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Wednesday,
July 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Pak fears
backlash to verdict
Omar’s
appeal process to take a year |
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Pak
grenade attack: 150 held Pak Press
frets over amendments Musharraf
to visit Dhaka on July 29
Poll in
Turkey on Nov 3 War
against Iraq ‘inevitable’
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Pak fears backlash
to verdict
Islamabad, July 16 Buildings and places of national importance have been put under surveillance to pre-empt retaliation by Islamic fundamentalists following the conviction of Omar Saeed Sheikh by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court yesterday. Pakistan has ordered provincial authorities to provide foolproof security to all diplomatic enclaves and foreigners and be more vigilant at public places like bus stands, railway stations and airports. In Islamabad enhanced security is visible around the diplomatic enclave. All vehicles entering and leaving the capital are being searched thoroughly. “The police, the bomb disposal squad, the fire brigade and the Civil Aviation Department are on alert,” a senior official said. After the death sentence, Sheikh was quoted as saying: “I shall see who will die first, I or the authorities who have arranged the death sentence.” Two political parties have expressed their displeasure over the verdict, describing it as “influenced from the outside.” Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ghafoor Ahmed wondered how the government had acted with such extraordinary efficiency in the Pearl case. Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) vice-president Ejaz Shafi said Sheikh had not been given justice. “Musharraf had asked the authorities to punish Sheikh with the death sentence when he was arrested from Lahore a few months ago,” Mr Shafi said, adding that the anti-terrorism court had only obliged the President. Meanwhile, three Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants were arrested in a crackdown by the police and other law enforcement agencies against jehadi and sectarian militants following the death sentence to Pearl murder-accused Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. The militants were arrested from a mosque in Nazimabad in Karachi on Monday and bundles of pamphlets inscribed with matter spreading sectarian hatred and anti-state slogans were seized from them, Daily Times reported.
IANS, UNI |
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Omar’s appeal process to take a year
Karachi, July 16 Pearl was kidnapped from outside a restaurant in the southern port city of Karachi on January 23 and in February a gruesome three-minute videotape was received by the US Consulate here recording his murder. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and three co-accused were found guilty yesterday in a heavily guarded courtroom hidden behind the high walls of the Hyderabad jail, 100 km northeast of Karachi. In an interview, Omar’s lawyer, Abdul Waheed Katpur, told the Associated Press he would file an appeal by Friday. The first court of appeal is the provincial High Court and proceedings there could take five months to complete, Katpur said. Depending on the outcome there, Omar could then appeal to the Supreme Court. The appeal process could take up to one year to exhaust, Katpur said. Before appeal hearings even begin, dozens of documents and other evidence used in the trial would have to be translated from Urdu into English, a job that would take two months at least, Katpur said. “So either way it will have to go to the Supreme Court” Katpur said. “This is likely to take another five or six months.”
AP |
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Pak grenade attack: 150 held Islamabad, July 16 Most of the arrests made yesterday were at Mansehra in the NWFP where two hand grenades were lobbed at a bus carrying the tourists. The grenades were hurled when the China-bound bus, carrying 27 people from Rawalpindi, halted along the Karakoram highway. The report, quoting local police chief Ahsan Mahboob, said among those taken into custody were 30 Afghan refugees and members of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), the radical Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and its students’ wing.
UNI |
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Pak Press frets over amendments
Islamabad, July 16 The proposed constitutional changes, announced in two packages, have been denounced by some as a death knell for democracy and major political parties and lawyers' bodies have voiced their anger. General Musharraf says he will listen to critics before finalising the changes ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled for October 10. However, officials privately admit that there are likely to be few changes to the core of a package which would empower General Musharraf to sack a Prime Minister, fire the Cabinet and dissolve an elected Parliament. “The second constitutional amendment package on show is a sequel to a horror film in which General Musharraf is the prima donna,” the independent Daily Times said in an editorial. The Dawn newspaper said there was a need to improve the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister. “The best that can be said about the two constitutional amendment packages is that hopefully these are proposals on the extreme side and not necessarily meant for approval,” the independent News said. Critics say the amendments would result in a presidential system without the benefit of a directly elected President. Human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jehangir said the planned amendments would be a mockery of the constitution.
Reuters |
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Musharraf
to visit Dhaka on July 29 Dhaka, July 16 Questions are being raised by regional experts as to the real objective of his visit to Dhaka at a time when the border tension between India and Pakistan dominates the media in the region. As the Bangladesh Constitution bars military pacts with any country, the possibility of any military assistance is ruled out. But there is speculation in the local dailies that General Musharraf might seek an assurance from Dhaka that it would not side with India in case of military conflict between the two countries. Pakistan’s relations with the immediate past Awami League government in Dhaka were less than cordial. The declaration of a Pakistani diplomat working in Dhaka as persona non grata on charges of spying, Dhaka’s refusal to recognise General Pervez Musharraf as a legitimate head of state after his takeover on October 12, 1999. But two other issues pursued by the Awami League government vitiated bilateral ties. First, claim to pay the share of assets held by Pakistan before the liberation of Bangladesh and second, the repatriation to Pakistan of the migrants from Bihar who had opted for Pakistan after the emergence of Bangladesh. Mr Shaan Zaman, Press Counsellor of the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka told TNS that General Musharraf had already visited India and Nepal, two other member nations of SAARC. He said, trade matters between Bangladesh and Pakistan would top General Musharraf’s agenda during his talks with Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. To keep its 19 jute mills running Pakistan imports raw jute from Bangladesh. Other export items from Bangladesh are tea, betel leaf and the betel nut. Imports from Pakistan include textiles, cotton yarn for use by local textile mills, fruit and juices. Dhaka’s external trade with Islamabad was marked by a deficit of $ 24.92 million during the second half of fiscal 2001-2002, according to government owned news agency Bangladesh Sangbad
Sangstha. |
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7 Israelis die in
bus explosion
Jerusalem, July 16 A roadside device detonated as a bus was passing near Emmanuel settlement, and shooting then followed, said police spokesman Rafi Yaffe. Seven people were killed, said Shahar Ayalon, the police commander in the northern West Bank. Doctors at the scene quoted the injured as saying that after the initial explosion, several smaller ones went off, followed by shooting, Israel radio said. The witnesses said the attackers, about three in all, were dressed in Israel army uniforms and had escaped in the direction of Nablus.
AP |
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Poll in Turkey on Nov 3 Ankara, July 16 “The three leaders have reached agreement on holding an early general election on November 3, 2002,” the leaders said in a short statement issued following an hour-long meeting between Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and his allies, Devlet Bahceli and Mesut Yilmaz. Earlier, the government lost its absolute majority in Parliament today after six more legislators resigned. The three-party coalition government now has only half the seats in the 550-member legislature. Premier Bulent Ecevit had vowed to resign if this happened, though with 13 empty seats in Parliament, the loss of an absolute majority would not automatically bring down the government. For that to happen, the Opposition would have to muster 276 votes to support a motion of no confidence. Ecevit today appeared to backtrack from his earlier vow to resign, telling the Sabah newspaper that if he lost his absolute majority, he would confer with his coalition members before making a decision as to whether to withdraw.
AP |
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War against
Iraq ‘inevitable’ London, July 16 Asked about Saddam Hussein’s alleged stockpile and development of weapons of mass destruction, Blair said while no decisions about military action against Iraq had been taken by the USA or Britain, the issue had to be addressed. Blair was appearing at the first of two sessions before the Commons Liaison Committee, breaking a long-standing convention whereby British prime ministers refused to appear before legislative watchdog committees.
AP |
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In
video: The death sentence to
Omar Sheikh
received mix reactions from people in Pakistan. (
