Pakistan - Karachi - Everyone is a culprit

By Ali Rafi

The morning of May 13 marked another horrifying incident in the city of Karachi, with an attack staged on a bus transporting scores of citizens, for the reason that their religious beliefs didn’t match those of the attackers. The attack adds to the already existing plight of people of certain communities in the country, who have been victims of targeted assaults in various parts of the country. Instead of looking for the hand of foreign agencies, political factions or international conspiracies to help place blame, there is a need for deep introspection and proactive counter-measures as the safety of our people depends upon it.

The attack was followed by a cry for the sacking of Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, on grounds of incompetence. Social media was abuzz with many claiming that the attack was an attempt by foreign agencies to destabilise the region given the recent announcements on economic corridor that will link China and Pakistan. Others claimed that this was an attempt by a political party to challenge the establishment in Karachi. There were also claims, emanating from a pamphlet apparently left at the scene, that the Islamic State (IS) was responsible for the attacks. Local news further claimed that a Taliban splinter group which vows allegiance to the IS, Jundullah, had accepted responsibility for the massacre. Jundullah has carried out attacks in Pakistan before and was responsible for the Peshawar church bombing, as well as the Shikarpur massacre earlier this year.

Within these constant searches for the perpetrators of such crimes lie an inherent irony: it was us.

This was not just an attack on a bus or mere civilians; it was the classification of people of a certain community as lesser humans, Pakistanis and citizens. Behind the inspiration to carry out such attacks lies an embedded ideology, which has been propagated by the state. The state takes upon itself the responsibility of distinguishing between who is to be a Muslim and who is not. The state has no divine right in making such a distinction, yet it continues to fuel the rhetoric of sectarian conflicts by distinguishing between citizens on the basis of faith.

The state, being an Islamic Republic, fails to conform to the Islamic principles of coexistence. Instead, it offers a narrative of having pride in being better than the ‘disbelievers’, leaving the interpretation of disbelief open. The state ideology shift, which occurred mostly during and after the Zia regime, encourages divides within society on the basis of faith. This divide also expands to service provision, including the provision of security. The ideology is inherently misrepresentative of the state, as its own founding father belonged to the sect massacred in Karachi.

The state also turns a blind eye towards sectarian militants who openly incite violence. It has been responsible for not only failing to extend the ongoing operation against terrorism to these outfits, but it has also refused to end the continued hate speech that is spread through pamphlets, seminars and even places of worship. Stringent checks on the activities of sectarian militant groups are necessary to curb the mentality of ideological superiority. Various sectarian groups, formed on the basis of self-acclaimed ideological superiority, also continue to hold political posts and offices. The complex relationship of the state with these sectarian groups is better understood in the context of their role in Kashmir and various parts of the country where they have a pro-state agenda and narrative. However, complicit support to militant sectarian groups is directly responsible for the exponential increase in sectarian militancy in recent years.

The right to security is universal, and given the constant security threats that people of certain sects face, it is imminent that affirmative action be taken to protect their lives and property. The National Action Plan and the war against militants need to be extended to include the targeting of sectarian militant groups. The acts of hate speech which incite violence need to be halted through checks on the workings of sectarian outfits, which openly preach such beliefs through posters and banners in the heart of Punjab and throughout the country.

The martyrs of yesterday’s attacks must cease to be mere additions to the rising toll of religious extremism and sectarian conflict. The current situation in Iraq, Syria and Yemen should pose as the perfect motivation to bolster efforts against a sectarian conflict which could soon engulf the country worse than it continues to do so right now. Law-enforcement agencies alone cannot be held responsible for the attacks that occurred. The ideology and motivation of such crimes must also be examined, understood and bottled against.

Pakistan: Manifestation of failed state

Pakistan has been placed at number 10 out of 19 countries in the list of 'The Failed State Index: Most vulnerable countries, 2014', compiled by the 'Fund for Peace', a Washington based international NGO, which was founded in 1957 and works to prevent violent conflict and promotes sustainable security. While South Sudan has been ranked number one as a failed state and Afghanistan number seven, Iraq stood at number thirteen. Each country is ranked according to twelve economic, social political and military indicators.

Pakistan's appearing in the list of failed states collated by a credible American NGO of 50 years' standing is plausible.

A failed state has been defined, as "one in which government does not have effective control of its territory, is not perceived as legitimate by a significant portion of its populations, does not provide domestic security or basic public service to its citizens and lacks a monopoly on the use of force." All these adverse factors are fairly incorporated in the polity of Pakistan by its short sighted political leadership and power hungry military since inception of the country.

Killing of forty-three and seriously injuring other twenty bus passengers, all belonging to minority Ismaili community (a sub-sect of Shia) at a close range on May 13, 2015 in Karachi by six terrorists belonging to Jundullah faction of the Tehriik-e-Taliban Pakistan(TTP) has once again raised the creditability of Pakistan as a State. TTP carried out this attack exactly after a day of Nawaz Shraif's return from Kabul, where his visit was primarily focused on Taliban issue. Islamic State (IS) also took responsibility of killings, which is not credible.

This militant attack on a minority community has once again exposed Pakistan's hollow claim in achieving success in reining in militant outfits since launching of military operation 'Zarb-e-Azb' in June 2014, in Waziristan Agency, bordering Afghanistan. Earlier in January 2015, a Shia mosque inShikarpur, Sindh, was attacked by TTP, killing 61 persons and injuring scores of worshipers.

The gravity of law and order and sectarian intolerance situation in Karachi and Baluchistan can be gauged from the fact that after the said incident Pakistan Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharifcancelled his three-day official visit to Sri Lanka and instead landed at Karachi immediately after killing of Ismailis to review the deteriorating situation in the financial capital of Pakistan. General Raheel also telephoned His Highness Aga Khan, the spiritual head of Ismaili sect and expressed condolences on the incident. Aga Khan described the killings as a senseless act of violence against a peaceful community.

Ahmed Rashid, a senior and reputed Pakistani journalist believed that Pakistan is fighting three civil wars viz: one with Taliban, another with Baluch separatists and third one with multiple ethnic, criminal and Islamic gangs in Karachi. He further asserted that there was no accountability of government and Islamic extremists were carrying out act of terror with impunity.

The basics of a successful State, including sound democracy, human rights, women empowerment, national level welfare schemes related to necessities such as health and water, being considered anti-Islamic by Pakistan, in general, as well as Saudi supported radicals and cleric . Pakistan's irony is that neither civilian government nor army has guts to counter such false notion of radicals affecting country's progress.

Mohd. Ali Jinnah, known as founder of Pakistan in his speech to Pakistan's constitutional assembly on August 11, 1947 had emphasised the need for a secular Pakistan, where all citizens were equal irrespective of 'religion or caste or creed'. However, when Jinnah died in September 1948 shortly after the creation of Pakistan, due to lack of a second tier leadership, the country could not reach consensus on what kind of State it should become.

However, on March 23, 1956, which also happened to be 'Pakistan Day'. Pakistan's first constitution was adopted, proclaiming Pakistan as an Islamic state. With declaring Pakistan as an Islamic state, the rise of right-wing political parties and fundamentalists started in Pakistan.

However, contrary to Jinnah's concept to accommodate all religions, Pakistani Sunnis, found the Pakistan's state being as an Islamic state as an effective tool to subjugate minority Muslims and non-Muslims of the country. Gen Zia's rule (1978-88) encouraged Sunni radicals to propagate their sect vigorously at the cost of other Muslim minorities.

Gen Zia's regime was responsible of fundamentalism; emergence of ISI backed militant Sunni outfits like Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jamaat-ul-Dawa, radicalism of Pakistan army, unleashing of atrocities on minority Muslims and non Muslims.

While Saudi Arabia got pleased with Zia's being fundamentalist, the USA got opportunity to exploit Gen. Zia for achieving its regional goals in Afghanistan war (1979-89) and pin-down the erstwhile Soviet Union in a battlefield there.

Process of subjugating and killings of minority Muslims and non Muslims started under Zia's regime is still in existence and especially killings of Shia is part of 'Jihadi' legacy left by Gen. Zia's Islamisation of the country.

After the end of Afghan war, Gen Zia and ISI supported Taliban turned into militants and since then their attacks in Pakistan have became a routine affairs. So far, over 40,000 Pakistani civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks, the country's economy suffered immensely due to this menace and from early 2003 until recently over 4,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed and over 13,000 injured during their fight against Taliban.

Significantly, Pakistan army is predominantly responsible for the crumbling of the country as a State. It never allowed the democratic institutions to get strengthened and regularly meddled in the State's affairs making country's democratic values fragile and feeble.

Pakistan army always remained moderate with fundamentalists and grabbed the power through military coups in the year 1958, 1977 and 1999. In addition to it, several coups attempts were also made including in 1949, 1980 and 1995. Pakistan's army ruled the country for over 32 years, starting from self-proclaimed Field Marshall Ayub Khan to first so called Chief Executive then President, General Pervez Musharaf. Notably four military dictators of each military regime left behind a legacy of self destruction for Pakistan.

Notably, whenever Pakistan military seized the power, it created an impression that country needed military rule and remained in power till public anger against military rulers reached to the maximum point. Pakistan army always remained contemptuous of politicians and political parties. It never allowed the democracy to take roots in. Pakistan army always hijacked country's foreign policy towardsIndia and Afghanistan and gave a free hand to ISI to create instability through militancy in India and Afghanistan, price to which, Pakistan as a country is still paying.

Pakistan army's hegemonic attitude not only weakened democratic institutions but also provincial law enforcing agencies, which became virtually incompetent and incapable to control any serious law and order problem without the assistance of army. This is very much visible in Karachi and Baluchistan.

Pakistan is also facing some serious socio economic problems since inception of the country. Some of these have aggravated critically in the recent past. The successive military and civilian governments completely failed to check menace of terrorism, deteriorating law and order situation, corruption, feudalism, disparities amongst provinces due to Punjabi domination and unprecedented gulf between rich and poor and piddling social securities in the field of health, education and water.

At the economic front, Pakistan's condition is pathetic and economic indicators are not encouraging. Pakistan's national currency is consistently devaluing, high rate of inflation, acute shortage of electricity exists due to which factories of textile, cement, sugar are closing, declining exports, lack of resources, population explosion, dropping stock markets, poor managed tax system, and insufficient foreign investments in the country.

Thus, the present day political, economic and social scenario in Pakistan is evincive of the fact that Pakistan can be safely put into the list of a 'Failed State' as the ruling government(s) failed to fulfil the basic responsibilities of a sovereign state.

- See more at: http://www.merinews.com/article/pakistan-manifestation-of-failed-state/15906469.shtml#sthash.iLxpiQzF.dpuf

How Pakistan Hurts Its People By Blaming India

By Malik Siraj Akbar 

On Wednesday, Jundullah, a Pakistan-based affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the killing of more than forty members of the Ismaili Shia community in Karachi. The underground Sunni extremist group has threatened to carry out more such attacks on Shias and other non-Muslim religious minorities. Since Pakistan has offered rich soil to Islamic extremists, both local and international, for at least three decades, it was not unexpected to see a new nexus between the militant groups in Pakistan and the Islamic State.

Despite Jundullah's acceptance of its involvement in the Karachi massacre, the country's foreign secretary,Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, immediately raised fingers on India and blamed its intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), for its alleged involvement in terrorist activities in Pakistan. The foreign secretary's statement was consistent with the stance of the Pakistani army that also recentlynamed the Indian spymasters for the first time in the public for "whipping up terrorism in Pakistan".

Blaming India for bad governance inside Pakistan is as old as the country's creation in 1947. With the passage of time, this practice (of blaming India) has worked so well in the country's politics that the civilian, military and religious leaders all use it to hide their failures and externalize the blame. However, this is approach is tremendously hurting the ordinary people in Pakistan. As extremist violence increases in mainland Pakistan and innocent citizens lose their lives in suicide attacks, bomb blasts, mass shootings and attacks on religious and educational institutions are resulting in the death of hundreds and thousands of people. Despite this, the military, civilian leadership and the clergy have a perturbing nexus to blame the Indians instead of taking action against the domestic terrorist groups that not only blatantly carry out these acts of terror but also immediately call newspaper offices to brazenly accept responsibility for masterminding these attacks. They are confident that nobody is going to come after them.

By not taking action against the homegrown terrorists, dismantling their huge infrastructure and putting the blame on foreign entities, the Pakistani authorities are indeed becoming complicit in the loss of precious human lives. Citizens who are killed in these terrorist attacks will unfortunately not get justice only because someone somewhere in the country's power circles benefits from such instability and blame game. In Pakistan's case, the army, which receives a substantial chunk of the national budget, survives and thrives by perpetuating the Indian threat. The army uses religious leaders and right-wing journalists to promote anti-Indianism. This hatred is systematically inculcated in the minds of the young Pakistanis through hateful textbooks, jingoistic television talks-shows and anti-India literature distributed by Jihadist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistan has done itself an extraordinary disservice by intentionally selling India as an enemy to its people. So much has changed in our world because of the Internet and social media but sadly the breakthrough has not occurred for the people of India and Pakistan to connect with each other. Actual first-hand interactions are such a powerful agent of shattering the status quo that those, who benefit from keeping the people of the two countries away from each other, will never let the gates of public interaction open.

In 2005 when I visited India as an exchange student through a very rare opportunity at the age of twenty-three, I went there with a heavy baggage of prior indoctrination against India and its people. I was certainly not to be blamed for my skepticism and preconceived notions about my host country. After all, I was, like millions of other young Pakistani students, only a product of the official textbooks that preached hatred toward India and the non-Muslims, particularly the Hindus.

Think about a young man meeting the first Hindu in his life at the age of twenty-three. That was me. And then imagine his dilemma if he had been brainwashed, again through the official textbooks, that it was not okay to be friends with the Hindus, shake hands or eat meals with them, worse if it is cooked by the non-Muslims? Of course, India was not as glamorous as Bollywood but neither the country nor its people were as abominable as the Pakistani textbooks and conservative Urdu language newspapers had (mis)informed us. Reluctant but gradual and consistent interactions with the Indian students helped me unlearn many lessons from the Pakistani communal education system and learn new lessons to appreciate and embrace diversity and pluralism.

But how many Pakistani students are lucky to go to India or vice versa? Very very few. Unfortunately, the scholarship that enabled me to go to India had to be disbanded after a few years because students from both sides of the border were never issued visas because of incessant political tensions and diplomatic mistrust. Students from the two countries normally get to meet and know each other in the international universities instead of being able to attend the universities in the region. When one of my classmates from India met me in Harvard, she exclaimed that it was the first time in her life that she had ever met someone from Pakistan. She was stunned that we spoke the same language and enjoyed the identical food. She and I coauthored an op-ed calling for more interactions among the people of the two countries. I believe there needs to be more noise on the part of us, the internationally educated youth of the two countries who have also had the extraordinary opportunity of making friendships and learning from each other inside international classrooms and amid intense yet respectful discussions on politics, religion and other controversial topics.

Pakistan and India should learn from the US-China model. Although Washington and Beijing are fierce competitors in almost all walks of life, the United States has opened the doors of its top universities and colleges for the Chinese students. An American education does not make the Chinese students less patriotic but it certainly helps in broadening these students' understanding of the life in the United States and cultivating true friendships. When these returning students assume top government positions, they certainly will not encourage their government to bomb a country where they made lifelong friendships and obtained valuable degrees.

Kishore Mahbubani,one of Asia's top thinkers, rightly described this partnershipbetween the U.S. and China.

"What is one thing that will surprise the future generations of historians when China will overtake the United States as the world's number one power?" It is American generosity to open the doors of its prestigious educational institutions for the students from all over the world, including China, America's main competitor."

Similarly, if hundreds or thousands of Indian and Pakistani students attend each other's universities every year, we will witness an unbelievable change in the perceptions, attitude, public opinion and even government policies of the two countries within a few years. This has to happen so that the younger generation of the Pakistanis will take over the policy world in Islamabad and refuses to subscribe to the world vision and the mindset that is espoused by the generation of the current foreign secretary.

In 2009, I was invited to speak in a track-II Pakistan-India conference in Singapore. The two-day conference brought together retired top army generals, federal ministers, diplomats, politicians and journalists from both the countries. As the youngest among all the delegates, I was astonished to see former Indian and Pakistani generals and diplomats sitting in the hotel bar, drinking whisky, sharing sexist Urdu/Hindi jokes and then laughing merrily and loudly as if they were high school buddies. They recited romantic poetry from Mirza Ghalib, the legendary Urdu poet from the eighteenth century, and lavishly admired each other's Adabi Zoq or poetic flavor. There was no animosity among these powerful men. They gave each other high fives.

For a moment, I wondered if these guys would ever wage a war against each other. I also found it hard to believe that these generals and diplomats actually hated each other as much as they encouraged the ordinary people in their countries to do so. This is precisely what happens when men in power prevent the people from interacting and shut down all avenues of cultural and academic exchange. This duplicity should stop because more than a billion Indians and Pakistanis deserve better. Our children even deserve better than us.

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Student who told Jeb Bush 'Your brother created Isis' speaks out about incident

By Alan Yuhas

Ivy Ziedrich challenged the likely presidential candidate after he blamed the militant group’s formation on Barack Obama for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

A college student who confronted Jeb Bush about the Iraq war has spoken out about the incident, which made headlines around the world, saying of the former Florida governor’s position: “It was like somebody crashing their car and blaming the passenger.”

Ivy Ziedrich, a 19-year-old University of Nevada student, addressed the likely presidential candidate after he spoke at town hall event in Reno, telling him: “Your brother created Isis.”

She questioned him amid a flock of reporters about his assertion that the jihadi group developed because Barack Obama had overseen the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

“You stated that Isis was created because we don’t have enough presence and we’ve been pulling out of the Middle East,” Ziedrich said, shifting blame instead on to the consequences of George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq. “The threat of Isis was created by the Iraqi coalition authority, which ousted the entire government of Iraq.

“It was when 30,000 individuals who are part of the Iraqi military – they were forced out. They had no employment, they had no income, yet they were left with access to all the same arms and weapons. Your brother created Isis!”

Bush patted her on the arm and asked: “Is that a question?”

“You don’t need to be pedantic to me, sir,” Ziedrich shot back. “You could just answer my question.”

“Pedantic? Wow,” Bush replied, taken aback by the rebuke.

“When we sent young men to die for the idea of American exceptionalism,” Ziedrich asked, “why are you spouting nationalist rhetoric to get us involved in more wars?”

“We respectfully disagree,” Bush answered. “We had an agreement that the president could’ve signed that would’ve kept 10,000 troops, less than what we have in Korea, and could’ve created the stability that would’ve allowed Iraq to progress. The result was the opposite occurred because the void was immediately filled.”

The likely candidate for the 2016 presidential campaign told Ziedrich: “We can rewrite history all you want, but the simple fact is we’re in a much more unstable place because America pulled back.”

Ziedrich is a political science major and member of the Young Democrats at her university, was a nationally ranked debater in high school and has campaigned against an open-carry gun law for college campuses. She told ABC News, which captured the confrontation on camera, that she did not mean to sound hostile.

“I think he’s telling the truth as he understands it,” Ziedrich said. “I see his response as a lack of perspective. We deserve more than this as voters.”

Ziedrich has emphasized that she wants more accountability from leaders and to get them to interact with a wider range of voters, tweeting that day about the ways “candidates for presidency talk at small ticketed events instead of speaking to university students and getting them involved”.

“It’s frustrating to see politicians ignore the origins of our conflicts abroad and use current foes as excuses for creating new ones,” she added.

“A Bush was trying to blame Isis on Obama’s foreign policy,” Ziedrich told the New York Times. “It was like somebody crashing their car and blaming the passenger.”

“I think it’s important when we have people in positions of authority, we demand a dialogue and accountability.”

Bush has struggled with his brother’s legacy in recent days, particularly with regard to the former president’s hugely unpopular war in Iraq. He first drew criticism by telling Fox News that he would have invaded Iraq even knowing what Americans know today – that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that Iraqis and Americans would pay enormous costs in lives and treasure.

After criticism from the left and the right, Bush then tried to backtrack, saying that he misheard the question as “knowing what you knew then” and that “given the power of looking back, of course anybody would’ve made different decisions”.

Finally on Thursday he said that with knowledge of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs: “I would have not gone into Iraq.”

Should Bush declare his candidacy as expected, Ziedrich’s question is probably a foreshadowing of one of the former governor’s greatest challenges: the deep disillusionment and simmering anger of many Democrats and Republicanssurrounding the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which seems inextricably tied to the Bush name.

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Boston Marathon bomber Tsarnaev sentenced to death for 2013 attack

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by a U.S. jury on Friday for helping carry out the 2013 attack that killed three people and wounded 264 others in the crowds at the race's finish line.

After deliberating for 15 hours, the federal jury chose death by lethal injection for Tsarnaev, 21, over its only other option: life in prison without possibility of release.

The same jury found Tsarnaev guilty last month of placing a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs on April 15, 2013, as well as fatally shooting a policeman. The bombing was one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

Tsarnaev, dressed in a dark sport coat and light-colored shirt, stood quietly as the sentence was read, remaining expressionless as he had throughout most of the trial.

During 10 weeks of testimony, jurors heard from about 150 witnesses, including people whose legs were torn off by the shrapnel-filled bombs. William Richard, the father of bombing victim Martin Richard, described the decision to leave his 8-year-old son to die of his wounds so that he could save the life of his daughter, Jane, who lost a leg but survived.

Prosecutors described Tsarnaev, who is an ethnic Chechen, as an adherent of al Qaeda's militant Islamist views who carried out the attack as an act of retribution for U.S. military campaigns in Muslim-majority countries.

The jury's decision does not mean Tsarnaev will face imminent death. Defense attorneys are likely to appeal the sentence, a process that can stretch out for many years.

"I know that there is still a long road ahead," said survivor Karen Brassard, whose left leg was badly injured in the attack. "There are going to be many, many dates ahead. But today we can take a breath, and actually breathe again," she told reporters.

An appeal could focus on a number of issues, including the court's denial of a defense plea to move the trial out of Boston or refusal to challenge the graphic photos and videos that the jury saw of the bombs' detonation and the severe wounds they inflicted.

"Prosecutors do have a burden of proof to show that people died, but the appeal argument would be that there is a balance to be struck and they went over that line," said David Weinstein, an attorney in private practice who in prior jobs as a state and federal prosecutor brought death-penalty cases.

DEATH PENALTY CONTROVERSIAL IN MASSACHUSETTS

The death penalty remains highly controversial in Massachusetts, which has not put anyone to death in almost 70 years and which abolished capital punishment for state crimes in 1984. Tsarnaev was tried under federal law, which allows for lethal injection as a punishment.

Polls had shown that a majority of Boston-area residents opposed executing Tsarnaev.

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Pakistan - Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo wants Ramzan Package money be disbursed through BISP‏

https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com


The track record of Punjab government of walking the talk has been abjectly poor whether it is the control of load shedding of electricity, providing relief to the poor, fulfilling the promise of providing subsidy to rice growers or bringing the less developed areas of the province at par with the developed ones, said Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo, President PPP Central Punjab in a statement issued from here today.
He welcomed the Ramzan packages of Rs. three billions announced yesterday by Punjab government adding these programmes unfortunately had not accrued matching relief to the needy people in the past thus ruining the very purpose of such packages at the expense of the poor of the province.
He observed that the Ramzan Package of Rs, three billions announced yesterday should also not meet the same ill- fate as salesmen at the subsidized outlets possibly would not entertain the poor on the pretext of “out of stock” because the hoarders and the profiteers had already taken away the items in collusion with the officials.
The Chief Minister of Punjab should not be contended with issuing frequent statements giving instructions to the administrative machinery to ensure the availability of food items to the poor and those who were found responsible for syphoning off the goods should be given exemplary punishment. Such platitudes would not deter the criminals who operate with impunity, he added.
He said that it would be test of the efficacy of the Punjab government to ensure the aviliabity of the subsidized items in the designated outlets only as their sale in the open market would tarnish the image of the good governance of this government.
He suggested that the Ramzan Package amount instead should be disbursed through framework of the Benazir Income Support Programme(BISP) among the recipients of BISP because the list of the deserving families under the programme had been prepared very carefully, and audited by the third party. The outreach of BISP among the most vulnerable sections of the society had earned acclaims at the international level, he argued.
He maintained that the BISP was solely meant for the poor people and it had no political overtones adding it also served as an effective instrument for empowerment of women because the women head of the family was entitled to receive the financial assistance.
The money thus given will serve the purpose of the Ramzan Package better because it would reach in the hands of those who are the poorest of the poor, he maintained.

#ShiaGenocide - Why terrorists are targeting Pakistan’s Ismaili community

By Jake Flanagin 

Gunmen boarded a bus in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, on May 13. They separated the children from the adults before opening fire on the 60 or so riders, a survivor told Vice News. Reuters reports that at least 43 have been killed and 13 wounded.

The bus was carrying members of Karachi’s Ismaili community—a religious minority in Pakistan. Jundullah, a branch of the Pakistani Taliban that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Nov. 2014, has claimed responsibility.

“These killed people were Ismaili and we consider them kafir,” Ahmed Marwat, a spokesperson for Jundullah, told Reuters. “Kafir” means “unbeliever” or “infidel” in Arabic. “In the coming days we will attack Ismailis, Shiites, and Christians,” he warned.

According to the US Department of State, an estimated 25% of Pakistani’s Muslim population adhere to Shia Islam (75% are Sunnis). Of that 25%, the majority are Ismailis, the second-largest branch of Shia Islam after the Twelvers, who hold sway in nearby Iran.

Ismailis are seen as a reformist sect and more liberal in their interpretations of the Quran than other strains of Islam. In some ways, they are: the 48th Ismaili imam, Aga Khan III, made it optional for women to cover their hair in public. The vast majority of Ismaili women do not wear a hijab.

Some attribute these liberalisms to a philosophical commitment to modernity and pluralism. Ismailis have a religious mandate to pursue knowledge and fulfill traditions of tolerance by actively working toward harmonious, pluralistic societies. This requires ever-evolving interpretations of Quranic doctrine.

Essentially, it’s an obligation to adapt to the times—an idea that stands in stark contrast to fundamentalist politics of all sorts. The Ismailis are a natural target for groups like Jundullah, whose ideological bread and butter is the intimidation (if not extermination) of progressive Pakistanis.

While not necessarily accurate, Ismailis seem to be perceived by certain critics as Westernized. A cursory Google search of Ismailism brings up a slew of message-board postings asking rhetorical questions like, “Why do Ismaili women dress so slutty?” Commenters speculate that all Ismailis drink like fish (the Quran forbids imbibing); that they hold the opinion of the Aga Khan above the teachings of Muhammad; that they are all rich and politically influential and enamored with “Western lifestyles.”

It’s possible the lifestyle of one leading Ismaili—the current Aga Khan—has been projected onto the entire community. Prince Shah Karim al-Hussaini Aga Khan IV is a Swiss-born British subject. He heads the Aga Khan Foundation, an NGO awash with cash that combats poverty and promotes public health in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia. He was educated at Harvard, has a net worth of more than $800 million, owns a private island in the Bahamas, and currently lives in a chateau in northern France.

But the Ismailis killed in Karachi were not much like the privileged prince—at least not in terms of net worth or lifestyle. They were residents of the al-Azhar Garden Colony, an Ismaili housing project; and most of them were commuting to work and school when they were attacked.

Did the Jundullah militants have a clear idea of who these Ismailis were, or of the Aga Khan and his connections with various players in Western political establishments? Or were they just another minority group in a long list to be targeted? In either case, the violence against them, as against all religious minorities in Pakistan, would seem to lie in ignorance and the spread of misinformation.