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Sunday,
September 29, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Pervez
plays down India war threat WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Christians
bury massacre victim
Govt moves
to bar ‘Miss Pak’ from pageant Terrorism
still USA’s bugbear |
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Mulla
Omar, Osama alive: ex-Taliban envoy Moussaoui
got secret documents ‘by mistake’
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Pervez plays down India war threat Islamabad, September 28 Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours were raised this week by the massacre of 28 persons by two Muslim gunmen at an Indian temple. India said it suspected the gunmen had links to Pakistan-based Islamic militant groups. “There is no danger (of war),” General Musharraf told reporters in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. “We should have confidence in ourselves. We are not sitting idle. We are prepared for everything. There should not be any misunderstanding.’’ New Delhi has blamed a string of attacks on religious, military and political targets in recent months on Pakistan-based militants. Pakistan says it has cracked down on the groups and that infiltration into India by extremists had stopped. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the temple massacre, and the police in Karachi said late yesterday that there were indications of Indian intelligence agents being behind the murder this week of seven Christian charity workers in the city. General Musharraf said India should stop blaming Pakistan for security breaches on its soil. “They should improve their internal situation instead of slinging muds on others.’’ He said India may have been behind the attack on a Christian charity in Karachi, although others could also be to blame. “We are looking into it. We are investigating it.’’ General Musharraf said the terrorist strike on Swaminarain temple was a fallout of the recent communal riots in Gujarat. “This is totally a misperception. They (India) should not blame us (for temple killings) because what is happening in Gujarat is the fallout of killing of thousands of Muslims there,” he said. He also alleged that the Indian intelligence agency RAW could be involved in the killing of seven Christians in an attack on an NGO in Karachi on Wednesday. “There can be a possibility. But we do not act like them... unless we have proof,” he said, adding that the matter was being examined and investigated. |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN THERE are indeed voices of deep concern in the Pakistani media over the increasing shadows of extremist violence in the subcontinent. At least some newspapers are worried about terrorist violence in both India and Pakistan. It is another matter that the army generals who usurped power and would like to cling to it by all means may not share their concern. The farce of elections slated for October 10 is also very clear to newspapers like the largest circulated Urdu daily Jang and English dailies like Dawn, Nation, News, Daily Times and Balauchistan News. Some of the commentators have shown concern for the ongoing senseless violence. Daily Times, Pakistan’s newest bold daily by Najm Sethi, commenting on the attack on devotees in Akshardham said: “Even by the appalling standards of recent years, the murder of seven Christian activists in Karachi was an act of numbing barbarism. It came as Indian troops stormed a Hindu temple in Gandhinagar and killed the Muslim fanatics who had earlier slaughtered 28 people. And in the disputed region of Kashmir, at least 19 more deaths occurred as a result of incursions by Pakistan-based terrorists. There is a real prospect that Pakistan could descend into chaos and India witness another round of fratricide of the sort that left more than 1,000 of its citizens dead in Gujarat this spring. The next month threatens to be one of exceptional danger in the subcontinent.” After warning about the threat of war between the two nuclear powers, Daily Times said that Kashmir was the spark could stoke the flames. The Iraq crisis had, understandably, absorbed attention of the international community. It suggested the two sides should take steps to ease tension. “The balance of responsibility this time rests with Pakistan. President Musharraf is now paying the price for his country’s previous reluctance to crack down on militants in Karachi. Islamic fundamentalism of the more warped form was tolerated there in the hope that it might be contained. A simultaneous attempt must be made, despite all the undoubted difficulties, to seal the border and prevent fanatics slipping in and out of Kashmir.” Ayaz Amir, a passionate advocate for peace and democracy commenting on the current elections and the army’s desire for a permanent role found the military leadership incapable of solving either the problems of people of Pakistan or of the subcontinent. He wrote in Dawn, “The reformers who walked into the political arena three years ago, vowing to turn the country’s fortunes around, can plume themselves on some notable successes. Politicising their own institution, the military, they are well on their way to depoliticising the country. The current election campaign makes this amply clear. A damp squib so far, it has yet to set fire to anything.” He asked pointedly: “Did the 1962 National Assembly elected under Field Marshal Ayub Khan achieve anything? Did the 1965 assembly under the same cover achieve anything? Did the political experiment hatched under the tutelage of General Zia-ul-Haq give the country anything apart from more unrest and turbulence? What good will the present experiment achieve? Unless there is a national meeting of minds, unless the military understands the basic truth that politics is best left to the workings of democracy, Pakistan will know neither stability nor internal peace. And its dreams of economic progress will remain unfulfilled.” In the same tone, South Asia Tribune, a newly launched Internet weekly chastised some Urdu newspapers for their tirades. It said, “Pakistani media, particularly the Urdu print media, is obsessed with India. It gives enormous coverage to every paltry affair taking place in India and analyses it in the context of Kashmir, two-nation theory or Islam with an ill intention of further aggravating the tension between the two countries rather than looking at things objectively—at least such affairs that could have positive aspects.” And, perhaps the sharpest comment came from its editor, Shaheen Sabhai who said: “Elections in Kashmir should not be a matter of concern of a nation whose 40 per cent people live below poverty line in abject circumstances. Kashmir has become an outstanding excuse in the hands of the selfish army, bureaucracy and politicians of Pakistan. They could plunder the resources of Pakistan to increase their bank-balance and justify their wrongdoings in the name of Kashmir. The same situation exists in India. The belief of Pakistani civil society is, Kashmir is not amenable to any solution because it is not in the interest of both India and Pakistan to solve it. The survival of their vested interests is in the continuous tension between the two countries and Kashmir is a good reason to intensify it. The Kashmir dispute has provided excellent employment opportunity and perks to the Indian and Pakistani establishment. Why would they think of resolving it and alleviate poverty? Are they a bunch of fools”? |
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Govt moves to bar ‘Miss Pak’ from pageant Islamabad, September 28 Soon after the photographs of 21-year-old Neelan Noorani appeared in newspapers yesterday, appearing in the preview of the Tokyo beauty pageant as “Miss Pakistan”, the government asked its mission in Japan to advise the organisers to stop her from wearing Pakistan’s banner. “The government has moved to save the nation from this disgrace,” ‘The News’ daily said in a front page story titled, ‘Beauty queen or an ultimate disgrace’, even while carrying the picture of Noorani taking part in the pageant. “Miss Noorani, seen as a disgrace by many Pakistanis, was wearing the ceremonial strap prominently inscribing “PAKISTAN”, the daily said. According to the organisers 51 girls would compete for the Miss International crown on September 30 in Tokyo. Expressing shock over Noorani taking part in the contest, Mr Tariq Janjua, the Secretary Culture, Sports and Tourism was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the government had nothing to do with “this shameful development.” “We cannot allow this,” Mr Janjua said adding that such contests were in total “contrast” to the social and cultural values of Pakistan. “Our religion, Islam, also disapproves of all such acts,” Mr Janjua said.
PTI |
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Terrorism
still USA’s bugbear THE morbid fear still stalking Americans as a result of the September 11 tragedy continues to trigger bizarre incidents pointing to paranoia among airport and security personnel, but the Bush Administration prefers to see them as “sad reminders” of what terrorism can do to the fabric of a country. The victim of the overreaction on the part of police officials and security guards at airports and elsewhere in the USA are invariably persons who have a middle-eastern or Asian origin. Though most of them turn out to be naturalised American citizens. Two recent incidents have once again prompted civil rights advocates and Muslim organisations to call the attention of the authorities to the violation of legitimate rights of US citizens in the name of security. Last month, in Florida, three men with middle-easten features were chatting at a restaurant, and a nurse who claimed to have overheard their conversation reported to the police that they were laughing about the September 11 terrorist attacks and talking about blowing up a building. The three men, medical students on their way to Miami to join a hospital for a training course, were intercepted by the police on a highway, hand-cuffed and detained for 17 hours. They denied they ever made any reference to the September 11 attacks. They were eventually released without charges, but the hospital authorities in Miami refused to admit them for their training, saying “it is not safe for them to be here, for the hospital or for the patients.” In the second incident that took place in mid-air during a Delta flight, two sky marshals seized an unruly passenger and also forced a doctor of Indian origin to sit with his head between his legs in his seat in the first class cabin. Bob Rajcoomar, a former US army Major and military doctor, had to undergo the humiliation just because he was “staring” at the sky marshals and the unruly man. Dr Rajcoomar’s wife, who was sitting several rows back, was not aware of the traumatic experience her husband was going through, and for three hours after the flight landed, she did not know his whereabouts. The air marshals had handcuffed Dr Rajcoomar and put him in a police cell at the airport. He was later released without charges. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, specifically questioned about the Florida incident, sought to justify such incidents, saying “people across the country should continue to report anything that they believe is unusual behaviour, and let the law enforcement authorities make the proper judgements. |
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Christians
bury massacre victim
Karachi, September 28 Hundreds of policemen escorted the mourners as they carried the wooden coffin of Benjamin Talib to a funeral service at a Catholic church in Akhtar Colony, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the sprawling port city. Talib was one of the seven Christian Pakistanis killed in an attack by two gunmen on the office of a Christian charity in the city centre on Wednesday. “We are dismayed, grieved and sad. We don’t have any option except patience,” the Catholic Bishop of Karachi Salamat Khokhar of Karachi told mourners inside the church. The shooting was the seventh major attack on Christian or western targets in predominantly Muslim Pakistan in the past year. The attacks have claimed more than 60 lives. Several of the attacks on Christians have been blamed on Islamic militant groups angered by Pakistan’s support for the US-led war on terror. Two banners hung outside the church called for the death penalty for the killers, if they are ever found. The coffin was later driven in a black car to the city’s Christian cemetery for burial.
Reuters |
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Mulla Omar, Osama alive: ex-Taliban envoy Islamabad, September 28 Naseer Ahmed Roohi, a diplomat in the United Arab Emirates during the Taliban government, claimed that he met Mulla Omar 15 days ago in Afghanistan, according to a report in The Dawn today. “I met him in Afghanistan 15 days ago to receive instructions from him,” Mr Roohi said at a hurriedly-convened press conference. “Mulla Omar never left Afghanistan since this time (September 11 attacks last year),” he said, adding that Omar and Osama were in contact with each other. He said Taliban activists were behind the assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai in September in Kandahar.
UNI |
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Moussaoui got secret documents ‘by mistake’ Washington, September 28 US District Judge Leonie Brinkema had ordered the documents retrieved from Moussaoui’s cell and, in a move exposing the government’s clumsiness, released yesterday a collection of letters from federal prosecutors in which they acknowledge the mistake and plead for her help. The contents of the 48 documents have not been formally disclosed. But they are reported to feature summaries of interviews conducted by FBI agents with people detained in connection with the September 11 attacks and sensitive information about Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network. Assistant US Attorney Robert Spencer said the documents “contain national security information.” The administration of President George W Bush has denied access to such data even to most members of Congress. Moussaoui, a 34-year-old Frenchman, faces six federal charges of conspiracy and a possible death sentence for alleged involvement in the September 11 attacks. The secret FBI documents had been given to Moussaoui as part of the discovery process, a legal requirement which stipulates that a defendant must be made aware of evidence that will be used against him in trial. Moussaoui, who some believe was designated to become a 20th hijacker in the September 11 plot, was detained for immigration violations in the northern state of Minnesota long before the attack and remained behind bars when it occurred.
AFP |
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