Gunmen kill senior Pakistani military official from Shi’ite minority

MULTAN Pakistan (Reuters) – Gunmen have killed three people, including a senior military official, at a mosque frequented by minority Shi’ite worshippers in the Pakistani city of Sargodha, police said on Monday.

Sectarian strife has been worsening in Pakistan, where Shi’ite Muslims make up about 20 percent of the 180 million population. Sunni Muslim militants frequently attack Shi’ites they see as infidels who deserve to die.

“Brigadier Fazal Zahoor was shot by masked gunmen while taking part in a religious ritual at the mosque,” said police official Farooq Hasnaat, adding the attack took place late on Sunday. “The gunmen arrived on motorbikes and burst into the mosque. They identified the brigadier and shot and killed him, his brother Fazal Subhani and a third man called Mohammad Ayub.” The mosque is located in a military cantonment. Hasnaat said the brigadier had received threats from the banned organization Sipah-e-Sahaba, which says it want to expel Shi’ites from Pakistan.

Read more » Reuters
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0H30C520140908?irpc=932

Musadiq Sanwal passes away

SINDH – KARACHI: Musadiq Sanwal, the editor of Dawn.com, passed away on Friday after battling with lung cancer for more than a year.

Born in 1962, Sanwal will be remembered for his dedication to journalism, his closeness to his colleagues and love for the arts, most importantly music which he learnt in his younger years and performed regularly.

Read more » DAWN
http://www.dawn.com/news/1080909/editor-dawncom-musadiq-sanwal-passes-away

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Read more details in Sindhi language

Four sisters kill themselves over dowry

MULTAN: Four sisters killed themselves after a row with their father who could not afford dowries for them to get married, officials said on Friday.

The women threw themselves into a canal after arguing with their father in Mailsi, a town in the rural southern part of Punjab province. A fifth sister was pulled alive from the water.

“A poor farmer, Bashir Ahmed Rajput, could not marry his five daughters because he had no money to offer dowry,” Malik Daud Hasnain, a senior police official told AFP. “After an argument on the issue on Thursday, his daughters became desperate and jumped together into a water canal.”

Read more » The Express Tribune
http://tribune.com.pk/story/606970/four-sisters-kill-themselves-over-dowry/

Gunmen Kidnap Former Pakistan Prime Minister’s Son

By Maxine Wally 

A former Pakistani Prime Minister’s son was kidnapped Thursday, as attacks mount in lieu of the country’s upcoming elections.

Yusuf Raza Gilani, member of the Pakistan People’s Party, was headed for a small political gathering in the city of Multan, when his son, Ali Haider Gilani, was kidnapped by gunmen, according to Reuters.

His brother Musa, harrowed and outraged, appeared on a local television station in a short interview.

“If we don’t get my brother by this evening, I will not let the elections happen in my area,” he said.

Leader of the Pakistani Taliban Hakimulla Mehsud sent a letter to the party’s spokesperson detailing plans for suicide blasts and bombings at the polls in each of the country’s four provinces, scheduled for voting day, Saturday.

The Taliban have killed over 100 party workers and civilians since the beginning of April, attacking any political affiliates of secular-leaning parties that threaten the militant group. They have deigned the elections as “un-Islamic” and said they will carry out a series of attacks to cripple the elections in any way they can.

“We don’t accept the system of infidels which is called democracy,” Mehsud claimed in the letter dated May 1.

Taliban spokesperson Ihsanullah Ihsan told Reuters that they were not responsible for the kidnapping, despite details given in the aforementioned letter.

Outcome of Multan by-elections and establishment’s next move – by Shaheryar Ali

According to news reports, Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Abdul Qadir Gilani has won the NA-151 Multan by-elections with 64,628 votes (19 July 2012). Independent candidate Shaukat Hayat Bosan, who was supported by all right wing parties including PML-N, PTI, Jamaat-e-Islami, Sipah-e-Sahaba etc lost the elections with 60,532 votes, according to unofficial results.

This is a big set back, not only to Nawaz Sharif-led PML-N and Imran Khan-led PTI but to the almighty military establishment in the grand scheme of things.

Despite every effort of Shahbaz Sharif and Punjab Police, Abdul Qadir Gilani defeated the candidate supported by every political party of right wing, media, army and judiciary. That’s the power of PPP. It can take on all thugs together and defeat them!

The judges should “pity the nation” and resign if there is any thing called “morality” left in them.

Wounded by the loss of bye-election in Multan (NA-151), it won’t be wrong to assumed that Pakistan’s military establishment is now looking forward to reincarnate the anti-PPP alliance PNA of 1977 or IJI of 1990s!

I am sure we will soon see the revolutionary PTI joining hands with PML-N. There is no other way they (Pakistan army) will let the election take place. Five years of constant, uninterrupted, unilateral media trial of PPP plus its governance failures fail to shake its mass support to the extent that candidate enjoying support of Punjab government, all right wing, militant sectarian organizations, and also Election Commission of Pakistan, which by banning cadidate sponsered transport tried to inflict the fatal blow to PPP whose base lies in rural areas and in poor people, failed to win.

This makes the establishment very uncomfortable. They will now try to repeat the 1977 scenerio. Pan right alliance and then a movement against alleged election rigging (under evil Zardari), today Rana Sanaullah of PMLN-ASWJ already started laying the ground work by saying “huge responsibility lies on Justice Fakhruddin G. Ibhahim, only “words” are not enough for “fair” elections”, no one should think that “we will accept “any results” given to us”. It is interesting to note that Justice Ibrahim is PML-N’s nomination not PPP’s.

Courtesy: Let Us Build Pakistan (LUBP)

Ousted PM Gilani’s son won by-election

Abdul Qadir Gilani wins by-poll from father’s constituency

MULTAN: The by-poll for the National Assmebly’s seat NA-151 (Multan-IV), vacated by former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani after being disqualified by the Supreme Court, has been won by his son Abdul Qadir Gilani, DawnNews reported on Thursday.

The main candidate, beside Gilani, who was contesting on Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) ticket, was independent candidate Shaukat Hayat Khan Bosan, who had informal support of both Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI), [– & Jamaat-e-Islami–].

Read more » DAWN.COM

Those joining PTI are power hungry nomads: Fazlur Rehman

MULTAN: Chairman Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) Maulana Fazlur Rehman criticised Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) new entrants on Sunday calling them power hungry nomads.

Addressing the media in Madarsah Jamia Qasim ul Uloom the JUI-F leader said that only power hungry nomads were joining the PTI. He criticized the group of industrialists, politicians and people joining PTI, adding that they will destroy Pakistan because they had no sense of political stability, survival and sovereignty of Pakistan.

“They are all just following power and trying to save the future of their political career,” he said.

Rehman further said that people were aware of the nature of nomads who keep moving for their survival and betterment, so is the case of the politicians and industrialists joining PTI who will fail eventually. ….

Read more » ZemTv

http://www.zemnews.com/2011/12/25/those-joining-pti-are-power-hungry-nomads-fazlur-rehman/

Persecution of Minorities in Pakistan, Never Ends even after death

For minorities in Pakistan, persecution never ends

By Abdul Manan

In a gruesome incident late Saturday night, 29 graves in an Ahmadi graveyard were desecrated in Dunyapur, district Lodhran, around 100 kilometres away from Multan. …

Read more » The Express Tribune

Pakistan – Multan airspace shut for all flights

KARACHI: Multan airspace has been shut for all flights, sources said. No flight was allowed to enter the area surrounding Multan for two hours.

Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) when contacted regarding the situation, refused to tell the reason of Multan airspace closure.

Geo news correspondent Tariq Abul Hassan told that two flights were not allowed to enter the area and directed to change their direction while another flight coming from Lahore was sent back. Meanwhile, another flight from Hyderabad landed at Sukkur.

Courtesy: The News

Rape, mutilation: Pakistan’s tribal justice for women

By Rebecca Conway

MULTAN,(Reuters) – On April 14, two men entered Asma Firdous’ home, cut off six of her fingers, slashed her arms and lips and then sliced off her nose. Before leaving the house, the men locked their 28-year-old victim inside.

Asma, from impoverished Kohaur Junobi village in Pakistan’s south, was mutilated because her husband was involved in a dispute with his relatives, and they wanted revenge.

Her fate is familiar in parts of Pakistan’s remote and feudal agricultural belts, where women are often used as bargaining chips in family feuds, and where the level of violence they face is increasing in frequency and brutality.

At the hospital in nearby Multan town, Asma’s shocked parents sat quietly by her bedside and struggled to explain what the future holds for their now disfigured daughter.

“I don’t know what will happen to her when she leaves here,” Asma’s father, Ghulam Mustafa, said, in a dilapidated ward heavy with the smell of antiseptic and blood, where other women, doused with acid or kerosene by relatives or fellow villagers, awaiting an equally uncertain future.

Asked if Asma will return to her husband, her father remains silent.

Pakistan is the world’s third-most dangerous country for women, after Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on a survey conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation (link.reuters.com/jet92s)

Read more → Reuters

Sindh saves the day

by Nadeem F. Paracha

Plans are afoot to build the world’s first ever international Sufi university near Bhit Shah in Sindh.

The main purpose of the institution would be to promote interfaith and intercultural education to tackle extremism in the country.

Such a thought and project could only have come about in Sindh. Especially in the context of what Pakistan has beengoing through in the last many years. …

Read more : blog.Dawn

Shah Mahmood Qureshi Shaheed, Nishan e Haider

By: Hakim Hazik

Excerpt:

……  As Shah Mahmood has pointed out, our national honour is at stake. The spirit of 1965 has come alive once again. The nation stands united when the national honour is involved. We will eat grass but defend the national honour. By the grace of God, half of the nation is already eating grass. The other half will soon join them. Classy restaurants will soon be serving grass, a la carte.

If you ask us, the case has already been decided in the court of public opinion. The Ummah has taken great strides in law and jurisprudence. We have the example of Sialkot and Dera Ghazi Khan where public trial by lynch mob has been pioneered. This inspires international confidence in our fair, transparent and equitable justice system. Undue interference in these judicial proceedings would be a breach of our sovereignty and will be resisted with our minimal strategic deterrent.

Read more : Justice Denied

The Sufis remain under attack in Pakistan

Blast kills five at Baba Farid’s shrine in Pakpattan

MULTAN: A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded at the gate of the famous Baba Farid Shakar Ganj sufi shrine in central Pakistan’s Pakpattan district during morning prayers Monday, killing at least five people, officials said.

The blast at the shrine in Punjab province was the latest in a string of attacks targeting Sufi shrines in Pakistan. …

Read more : DAWN

Police: Plot to kill Pakistan PM uncovered

By Frederik Pleitgen, CNN

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) — Several people have been seized in a plot to kill Pakistan’s prime minister, and the suspects claim they were getting orders from a militant in the country’s volatile tribal region, police said.

Police official Babar Bakhat Qureshi told CNN that officers arrested several suspects who were plotting to attack the compound of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

Shabir Anwar, Gilani’s press secretary, had no comment on the alleged plot because it is a security matter.

The plot to strike the compound, located in the Punjab provincial city of Multan, was in its “final planning stages,” Qureshi said. The location is about 395 kilometers, or 245 miles, southeast of the nation’s capital, Islamabad.

The suspects were planning to use a car bomb for the attack, and that they had acquired large amounts of fertilizer to manufacture an improvised explosive device, since confiscated by police, he said.

A vehicle for the attack had not been acquired yet.

The police confiscated one kilogram of gold and and two and a half kilograms of silver, which the men were going to sell to fund the plot, the official said.

Qureshi said the suspects have confessed that they were getting their orders and instructions from Kari Imram, a leader of a Taliban offshoot group from Miran Shah in North Waziristan. Drone strikes said to be conducted by the United States have targeted militants in North Waziristan, one of seven of the county’s tribal districts.

Read more : CNN

PM Gilani breaks tradition

by Manzoor Chandio, catalyst2pk@yahoo.com
Blog: http://manzoorchandio.blogspot.com/
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday broke the tradition of speaking national language during official ceremonies and made his speech in Seraiki at the ground-breaking ceremony of the Multan Airport’s upgradation.
PM Gilani even doesn’t shy speaking Seraiki in the PM house with all delegations from south Punjab. PM Gilani and President Zardari also communicate in Seraiki which is mother tongue of both of them.
This assertiveness on the part of the head of state and the head of government should be a lesson for all Sindhi ministers who have inferiority complex of speaking