"She knew nothing about it at any time," Amato DeLuca said in response to questions about whether Russell knew of plans to attack the marathon.
Tsarnaev stayed home and cared for the couple's 2-year-old daughter while his wife worked long hours as a home care aide, according to DeLuca.
The family is devastated, the attorney said.
"They're very distraught. They're upset. Their lives have been unalterably changed. They're upset because of what happened, the people that were injured, that were killed. It's an awful, terrible thing," he said. "And of course Katy, it's even worse because what she lost -- her husband and the father of her daughter."
Police chief: The carnage could have been worse
In the tumultuous days after the bombings, the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly killed a university police officer, led authorities on a harrowing chase and hurled explosives at police, authorities said. Another officer, seriously wounded in a firefight with the suspects, was recovering Monday, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said.
The brothers -- armed with handguns and explosives -- apparently were planning another attack before a shootout with police disrupted their efforts, Davis said.
"I believe that the only reason that someone would have those in their possession was to further attack people and cause more death and destruction," Davis said on CNN's "Starting Point" Monday.
Authorities believe the brothers bought bomb components locally but think that their guns came from elsewhere, another federal law enforcement official said. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the case, said authorities are trying to trace the guns.
Investigators are also trying to determine whether anyone else was involved in the bombings.
But Davis, speaking Sunday to CNN's Don Lemon, said that he was confident that the brothers were "the two major actors in the violence that occurred."
"I told the people of Boston that they can rest easily, that the two people who were committing these vicious attacks are either dead or arrested, and I still believe that," the police chief said.
Details on shootout
The wild shootout that prompted the dramatic lockdown of the Boston area Friday began after a single officer gave chase after encountering the stolen car the brothers allegedly were driving, Watertown police Chief Edward Deveau told CNN's Wolf Blizter on Saturday.
According to Deveau, the brothers stepped out of the car and shot at the officer, who put his car in reverse to get away from the gunfire.
More officers arrived, sparking a firefight that lasted five to 10 minutes. More than 200 shots were fired, and one of the brothers threw explosives at police -- including a pressure cooker bomb similar to the one used at the marathon, Deveau said.
Eventually, Tamerlan Tsarnaev emerged from cover and began walking toward officers, firing as he went, the chief said.
When he ran out of ammunition, officers tackled him and tried to handcuff him, Deveau said Saturday.
But then, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev came barreling at them in the stolen vehicle, the chief said. The officers scrambled out of the way, and the vehicle then ran over the older brother and dragged him for a short distance.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev also had explosives on his body, officials have said.
Clues about radicalization?
While investigators piece together the brothers' actions leading up to the marathon bombings, details have emerged suggesting the elder Tsarnaev was turning radical.
The Tsarnaev family hails from the Russian republic of Chechnya and fled the brutal wars there in the 1990s. The two brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan, authorities said.
An FBI official said agents interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of the Russian government. The FBI said Russia claimed that he was a follower of radical Islam and that he had changed drastically since 2010.
But the Russian government's request was vague, a U.S. official and a law enforcement source said Sunday. The lack of specifics limited how much the FBI was able to investigate Tamerlan, the law enforcement official said.Tamerlan Tsarnaev apparently became increasingly radical in the past three or four years, according to an analysis of his social media accounts and the recollections of family members. But so far, there has been no evidence of active association with international jihadist groups.
In August 2012, soon after returning from a visit to Russia, the elder Tsarnaev brother created a YouTube channel with links to a number of videos. Two videos under a category labeled "Terrorists" were deleted. It's not clear when or by whom.
In January, Tamerlan Tsarnaev disrupted a service at the Islamic Society of Boston's mosque in Cambridge, Massachusets, a board member told CNN's Brian Todd.
Tsarnaev was reacting to a speaker who likened the Muslim Prophet Mohammed to Martin Luther King Jr., the board member said. He calmed after worshippers spoke with him, and returned often for pre-dawn prayers on Fridays, the board member said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also sometimes attended prayers -- but only with his brother, the board member said.Memorials and tributes
Boston officials planned a moment of silence for 2:50 p.m. Monday to mark the passing of one week since the bombings. A minute later, bells will toll to honor the victims.
One of those victims, Krystle Campbell was memorialized Monday morning in a service at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Medford, Massachusetts.
After the service, police officers lined the street in front of the church as other officers wearing dress uniforms saluted as the casket bearing her remains was taken from the church and loaded into a hearse.
Another memorial service was scheduled Monday night for victim Lingzi Lu, a student from China.
Also on Monday, runners in at least 80 cities will participate in the "Run for Boston in Your City" campaign, organizer Brian Kelley said. The global campaign is "a run for those that were unable to finish, a run for those that may never run again" and "a run for us to try and make sense of the tragedy that has forever changed something we love," according to organizers.
While authorities say Bostonians can rest easier now that the two suspects are accounted for, nagging questions hinder any total sense of security: Why would the assailants want to kill or maim throngs of innocent civilians, and could this happen again?
Moving forward
A week after the marathon bombings, 50 people remain hospitalized, including two in critical condition, according to a CNN tally.
At least a dozen survivors have endured amputations.
Patients at Massachusetts General Hospital have received visitors from war veterans who have also suffered amputations. The vets, Dr. Jeffrey Kalish said, told patients that their lives aren't over because they've lost limbs.
"We've seen really tremendous success and great attitudes," he said.
Also Monday, Davis -- the Boston police commissioner -- said transit system police officer Richard Donohue, wounded in the firefight with the Tsarnaev brothers, was improving.
"He was in grave condition when he went to the hospital, so we're very optimistic at this point in time, and our prayers are with him and his family," he said.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, meanwhile, remains in serious but stable condition, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts. A federal law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN the younger brother has a gunshot wound to his neck, and he had a tube down his throat to help him breathe.
It's unclear whether Tsarnaev was wounded during his capture or in the earlier shootout with police that left his older brother dead, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Authorities have not publicly stated what charges Tsarnaev could face, but a Justice Department official who has been briefed on the case told CNN Tsarnaev will face federal terrorism charges and possibly state murder charges.
While Massachusetts does not have a death penalty, prosecutors could seek the death penalty at the federal level.
Getting back to normal
It could take up to two more days before the area around the site of the explosions can reopen to the public, Davis said.
The FBI has not yet turned the scene back over to local authorities, the police chief said.
"We have to allow store owners to go in there first. It won't be open to the general public for maybe another day so the store owners can get their business back on track," Davis said. "We want to get people back in their homes as soon as possible, and we're working diligently on that right now."
Poor parents in India say police don't bother to investigate when their children disappear. A third are never found.
A child disappears. Police are called. Nothing happens.
Child rights activists say the rape last week of a 5-year-old girl is just the latest case in which Indian police failed to take urgent action on a report of a missing child. Three days after the attack, the girl was found alone in locked room in the same New Delhi building where her family lives.
More than 90,000 children go missing in India each year; more than 34,000 are never found. Some parents say they lost crucial time because police wrongly dismissed their missing children as runaways, refused to file reports or treated the cases as nuisances.
The parents of the 5-year-old said that after their daughter disappeared, they repeatedly begged police to register a complaint and begin a search, but they were rejected.
Three days later, neighbors heard the sound of a child crying from a locked room in the tenement. They broke down the door and rushed the brutalized girl to the police station.
The parents said the police response was to offer the couple 2,000 rupees ($37) to keep quiet about what had happened.
"They just wanted us to go away. They didn't want to register a case even after they saw how badly our daughter was injured," said the girl's father, who cannot be identified because Indian law requires a rape victim's identity be kept secret.
Delhi's Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar admitted Monday that local police had erred in handling the case.
"There have been shortfalls, so the station house officer and his deputy have been suspended," Kumar told reporters.
Other poor parents of missing children say they also have found police reluctant to help them.
In 2010, police took 15 days to register a missing-persons case for 14-year-old Pankaj Singh. His mother is still waiting for him to come home.
"Every day my husband and my father would go wait at the police station, but they would shoo them away," Pravesh Kumari Singh said as she sat on her son's bed, surrounded by his pictures and books.
One morning in March 2010, she fed her son a breakfast of fried pancakes and spicy potatoes, then left for a community health training program.
"He told me he would have a bath and settle down to study for his exams," said Singh, clutching the boy's photograph to her heart.
When she returned, he was gone. "The neighbors said some boys had called him out. We searched everywhere, went to the police, but they refused to believe that something had happened to our son."
The police insisted he had run off with friends and would return, she said.
"They said we must have scolded him or beaten him, which is why he had run away from home," she said.
Formal police complaints were registered in only one-sixth of missing child cases in 2011, said Bhuwan Ribhu, a lawyer with Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or the Save the Childhood Movement. He said police resist registering cases because they want to keep crime figures low, and that parents are often too poor to bribe them to reconsider.
Ribhu said the first few hours after a child goes missing are the most crucial. "The police can cordon off nearby areas, issue alerts at railway and bus stations, and step up vigilance to catch the kidnappers," he said.
Activists say delays let traffickers move children to neighboring states, where the police don't have jurisdiction. There is no national database of missing children that state police can reference.
Police have insisted that most of missing children are runways fleeing grinding poverty.
"It's easy enough to blame the police for not finding the children. Some of the parents do not even possess a photograph of the child. Or they will come up with a years-old picture. It becomes difficult when there's not even a photograph to work with," Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said last month when asked about complaints on police inaction in investigating case of missing children.
Many cases involved poor migrant construction workers who move from site to site around the city, Bhagat said.
"The children are unfamiliar with the place and once they lose their way, they wouldn't know how to return," he said.
India's Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath told Parliament last month that the problem of missing children had assumed "alarming" proportions. The National Crime Records Bureau reported that 34,406 missing children were never found in 2011, up from 18,166 in 2009.
Activists say some children are trafficked and forced to beg on the streets. Some work on farms or factories as forced labor and others have their organs harvested and sold. The activists say young girls are pushed into the sex trade or sold for marriage.
"The government is just not ready to confront the issue of trafficking or missing children. And this gets reflected in the apathy of the police in dealing with cases of missing children," said Ribhu, the lawyer.
In 2006, the Central Bureau of Investigation said at least 815 criminal gangs were kidnapping children for begging, prostitution or ransom.
The Save the Childhood Movement said police have not cracked a single one of those syndicates.
"Despite our providing the police with all the details of where a child was picked up from, where he was taken, the police are simply not willing to act," said Ribhu.
Two streets away from Singh, in a tiny windowless room crammed with clothes, bedding and a stove, Pinky Devi keeps a prized possession locked away in a drawer: a faded color photograph of her son Ravi Shankar.
One afternoon in November 2011, she says, the 11-year-old went off with other children to a neighborhood fair. He never returned.
Devi said the police visited her home a couple of times and spoke to her neighbors, but their interest soon wore out.
"I'm sure if we had money to spend on them, the police would have been more active in tracing my son," said Devi, her two younger sons and infant daughter clinging to her sari in their one-room tenement in southeast Delhi.
Shantha Sinha, who heads the government's National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, acknowledged that much remained to be done to make police take cases of missing children seriously.
"There has to be a strong message that in every incident of a missing child, a criminal case has to be registered and the case is properly investigated," Sinha said.
Kunwar Pal, a construction worker, fears police indifference crushed his efforts to find his son Ravi Kumar.Since the 12-year-old disappeared three years ago, the distraught father has cycled across India's sprawling capital, visiting police and railway stations, children's homes and hospitals, handing out posters and photographs of his missing son. Every time he hears of a child found anywhere in the city, he cycles to the police station, hoping it's Ravi.
Pal, a lean 45-year-old with haunted eyes, refuses to think the worst. He believes Ravi was taken by a childless couple who wanted a child of their own.
"If they were to let me know somehow that my son is alive, I would be happy," said Pal, his spare frame wracked by dry heaves. "They can keep him. Just let me see his shadow. Just let me know he's safe."
He also believes police would have worked harder if he had not been poor.
"If I were rich, my son would have been found by now. If I had money, the police would have taken the case more seriously," he said.
Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Monday made a statement in Parliament on the rape of a five-year-old girl in the nation capital and the police response to it, but ended up courting controversy by claiming that such incidents happened not only in Delhi, but all across the country.
Making a statement in the Lok Sabha amid noisy protests over the minor's rape and other issues, Shinde apprised the MPs of the early breakthrough in the case, resulting in arrest of the two accused. While Manoj, the main accused, was arrested on Saturday from Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, another co-accused, Pradeep, was apprehended from Lakhisarai on Sunday night.
Shinde said the SHO of the police station in Gandhinagar and the investigating officer (IO) have been placed under suspension, taking note of the lapses in investigation of the case.
"The joint CP (vigilance) has been asked to conduct an inquiry. The joint CP (vigilance) shall also enquire into the allegation that the local police paid some money to the father of the victim to hush up the case," he informed the MPs.
However, in a comment seen as rather insensitive, Shinde's written statement sought to underline that "such incidents (of rape) have been reported from other parts of the country also". The reference was apparently to the alleged rape of a four-year-old girl in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh. The purpose behind underlining that child rapes were not Delhi-centric was obviously to counter the opposition's attempts to use the Gandhinagar rape incident for political mileage ahead of assembly polls due later this year. Both Delhi and Madhya Pradesh go to polls in November.
The fact that Shinde's statement was silent on action against the errant police officers may also do little to quell the protests in the national Capital.
Shinde said medical examination of the first accused, arrested from Muzaffarpur district on April 19, has been conducted for DNA, he said. The accused is presently under judicial custody.
The home minister, who was briefing MPs against the backdrop of major uproar and street protests against the five-year-old's gangrape, told the House that the girl was reported missing on April 15 and an FIR was registered at 10 pm.
"The police started searching and conducting raids in the east Delhi area," he said.
In the early hours of April 17, 2013, the mother of the girl heard the weeping of the child from the ground floor of the same house where they lived on the first floor, Shinde said.
The ground floor was found locked from outside and the police, when informed, broke open the door and recovered the child, he said.
The girl was rushed to Swami Dayanand Hospital, which is the nearest, and preliminary medico-legal case confirmed "sexual assault of brutal kind," Shinde said.
The girl's condition was reported to be stable after an operation conducted on April 18. She was later shifted to AIIMS on April 19 for better treatment and presently her condition is reported to be stable, he said.
On April 19, some protesters were holding demonstration at the Dayanand Hospital where the minister concerned of the Delhi government was visiting to enquire about the health of the child along with the local MP, Shinde said.
Some protesters tried to break through the police cordon around the hospital in order to enter the premises, he said.
An ACP was seen on camera slapping one of the lady protesters, the home minister said, adding the officer B S Ahlawat has been placed under suspension with immediate effect. "A departmental enquiry shall be conducted by an officer to be appointed by the government of NCT of Delhi," he added.
At least 200,000 members of Pakistan’s minority Ahmadi community will be boycotting next month’s election in protest of their treatment by the authorities, a spokesman said.
“We have been boycotting the election process since 1985 when Ahmadi voters were put in the list of religious minorities,” Jamaat-e-Ahmadiya spokesman Saleemuddin said.
He said the community wanted its voters to be included in the joint electorate system.
“We will stay away from the election and boycott the polls to register our protest,” he said.
Pakistan goes to the polls on May 11 for a general election that should see the first democratic transition from one civilian government to another after the completion of a five-year mandate.
Election registration forms require voters to give their religion and address and Ahmadis refuse to complete them for fear of being attacked. Their graveyards are often targeted and in 2010 nearly 100 people were killed in Lahore after militants stormed two Ahmadi prayer halls.
The real battle is not between Islamic and secular forces whoever or whatever they may be, depending on who you ask. The battle now is of ideas
Maulana Fazlur Rehman has taken umbrage at the Election Commission’s code of conduct in so far as it bans the use of religion for election purposes. The good Maulana says that this is against the ideology of Pakistan. It is not clear if Maulana fully appreciates the irony of his statement given his own history and his party’s repeated denunciations of the Pakistan Movement as the work of the British.
Let us recap. What we have in the form of Jamiat-e-Ulema-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) is the ideological successor to the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind. It is not, as some assert, a successor to Shabbir Ahmed Usmani’s breakway Jamiat-e-Ulema-Islam (JUI) that had endorsed the Pakistan Movement in the closing stages of the Raj. Rehman’s father Maulana Mufti Mahmood was a stalwart of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, who opposed the partition till the very end. In 1971, after the fall of Dacca, Mahmood famously said about Pakistan: “Thank God we were not part of the making of this sin.” As for the party, Mahmood’s Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind faction, left behind in Pakistan, merged with Usmani’s JUI in 1948, and then took it over in 1956. The JUI-F has on numerous occasions declared that the founding fathers, in particular Jinnah, were British agents. Rehman in his time as the opposition leader in the National Assembly from 2002 to 2007 made it a point to remove the father of the nation’s portrait from his office.
There are two things that one can conclude from this. Either Islam is to be conflated with the ideology of Pakistan, in which case Rehman is against Islam as was his father. Or the ideology of Pakistan whatever it is has nothing to do with Islam. Either way the good Maulana has to explain what his stance on Pakistan is.
This leads to the question why the orthodox divines of the Deoband supported the supposedly secular Indian nationalist Congress Party instead of the Muslim League, especially since now Rehman believes that the ideology of Pakistan is the same as Islam. To answer this question we have to expand our horizons and delve into the history of Muslim politics upon the advent of colonial rule. There were two main responses to British rule amongst Muslims. First was the rejectionist view taken by the seminary at Deoband. They rejected modern education and British rule altogether. The second response was what developed out of Aligarh: the Muslim modernist view. The Muslim modernists believed that the way forward for the Muslims of India was to embrace colonial rule, educate themselves and bring themselves at par with the Hindus, especially in vying for a piece of the economic pie, jobs and sovereignty. Therefore the Muslim League and the ideology of Muslim nationalism developed out of the modernist school of thought and not the religious one.
Meanwhile, the secular Congress Party, which had in its ranks men like Mohammad Ali Jinnah at the time, took a decidedly cultural turn under Mahatma Gandhi, who emphasised the ancient identity of India, religious values and ethos of the common man, and who by his insistence on bringing religion into politics made religious identities non-negotiable. Not content with the havoc the Mahatma unleashed upon the Hindus, he went about co-opting Muslim mullahs through the Khilafat Movement as well against the advice of both Hindu leaders like C R Das and Muslim leaders like Jinnah. Gandhi encouraged Muslims from the Deoband and their newly formed Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind to come full-fledged into politics. The ulema were fiery anti-colonialists but were pliable when it came to issues of economics and politics. After all, the ulema, content to be shepherds of their flock, did not need jobs or were not going to compete with the Hindu bourgeoisie for economic opportunities. As one Congress stalwart noted in retrospect, Gandhi unleashed orthodoxy on the Muslims of India and it was this attitude “that rebuffed rationalist leaders like Jinnah” and alienated the Muslim League from the Congress.
It did more than that. It convinced the nascent Muslim bourgeoisie that in order to survive they would have to organise politically as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan had advised them long ago. The Congress under Nehru exacerbated things in the UP in 1937 when it tried to play Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind and Majlis-e-Ahrar against the Muslim League. The Muslim bourgeoisie and the salariat came to view — quite accurately — the Muslim religious orthodoxy as hand in glove with the Hindu bourgeoisie, which it saw as a threat to the economic interests of the Muslim community as a whole. The rest as they say is history, but that is of course until the Maulana came up with his spurious argument that barring religion from electioneering is in contravention of the ideology of Pakistan. The reason why the good Maulana’s antecedents opposed the Muslim League, and especially Jinnah, was on several counts. First of all they believed that the League had too many Shias, too many Ismailis, too many Ahmedis in its fold to be an Islamic organisation. Second they felt, again quite rightly, that the classes that were leading the League were in it for economic and political gains and not religious ones. Third, the nationalist ulema believed that given a chance, the Muslims could re-establish Islamic rule over all of India. Finally, they believed that Pakistan if it came into being would ultimately be a ‘kafir’ (infidel) government of Muslims. Therefore, they endorsed what was ostensibly secular composite Indian nationalism and rejected the prima facie confessional nationalism of the League, despite the attendant contradiction.
Consequently, it makes no sense when the Maulana declares that the coming elections will be a battle between secular forces and religious forces. After all, his father had endorsed what — if we accept Maulana’s recent exposition of the ideology of Pakistan in toto — was secular composite Indian nationalism. Meanwhile, he and his party are on record as denouncing the creation of Pakistan as a British plot to divide the Muslims and deprive them of the opportunity to establish Islamic rule over all of India.
If the battle is between secular, i.e. mainstream politicians versus those who sell religion for a living, that battle has been won repeatedly. It was won in 1946, when the Muslim League routed the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind, Majlis-e-Ahrar and other Islamist allies of the Congress. It was won when the Awami League and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) defeated all the religious parties in united Pakistan in 1970. It was won again in 1977, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2008. It will be won yet again when the non-religious and mainstream parties PPP, PML-N, PTI, MQM and ANP rout the religious parties yet again on May 11, 2013.
The real battle is not between Islamic and secular forces whoever or whatever they may be, depending on who you ask. The battle now is of ideas. Do we want Pakistan to become a sectarian dystopia or do we want it to exist as a normal democratic state? It does not matter if you are religious or non-religious, the real question is whether we are prepared to do what is right for Pakistan.
The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Jinnah: Myth and Reality.
An Afghan presidential spokesman has said President Hamid Karzai will travel to Brussels on April 23 to meet U.S. Secretary of State of State John Kerry and senior Pakistani officials to discuss the faltering Afghan peace process.
Aimal Faizi, Karzai's chief spokesman, said the meeting has been arranged to repair ties between Kabul and Islamabad.
Tensions between the two neighbors have soared recently over border disputes and the failing reconciliation process.
On April 22, Faizi said Pakistan had failed to deliver on its promises regarding the reconciliation process, adding that Afghans are losing patience with Islamabad.
He said, "Our message to Pakistan is enough is enough -- this time we will tell Pakistan that our people's patience is running out and we can't wait for Pakistan to deliver on Afghan peace promises."
Pakistan's caretaker government told the Supreme Court on Monday it will not file treason charges against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf but will leave the decision on that to the winner of the upcoming election.
The petitions before the Supreme Court alleging Musharraf committed treason while in power constitute just one of several legal challenges he is facing following his recent return to Pakistan from self-imposed exile.
The former military strongman was placed under house arrest over the weekend in connection with a different case, which involves his decision to fire senior judges while in power.
Musharraf's detention was the latest in an array of setbacks he has faced since returning home last month with hopes of making a political comeback.
Lawyers have filed private petitions before the Supreme Court alleging Musharraf committed various treasonable offenses, including toppling a civilian government, suspending the constitution and declaring a state of emergency.
But according to Pakistan's constitution, the government is the only one with authority to file treason charges against Musharraf.
Attorney General Irfan Qadir submitted a statement to the Supreme Court on Monday, saying caretaker officials have decided not to file treason charges because it was not part of their mandate.The caretaker government should avoid controversial matters that are not reversible by the winner of the May 11 parliamentary election, Qadir said. Instead, he added, caretaker officials are focused on routine matters, such as ensuring security for the upcoming election.
However, Law Minister Ahmad Bilal Sufi indicated that caretaker officials would not defy the Supreme Court if the judges ordered the government to act.
"At present all the focus, the attention is on the election arrangement," Sufi told reporters in Islamabad. "But we will be ready to proceed according to what the court asks us to do."
The interim government took over last month and will hold power until a new government is formed after the vote.
At this point, it's unclear how the next government will choose to proceed in the case of treason charges against Musharraf.
The front runner to become the next prime minister is Nawaz Sharif, who was toppled by Musharraf in a military coup when he was serving as premier in 1999.
Musharraf held power for nearly a decade until he was forced to step down in 2008 because of growing discontent with his rule. He returned despite Taliban death threats and an array of legal challenges.
But upon his homecoming, Musharraf encountered paltry levels of public support and was disqualified to run in the upcoming election because of his actions while in office.
Things got even worse last week, when Musharraf fled a court in the capital Islamabad to avoid arrest after a judge rejected his bail and ordered his detention. The arrest order was connected to Musharraf's decision in 2007 to dismiss senior judges, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, apparently out of concern that they would challenge his re-election as president.
Musharraf was eventually placed under house arrest at his heavily guarded compound on the outskirts of Islamabad until the next hearing on May 4.
On a Sunday morning, Christians in Saint John Vianney’s Church Peshawar were busy in praying. Father John William led the prayers in Urdu. Once the prayer was over, people started having chitchat in Punjabi. Once they went out of the church’s gate, they switched to Pashto.
“This switching of three languages is a routine practice. Many of us have never been to Lahore but we speak Punjabi. In most cases, our forefathers migrated to Peshawar some three or four generations ago. Since then we have been living here. We are Christians. We are Pakhtun but our association with Punjabi language is intact. It’s what we speak at our homes,” explained Pervaiz Arthur, one of the local Christians at the church.
While generally Peshawar isn’t considered a safe city, the minorities living in Peshawar think otherwise. There are three main minorities living in Peshawar: Hindus, Sikhs and Christians. They have one thing in common: Punjabi. All of them say they are proud Punjabi-speaking Pakhtun and feel safer in Peshawar than any other part of the country.
“Tolerance towards minorities in Khyber-Pakthunkhwa, particularly in Peshawar, is much greater than in other provinces. Maybe it’s because Pakthun think the people belonging to different religions are also Pakhtun and their brothers. I have always been given preference over Muslims in business deals in Peshawar. I speak Pashtu because I am born and bred here but I am fluent in Punjabi,” said Augustine Jacob, a rights and political activist in Peshawar, talking to The Express Tribune.
What may be an issue of life and death in other parts of the country is a common practice in Peshawar. Many Christians and Hindu families don’t mind interfaith marriages. Mushtaq Gulzar and his wife Shanti Zeba are one such example. “I am a Christian and my wife a Hindu. We lived in a same neighborhood and started liking each other. When our parents came to know about this they got us married. She is still a Hindu and I am still a Christian. Our kids are free to choose the religion of their choice when they grow up,” Zeba and Gulzar said in unison.
“We don’t mind interfaith marriages if it’s between a Hindu and Christian. We do tell our boys not to think of getting married to a Muslim girl because in that case the whole family and community come under fire. There have been some rare cases when a Christian girl married a Muslim boy after conversion,” explained Gulzar.
Surindar Kumar is head of one of the Hindu families living in Peshawar. He is caretaker of a temple in Tehsil Gor Gathri, Peshawar. “It took me years to take possession of this temple through litigation but now everything is fine. I don’t feel discriminated on basis of my religion,” Kumar said in fluent Punjabi, sitting in the temple.
“Many Sikhs have migrated to Peshawar from Fata and run very good businesses. They are actually pampered by the people around them. Many Pakhtuns are pleasantly surprised when they first hear me speaking fluent Pashtu,” said a Sikh who runs a cloth shop in Qissa Khwani Bazaar.
“The condition of minorities in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has always been better than in other provinces. I have served as priest in Punjab and other parts of the country, but I see minorities having the least problems here. May be that’s why despite all odds, minorities have never thought about migrating from Peshawar,” said John William, a senior priest and Father at Saint John Vianney’s Church.
“There are above 4,000 registered Christian voters in Peshawar but there isn’t any specific party they will vote for. Everybody has his/her own political inclination,” said Finiase Masih. “Earlier, corporation (sanitary) jobs were considered to be reserved for Christians only, but with the influx of IDPs, many Muslims are given these jobs. This has somehow created frustration among Christians who aren’t educated or skilled,” said Masih.
Moderate politicians from some of Pakistan's most violent areas are risking the threat of Taliban attack to run in upcoming nationwide elections, but they are increasingly being forced to rely on social media, phone calls and even short documentaries that allow them to campaign at a distance.
That could give hard-line Islamic candidates and Taliban supporters an advantage as they're able to stump for votes and hold large public rallies that are a traditional hallmark of elections in the country but are extremely vulnerable to attacks.
One of the most serious attacks occurred Tuesday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a meeting of the secular Awami National Party in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 16 people. The Taliban said the target of the attack was Haroon Ahmad Bilour, whose father, a senior party leader, was killed in a suicide bombing in Peshawar in December. He escaped unscathed, but his uncle, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, suffered minor injuries.
As he was being treated at the hospital, the uncle vowed that he and other party candidates would not withdraw from the election despite the death threats. With his trousers soaked in blood, he walked among the hospital beds to comfort crying victims and told them, "We are fighting a war for Pakistan's survival."
Hours earlier, a candidate from one of the Islamic parties, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, campaigned freely in his constituency in a different part of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Maulana Jalil Jan's supporters showered him with rose petals as he walked unguarded from shop to shop down narrow, crowded lanes to ask for votes. He bristled at any suggestion that the Taliban were terrorists and blamed attacks in the country on foreign agents seeking to "malign religious leaders, all bearded people." He pointed out that the word Taliban simply means a student in an Islamic school.
"There is a difference between the Taliban and terrorists," said Jan.
Faced with the Taliban threat, parties have had to get more creative in their campaigning for the May 11 vote. Members of the Awami National Party and other secular political parties specifically targeted by the Pakistani Taliban have stepped up their use of Facebook and Twitter as well as phone calls and advertisements.
Analysts and secular party candidates fear that the danger could skew election results in favor of hard-line Islamic parties and others who refuse to speak out strongly against the Taliban. Their candidates are able to campaign with much less fear of being attacked, and the concern is this could lead to national and provincial governments inclined to take a softer position toward the militants.
"If you tie my hands, and you want me to fight, I can't," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a candidate from the Awami National Party, sitting in his heavily guarded office in Peshawar.
Hussain is running for a provincial assembly seat in the town of Pabbi, which is only 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Peshawar, but it is too dangerous for him to campaign there in person. To get around the danger, Hussain produced a short documentary that highlights development work he has brought to Pabbi and chronicles the sad loss of his only son, who was gunned down by Taliban militants in 2010.
The documentary shows Hussain standing in prayer over the freshly dug grave of his son as a heartfelt poem he wrote in the young man's memory is sung out in mournful tones: "I never knew the enemy could reach my home, my heart, my love would disappear in a grave." He distributes it on DVDs to voters in Pabbi and plans to show the short film there using a couple of big projectors.
Hussain was attacked himself by a suicide bomber at his son's funeral in Pabbi. He survived, but seven other people were killed, including two of his close relatives.
The politician's eyes teared up as he watched the images of his son's grave in the documentary. The film asks his constituents to "vote for those who are sacrificing their lives to save you and your children from terrorists."
It's not only the top Islamic parties like Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami that seem to have been spared by the Taliban in the run-up to the election, but also mainstream parties perceived to take a softer stance on militancy, such as the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which is favored to come out on top in the election, and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, which is headed by former cricket star Imran Khan. They have all safely held public rallies attended by thousands of people in recent weeks.
These parties have all pushed for peace negotiations with the Taliban instead of military offensives, and the militant group recently said talks should be mediated by the leaders of the top two Islamic parties and the Pakistan Muslim League-N. The parties that have been targeted by the Taliban have also called for peace negotiations, but have demanded the militants put down their weapons and endorse the constitution first and have vowed to continue fighting them until that happens. The Taliban have rejected these conditions.
"This is not a level playing field," Awami National Party leader Afrasiab Khattak said.
The Pakistani Taliban have been waging a bloody insurgency in Pakistan for years to enforce Islamic law in the country and to break the government's alliance with the United States in fighting militants. They have killed thousands of civilians and security personnel in scores of gun and bomb attacks.
The group's main sanctuaries are in the rugged northwest along the Afghan border, including the semiautonomous tribal region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Taliban have also established a significant presence in the southern city of Karachi and have stepped up attacks there.
The militant group issued audio and video messages last month warning people to stay away from rallies held by the Awami National Party and two other secular parties that have supported army offensives against the militants in the northwest: the Pakistan People's Party, which led the most recent government, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which controls Karachi.
The Taliban have carried out at least 10 attacks against candidates and party workers, mainly those in the Awami National Party. The attacks have killed at least 18 people, including a candidate for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. Many other candidates have been wounded, including five from the Awami National Party.
"This is a clear attempt by the so-called 'non-state actors' to oust and defeat moderate parties," said Raza Rumi, a political analyst who runs the Jinnah Institute think tank in Islamabad. "This can't be a fair and free election."
The Awami National Party has closed over 50 of its election offices in recent months, mainly in Karachi and Peshawar, because of the threat of attack. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has stopped holding the massive public rallies that it is known for in Karachi. The Pakistan People's Party had to cancel a large event in southern Sindh province at the beginning of April that was meant to mark the start of its campaign because of security reasons.
Khattak, the Awami National Party leader, called on all political parties to come forward and condemn the attacks on candidates. Many have remained silent or have refused to name the Pakistani Taliban, either for ideological reasons or out of fear of being targeted themselves.
"You have to decide whether you are with the terrorists or with the people," Khattak said.
A 15-year-old was abducted by two men, forced to drink four bottles of beer, stripped at knife-point and raped in a field in northwest Delhi’s Samaipur Badli on Friday. An 11-year-old was abducted by a rickshaw puller and sexually assaulted in northwest Delhi’s Bhalaswa Dairy. And the prolonged abuse of a Class 10 student by a driver known to her was reported from southeast Delhi’s Sangam Vihar.
The city continued to be on edge with protests at India Gate and outside Delhi Police Headquarters and the residences of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
With most of the public anger directed at them, policemen were seen distributing pamphlets outside the HQ, promising a swift enquiry into charges that some of their men had offered the five-year-old’s family hush money.
“The matter will be taken to a fast-track court so we can have a quick decision and punish the culprit,” the pamphlet read. It pointed out that three officers had already been suspended — an ACP for slapping a woman protester and two from the Gandhi Nagar police station for being lax in helping the victim’s family.
Manoj Kumar, 22, accused of raping the girl, was remanded in judicial custody for a fortnight as police teams scoured Bihar to trace his alleged accomplice, Pradeep, whom he had named during interrogation. Kumar's statements vary, police said, adding that he sometimes says it was Pradeep who raped the girl and sometimes admits to raping her himself.The investigators denied media reports that Kumar was wanted in his home state for the rape-murder of his sister-in-law or that he had been forced to marry his wife as punishment for sexually assaulting her. They also said they had found pornographic content on his mobile phone.
People continued to demand the sacking of police chief Neeraj Kumar, whose effigy was burnt outside AIIMS, where the girl is being treated.
"Traffic was affected at ITO and India Gate and we had to detain 100-200 people at different locations," a police officer said.
