Opening Up The (So Called) Defense Council of Pakistan

I’m sure many of you would have recently heard about the ‘Pakistani Council of Defense’, which has suddenly emerged out of nowhere, holding rallies in Lahore, Multan and soon will be doing another show in Karachi.

So What’s All the fuss about ?

Even I’m not too sure about that, but this council seems to be an umbrella for all banned/extremists/and known establishment stooges to unite on one platform. It came to existence a couple of months ago, after the much dreaded NATO strike at the Salala checkpost of Pakistan.
They probably think of themselves as the ‘Saviors’ of Pakistan, out to rid the country of all its ills, motivating the nation with false hope, and portraying the U.S. as Pakistan’s enemy number one, which is the main card in every religious/extremist and establishment backed group, perhaps not realizing that they themselves are the biggest cancer which has inflicted Pakistan.

Calling the people towards false Jihad with pictures of American made F-16's

These people want to promote the same mindset which has lead to a completely intolerant and polarized society. Here’s a quick look at the people who are at the helm of this council (Courtesy Wikipedia).

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed:
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (Urdu: حافظ محمد سعید; born 1950) is the amir of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah, a charity organization that is widely considered to be a cover organization for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), one of the largest and most active militant Islamic organizations in South Asia, operating mainly from Pakistan.

Hamid Gul:
A retired high-ranking general officer in the Pakistan Army who served as the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s premierintelligence agency, between 1987 and 1989 during the late stages of and after the Soviet-Afghan War. Gul is widely known and credited for starting the insurgency in Kashmir against India in 1989 by diverting the Mujahideen who participated in the Soviet-Afghan War to Jammu and Kashmir in India. Gul was also instrumental in the establishment of the Taliban and was once known as the “father of the Taliban”

A surprise entry to the council’s latest gathering in Multan was none other than the highly notorious Malik Ishaq, who heads the well known and banned militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which is said to be a breakaway faction of the Sipa-e-Sahaba.
Apart from them, the council is being fully supported by the country’s biggest Islamic party, the Jamat-e-Islami and by Shaikh Rasheed, the famous politician of Rawalpindi and one of Musharraf’s ex close advisors.

So what now ?
Well, if Gen Hamid Gul thinks that he can create another IJI in the name of ‘Pakistan Defense Council’, he’s dead wrong. These people must realize that they are not helping the country in anyway. Pakistan’s future lies in a democratic and tolerant society, where we preach books, not guns and rockets. And with such dubious characters, God forbid if this council succeeds, Pakistan will go back to the 80′s.

Summary of Pakistan in 2 and a half minutes

Pakistan is not all about bombs, terrorism, poverty and all. The video below shows us another aspect of Pakistan which perhaps hasn’t been seen by many.

 

Dr.Aafia’s trial in final stage

The trial of Aafia Siddiqui moved into the final stage on Monday, with defence lawyers highlighting in their final arguments the disconnect in the accounts by the prosecution witnesses.

After both the prosecution and defence delivered their closing arguments, the 16-member jury went into deliberations to reach a verdict. According to experts, the verdict could come early next week although there is no fixed time frame for the judgment.

The defence’s main argument was that evidence by the prosecution witnesses lacked coherence and their varying accounts were, in fact, contradictory — not only to each other but to themselves.

Besides, the defence lawyers argued that there was no physical evidence produced by the prosecution to substantiate charges against Aafia. The prosecution, they stated, tried to create an “atmosphere of fear” by producing handwritten notes by Aafia.

During her deposition, Aafia told the court that she recognised some of the notes but not all of them and that they had been put in a handbag given by her captors, who were threatening to harm her children.

Defence lawyers also focused on the fact that there were no fingerprints on the M4 rifle allegedly used in the shooting incident and there were no holes in the walls created by the bullets allegedly fired. Nor was there any residue on the curtain, which partitioned the rooms between Aafia and the US personnel in Afghanistan. There were no bullet projectiles found in the wall where the bullets were allegedly fired, they further pointed out.

The prosecution pressed their charges by stating that there were six witnesses to prove the alleged incident. Attorney Tina Foster of the International Justice Network has said she is hopeful of a positive outcome. However, she said regardless of how weak the prosecution’s case be, which currently looked like a flea circus, it all came down to whether an American jury could acquit a woman with a scarf covering her face.

[via The News]

Lets hope justice prevails, after all, the US has an independent and unbiased judiciary… or does it ?

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Okay A Bomb Exploded In Karachi, But Did We Forget Lakki Marwat ?

Yes, we all witnessed the unfortunate tragedy of Karachi, where apart from claiming a dozen of lives, also caused a violent reaction due to which we had to bear a loss of 40 billion Rupees. However, are we so insensitive that these 40 billion rupees overshadow the fact that nearly a hundred people were killed in a blast in Lakki Marwat ? And that too were children, playing a game of volleyball.

Is Lakki Marwat not as much as a part of Pakistan as Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad ? Or do we just care about high class Pakistani’s living in Karachi ? Neither did the media pay much attention to it, nor did the people care about it… as if it happened somewhere in Africa. Did we forget that Pakistani’s died, nearly a hundred of them and hundred is no small number.

How are we suppose to have peace when we are so insensitive, confined to our own world ?

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Taliban now deny involvement in Karachi Blast

I really don’t know whats going on, but it seems that after accepting responsibility for the Karachi Ahsura Blast, the ‘official’ spokesperson of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has come forward and and denied any involvement in the blast.

In a phone call to different media organisations, the TTP central spokesman Azam Tariq denied involvement in the Karachi attack, but he didn’t not explain whether Asmatullah Shaheen group was part of the TTP or not. He said Asmatullah Shaheen might have taken responsibility for the attack on behalf of his own militant group, but the TTP leadership was not aware of any plan to attack the Karachi Ashura procession. Azam Tariq said Shaheen had not taken them into confidence before claiming responsibility.

It seems that Asmatullah has his own militant group allied to the TTP. The TTP leaders have stated that they only target sensitive government and army installations and have never accepted responsibility for a blast in which ordinary citizens have been targeted.

Perhaps there is not one group now involved in terrorism in the country, different groups are now in action, these include militant groups, criminal elements and we cannot rule out the work of foreign agencies.

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