Dera Allah Yar, December 20
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto accused Pakistan’s military intelligence today of pressuring candidates from her party to drop out of next month’s parliamentary elections and urged officials to crack down on such harassment.

Bhutto, a two-time former prime minister who recently returned from years of living in exile, told reporters during a campaign stop, her party has evidence of interference. “We demand that the Election Commission should take notice of such things to ensure free and fair elections,” she said, also accusing local mayors of gearing up to cheat. She urged the intelligence agencies to concentrate their efforts on capturing terrorists, adding, “This is not your job to indulge in politics.”

Bhutto also asked the government of President Pervez Musharraf to act against those involved in rigging the vote, reminding him that he had promised the January 8 balloting will be free and fair.

Under pressure from the international community and domestic opposition, Musharraf also had said he would try to work with anyone getting a majority in the Parliament. He had called allegations of rigging an attempt by Bhutto and other opposition leaders to create an excuse in case they fare poorly at the ballot box.

Bhutto, travelling in a bullet proof vehicle and accompanied by tight security, was making her first tour to remote areas of Baluchistan province, where tribal elders have waged insurgency to pressure the Central government to return more of the wealth from natural resources extracted from their areas. — AP

The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) has declared the Pakistani Citizenship Act, 1951, to be discriminatory against women and asked the President to amend it within six months so that foreign husbands of Pakistani women could get Pakistani citizenship, like foreign women married to Pakistani men.

"We are of the view that Section 10 of the Citizenship Act is discriminatory, negates gender equality and is in violation of Articles 2A (objective resolution) and Article 25 (equality of citizens) of the Constitution, also against international commitments of Pakistan and, most importantly, is repugnant to the Holy Quran and Sunnah," a 26-page judgment announced here said.

The three-member Bench comprising FSC Chief Justice Haziqul Khairi, Justice Fida Muhammad Khan and Justice Salahuddin Mirza had taken suo motu notice on a news report. According to the report, a woman was denied the right to get Pakistani citizenship for her foreign husband, though the law entitled a man to obtain citizenship for his alien wife.

The decision came despite the government's opposition on the grounds that a foreign woman marrying a Pakistani man could not be equated with a foreign man married to a Pakistani woman because it would not only legalise the stay of a large number of illegal immigrants, but would also increase their influx.

President Pervez Musharraf has said that he felt stronger after taking off his uniform because he had full confidence in the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Kayani.

"He (General Kayani) is an excellent COAS ... he is my student and has worked as my subordinate. He is a man of good head and heart. I feel stronger today," the president said while speaking at the PAK-PAC”s 18th annual dinner here on Wednesday night.

Musharraf conferred high military award "Nishane Pakistan" on General Kiyani at a special investiture ceremony in”Aiwan-e-Sadr”.

He said army is loyal to him because "I rule their hearts and minds", adding that he had fought several wars along with soldiers and officers many of whom died before him.

He said after the elections, he expected a troika comprising the president, the prime minister and the army chief to run the affairs of the country. "I am confident they will act in harmony," he remarked.

Musharraf said he had introduced true democracy in the country and saved the process from being derailed by imposing the emergency on November 3.

"I acted against the judiciary and media in the interest of the nation because the judiciary and some elements in the media were creating problems." He said he took some unpopular decisions to preserve the nation.

President Pervez Musharraf has said that besides former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday (retd), Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan and Nawaz Sharif were involved in the conspiracy to block his way to becoming a constitutionally elected President.

“The Chief Justice was at the centre of this conspiracy to destabilise me,” Musharraf said while addressing the 18th annual banquet hosted by the Pakistani American Public Affairs Committee (PAK-PAC), comprising Pakistani doctors settled in North America on Wednesday.

“Today I want to unveil the entire plot to derail democracy that I have been referring to,” Musharraf said while giving details of the “conspiracy” he had been talking about since the imposition of the emergency on November 3. He sacked Iftikhar, Ramday and dozens of other judges of the Supreme Court and provincial high courts, besides suspending the constitution as army chief.

Musharraf claimed that two other characters in the ‘conspiracy’— Justice (retd) Ramday and Aitzaz Ahsan held a meeting in Geneva. He also implicated Nawaz Sharif for funding the conspiracy and lawyers’ agitation. He repeated the charge that Iftikhar Chaudhry was corrupt, made fake petrol bills, did not pronounce verdicts on merit and used to abuse the high court judges and the bureaucrats.

Ramday headed the 13-member Supreme Court Bench that delivered a unanimous landmark judgment on July 20 to reinstate Itikhar Chaudhry and quashed the presidential reference against him.

Iftikhar, Ramday and Aitzaz Ahsan had been under detention since November 3 along with other deposed judges. Musharraf fears they would launch an agitation to disrupt the elections and destabilise the government.

He said the Justice also upset the government’s privatisation and investment policy causing huge losses to the country by annulling the privatisation of the Pakistan Steel Mills.

“I tried my best to reach a compromise with Iftikhar Chaudhry and declared in a public meeting that there was nothing personal between me and the former Chief Justice and I accepted his verdict, but Iftikhar continued to pursue the confrontational path,” he added.

Kuala Lumpur, December 20
A group of ethnic Indians shaved off their heads today as over 100 protesters gathered near Kuala Lumpur demanding the release of five of their leaders detained under a controversial security law for raising their voice against alleged marginalisation of the community.

The protesters gathered at the Batu Caves Hindu temple compound and offered prayers for the early release of the Hindu Rights Action Front (Hindraf) leaders held at a detention camp in Kamunting, about 200 km from here, under the Internal Security Act, which allows authorities to hold people without trial for a minimum period of two years.

At least 16 Indians shaved their heads on the banks of a nearby river and walked to the temple, carrying posters of Mahatma Gandhi. The act of shaving their head was a protest against the ISA detention and also as a prayer for their early release, activists gathered there said.

The fresh protests came an ethnic Indian minister, who had vociferously condemned the protests called by Hindraf, admitted that the recent street demonstrations had prompted the community to raise the unresolved issues faced by it and had affected the loyalty of Indians towards the government to a certain degree.

Malaysia Indian Congress president Samy Vellu said there were Indians who began questioning why the issues raised by the community had not been resolved by the government. — PTI

Houston, December 20
A special task force has announced a $5,000 reward to anyone providing evidence or tips leading to the arrest of killers of two Indians, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma of Hyderabad and Kiran Kumar Allam of Kurnool, at Louisiana University campus while investigators said they might be running out of time to solve the case.

A private donor, who wished to remain anonymous, has donated $4,000 to add to the $1,000 reward that was already being offered for information leading to the arrest of the killers.

Taskforce spokesman Don Kelly said while they had received several calls after releasing the sketches of two suspects earlier this week, but they still believed there were people who knew about the murders but were holding information.

“We need that information.... The farther away you get from an event, the less likely it’s going to be solved, especially in this case,” he said.

The bodies of the victims will reach India on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday. Their family members have already left for India.

The extra $4,000, however, will only be paid if the information is received before midnight Christmas Eve.

Investigators continue to actively follow leads searching for at least three or possibly four black male suspects.

Residents at the Edward Gay Apartments have set a memorial wall at the complex in the memory of the slain Indians. — PTI

A suspected mass cremation site that may hold a clue to the disappearance of 49 Maoists after they were taken into custody by the army in 2003 has been found in a forest area 20 km north of the Nepalese capital.

While Maoist leaders claimed that their cadres might have been killed and cremated at the site in Alle forest in Shivapuri National Park, the army said it was carrying out a probe.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Nepal has recovered pieces of clothes, charred wood, sacks, pieces of unburnt tyres and white plastic in the national park.

Human rights defenders believe that it may lead to the truth about the allegedly disappeared 49 Maoists in 2003.

The NHRC of Nepal and the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) requested the government of Nepal to take immediate measures to protect the Shivapuri National Park.

The NHRC, OHCHR and other human rights organisations made such request to both the home ministry and police administration to protect the site after receiving information from a retired Nepal army personnel, who allegedly said that the then Royal Nepalese Army took out one of the detainees from the Bhairabhnath Army Barrack in Maharajgunj, Kathmandu, and cremated him at the Shivapuri site in 2003.

Issuing a statement, the OHCHR said this protection must be afforded to any site or evidence, where it is alleged that victims of disappearances and extra-judicial executions might have been buried or cremated as well as to any witness of such human rights violations.

A Maoist youth leader Krishna K.C. said the site was discovered following a tip-off from an army source, who claimed to have witnessed the cremation of the disappeared Maoists in 2003.

Human rights organisations, who visited the site on Wednesday afternoon, said the artifacts and evidences found at the site have led to the suspicion that the disappeared might have been cremated after massacre.

According to the OHCHR, altogether 49 persons disappeared from the Bhairabnath Battalion of the Nepalese army at Maharajgunj, Kathmandu, in 2003, but no further investigation has been carried out since then.

The OHCHR called on the authorities to take all steps to ensure that an independent and credible mechanism is set up to investigate these and other cases of disappearances, and to identify those responsible. 

New York, December 20
Warning the USA that any attempt to impose its agenda on international issues will meet with resistance, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the two countries will need each other more and should have good relations in the rapidly changing world.

The world, said the Russian leader who will step down in May but has stated his readiness to be the next premier, is witnessing a rapid growth and would change even more in next 30 to 50 years with new centres of political influence growing as India, China, Brazil, South Africa, Japan and several other countries become stronger.

“I am not saying that this is good or bad, I say that it will be different. And I am therefore absolutely confident that Russia and the USA, not only today but also in the future, will need each other even more and need to have good relations. And the future Russian and American leaders who understand this will be in demand and be successful,” he told the Time magazine.

Putin, who has been named as the person of the year by the US magazine, said any attempt by the USA to dictate its agenda would “not meet with understanding but resistance”.

“In order to be successful today we need to be able to negotiate and find compromises. And the ability to compromise is not just a diplomatic formality you reach with a partner, rather it is respect for their legitimate interests.” Putincalled on the USA to fix timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq and reiterated that attacking Iraq was “a very big mistake” in the first place as also sharply attacked NATO, describing it as “the stinking corpse of cold war”. — PTI