Violence revisits Karachi with thirteen killings

KARACHI: Fear and violence returned to Orangi Town after a brief lull on Monday when thirteen people, including a Muttahida Qaumi Movement worker, were gunned down in separate attacks that also left over a dozen others wounded, police and party sources said.

The renewed wave of violence began with the ‘targeted killing’ of a senior MQM activist in Aligarh Bazaar that was followed by gun attacks on pedestrians and passersby.

The incident paralysed life across the town as traders pulled down shutters and traffic gradually disappeared from roads amid intermittent gunfire.

The city police chief said security measures had been taken to stem the violence and prevent it from spreading to other towns. “An additional police force has been deployed in affected parts of the town,” said Capital City Police Officer Saud Mirza.

“The violence in fact was sparked by the killing of an activist and we have found that there were random attacks afterwards which caused casualties. We have confirmed reports of five deaths in such acts,” the CCPO said.

However, officials at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Civil Hospital and Qatar Hospital said that they had received six bodies and 13 injured from the strife-hit areas of Aligarh, Qasba Colony, Kali Pahari, Bukhari Colony and Muslimabad.

The police said that 36-year-old Shafiq Ahmed Ajmairi was sitting with friends in Aligarh Bazaar when he was targeted. They said he resided in the same area and was associated with the MQM organisational structure’s Orangi Town Unit No 133.

“A few minutes later another resident, Akbar Sultan, was gunned down in Aligarh near Shahzad Marble,” said SP Khurram Waris of Orangi Town.

He said that while Shafiq Ajmairi was apparently targeted for his political association, the motive behind the other killing was not yet clear.

The police were busy taking measures in the Aligarh area to calm the angry people when armed men struck again. This time they targeted a weekly market near Kali Pahari along Bukhari Colony and the Muslimabad area of Orangi Town.

“In indiscriminate firing, a middle-aged man, Abdul Ghafoor, and a youngster, Adeel Dilawar, were killed and three others sustained bullet wounds,” said an official at the Orangi Town police station. The wounded victims were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for treatment, he said.

Besides, a young man was brought dead with two bullet wounds in the torso to the civil hospital from the Aligarh area, hospital sources said.

An official at the medico-legal section said the family of 22-year-old Faiz Mohammad took back his body without allowing legal formalities to be carried out.

In Bukhari Colony, the police said, a 25-year-old man was shot dead. The victim was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where he was identified as Ashfaq Yaqoob.

The MQM leadership blamed the Awami National Party (ANP) for the violence that claimed the lives of MQM workers and supporters.

“The ANP is attempting to destroy the city’s peace through bloodshed, which is highly condemnable,” said the MQM coordination committee in a statement.

“The coordination committee demands that President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Interior Minister Rahman Malik ensure arrest of terrorists and [order] a crackdown against their hideouts in the metropolis.”

However, a spokesman for the ANP — partner with the MQM in the PPP-led coalition government in the centre and the province — denied its involvement in the Orangi Town violence.

“We strongly condemn the incident and would welcome a government action against those involved in the violence regardless of their political association,” he said.

CDA out to make top rulers’ agri land a goldmine

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Silently, but controversially, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has approved fundamental changes in the zoning regulations of its Zone III, defined as a protected Margalla Hills National Park area, which once implemented would instantly multiply the fortunes of President Asif Ali Zardari, who along with his son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, owns 2,400 kanals of land in the area.
This change in the zoning regulations has allowed the selected area of Zone III to be used for commercial purposes that include farm housing, golf and country club, a five-star hotel, medium rise apartments, wedding lawns and public buildings, etc. To the good luck of President Zardari, his agriculture land that was purchased through his alleged frontman in the mid 90s will become commercial land as soon as the new regulations are approved by the federal cabinet. This change would instantly raise the price of the selected land manifold.
When contacted, CDA Chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, however, insisted the particular area of Zone III, whose zoning regulations have already been changed by the authority’s board but yet to be approved by the cabinet, does not fall in the Margalla Hills National Park area. “This area was outside the park,” the CDA chairman added.
He said it was the cabinet that had referred the case to the CDA and had sought the amendment to the zoning regulation for an organised construction activity there. However, sources said Faisal Butt, who is acting as the covert boss of the CDA and is a close friend of President Zardari, is the one who has got this magical work done.
Till recently, a federal minister, who is closely associated with both the president and Faisal Butt, too, is said to have purchased more than 100 kanals of land in his daughter’s name to multiply his wealth as soon as the cabinet approves and announces the change in the CDA zoning.
Faisal Butt is interestingly the same person who apparently bought 2,400 kanals of land from President Zardari’s alleged frontman Nasir Khan and then through a consent-degree transferred it in early 2009 in the name of a private company owned by President Zardari and his son Bilawal Bhutto. It was The News that had broken the story in 2009.
The CDA chairman said he does not know whether President Zardari’s land is located in the same area. He, however, explained that in 2008 the Supreme Court, under the then chief justice Dogar, had given an order in the case of Zone IV whereby the character of the zone was also changed. He said since the construction was going on in the Zone IV area, therefore, it was decided to regulate the construction activity and save to possible extent the green character of the zone.
Documents reveal the CDA, in its 23rd board meeting dated 21st of December 2010, approved certain parameters of land uses of Sub Zone A of Zone III that include the provision of farm housing for which minimum size of scheme would be 1,500 kanals and minimum plot size would be of four kanals, and an apartment scheme of 100 kanals where commercial, public and multi-storey buildings could be constructed.
The Sub Zone A is identified by the CDA documents as the area between Khayaban-e-Margalla and foothills. The documents propose the construction of a golf and country club, a five-star hotel, country housing/farm housing, wedding laws, solar energy parks, nurseries, open sports fields and public buildings. The CDA documents also recommended that the cabinet give permission to construct individual houses in and around existing settlement of village Shah Allah Ditta (within 1 km of the existing settlement). According to a source, this area covers over 100 kanal land recently purchased by a key presidential confidante, who was a federal minister till recently.
The CDA chairman, however, insisted the area approved by the CDA board is part of Zone III, not of Margalla National Park. The CDA Zoning Regulation 2005 defines the whole Zone III as: “Margalla Hills National Park as notified under section 21 of the Islamabad Wild Life (Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management) Ordinance 1979 and other protected ranges, forest areas and un-acquired land falling between Margalla Hills and the north of Murree Road shall constitute this zone”.
The CDA regulations said in this zone, no change in land use will be permissible except preservation, forestation and recreation. These regulations add no sale/purchase of land, which entails change in some of the existing rural settlements, is allowed. They add no residential scheme can be floated in the zone.
It should be recalled here that The News on November 3, 2009 had broken the story that a private company owned by President Zardari and his son Bilawal purchased 2,460 kanals (307 acres) of prime land in Islamabad in March 2009, valued at CDA price of over Rs2 billion, for a mere Rs62 million, proving after a long wait that a 1997 NAB reference against Zardari for the same deal was justified, but had to be dropped then for lack of some missing links.
The deal, which Zardari was accused of in 1997, was thus completed this March, 15 years later, after a complex process of legal cases, suits and counter-suits, between a person once declared by the then government as a front man of Zardari, another person believed to be closely associated with the president and a private company that is jointly owned by the president, his son and a few others.
Documents and legal papers, including the sale deed and court judgments given by the PCO-led Islamabad High Court, available with The News, had proved that a Karachi-based private company, Park Lane Estates (Pvt) Ltd, purchased almost 2,500 kanals of land near Sangjani from Faisal Sakhi Butt, who himself purchased the land from a Pakistani-American living in Houston, US, named Muhammad Nasir Khan, for merely Rs62 million. Nasir Khan was the original purchaser of this land in 1994 and was declared to be the frontman of Zardari in the Ehtesab Bureau reference filed against him in 1997.

Source: http://e.thenews.com.pk/6-14-2011/page1.asp#;

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Death toll rises to 15 in Karachi violence

(5 hours ago) Today 14-06-2011

KARACHI: A fresh wave of violence blamed on political and ethnic tensions has killed at least 15 people in Karachi, DawnNews reported, adding that incidents of firing continued in the city on Tuesday.

Two people were wounded in an incident of firing in the city’s Liaquat National Hospital.

However, AFP quoted officials as saying that at least 12 people were killed in the city overnight.

“At least 12 people were killed in targeted killings, which started Monday evening and lasted late in the night,” Sindh’s home ministry spokesman Sharfuddin Memon told AFP.

Memon said police and paramilitary troops were stepping up patrols in the troubled western and central neighbourhoods to avert further violence.

Among the dead was an MQM activist in Aligarh Bazaar area and local lawyer Zia Alam, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

In 2010, political violence in Karachi was the deadliest for years, dominated by flare ups in August after an MQM lawmaker was shot dead and in October on the eve of the election for his successor.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says 748 people — 447 political activists and the rest innocent citizens — were killed in targeted shootings last year. Targeted killings in 2009 claimed 272 lives.

Karachi is also plagued by ethnic and sectarian killings, crime and kidnappings.

Death toll rises to 15 in Karachi violence | Metropolitan | DAWN.COM

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Three suspects arrested near Navy headquarters

ISLAMABAD:
Security forces on Tuesday arrested three suspects from F-8 sector near Navy Headquarters in Islamabad.

According to sources, the suspects were taking pictures of sensitive installations in the area.

The arrested men have been identified as Saeed Khan, Shehzad Khan and Akhtar Khan. Documents retrieved from them show that they belong to the Ibrahim Khel area of Peshawar.

Officials have also seized cameras and mobile phones from the three men and they have been shifted to an unknown location for further investigations.

Pakistan Navy had earlier come under attack when a group of between four and six militants besieged PNS Mehran airbase in Karachi for 16 hours and destroyed two P-3C Orion aircraft from the Unites States, crucial for Pakistan’s maritime surveillance capabilities.

Source: Three suspects arrested

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WASHINGTON: The the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) has arrested five CIA informants in Pakistan, including a Pakistan Army major, suspected of feeding information on Osama bin Laden to the CIA, said a report in the New York Times.

Pakistan’s detention of the five CIA informants, including the Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.

At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy CIA director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of one to ten.

“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.

Officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment.

“We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise,” said Marie E. Harf, a CIA spokeswoman. “Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It’s a crucial partnership, and we will continue to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who threaten our country and theirs.”

American officials said that the CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue of the arrested informants when he traveled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in a brief telephone interview that the CIA and the Pakistani spy agency “are working out mutually agreeable terms for their cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage.”

Afridi-PCB rift ends after court petition withdrawn

KARACHI: The rift between Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and former captain Shahid Afridi ended on Wednesday when the star all-rounder withdrew his petition against the board in the Sindh High Court (SHC).

It is being reported that in return, the PCB has given Afridi the No Objection Certificate (NOC) which he needed to play for Hampshire and later in the Sri Lanka Premier League.

Afridi went to court after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) punished him for allegedly breaching a code of conduct by announcing his retirement after he was dumped as one-day captain, and for levelling allegations against the board.

It suspended his central contract and revoked all his no-objection certificates (NOCs), in effect permission slips to play abroad.

However, the Afridi and PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt met on Tuesday in Islamabad and one source privy to the meeting said government officials had stepped in to arrange the talks and Afridi had agreed to withdraw his court case, a second hearing of which is due on Thursday.

Source:
Afridi-PCB rift ends after court petition withdrawn | Sport | DAWN.COM

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ISLAMABAD: Shortage of affordable and safe drinking water is manifested in Pakistan with an estimated 44 per cent of the population without access to safe drinking water, while in rural areas 90 per cent of the population lacks such access.

As one indication of the intensity of the problem, it is estimated that about 200,000 children in Pakistan die every year of diarrheal diseases alone, according to a report of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR).

Pakistan was a water rich country just a few decades ago; however, a recent World Bank Report mentioned that Pakistan is now among the 17 countries that are currently facing water shortage.

It is pertinent to mention here that the major source of drinking water in Pakistan is groundwater, so water availability is the second most serious issue.

This becomes even more daunting as estimated level of water available may decline considerably in the foreseeable future.

Talking to APP, Spokesperson PCRWR Lubna Naheed said with decrease of quantity, the quality of water is also deteriorating badly by municipal, industrial and agriculture wastes.

In Pakistan, she said, majority of population is using groundwater for drinking purpose. Contamination of this source due to unplanned urbanization and industrialization is a major problem.

She was of the view that over exploitation of the natural resources and discharge of hazardous wastes into water bodies without proper treatment is one of the major concerns. Intensity of the water quality problem is enormous.

Main ground water source of drinking water in rural ares of Pakistan is hand pump.
Hand pump and motor pumps together provide 61 per cent of households with drinking water, rising to 70 per cent in rural areas. Whereas, motor pumps form an increasingly relevant part of this.

According to official data available, Punjab has the best rural water supply amongst all the provinces.

Vast majority of the rural population has either piped water or water from a hand pump or motor pump.

Only 7 per cent of rural population depends on dug wells or on rivers, canals and streams.
Situation in Sindh is considerably worst as 24 per cent of the rural population is depending on such sources and where the situation is further deteriorated over the period.

Rural water supply situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is also worst but the worst of all is in Balochistan.

In these two provinces, 46 and 72 per cent of the rural population, depend on water either from a dug shell, river, canal or stream.
Rural water supply situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is also worst but the worst of all is in Balochistan.

More than 40 per cent Pakistanis lack access to clean water | Sci-tech | DAWN.COM

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan-Iran Joint Commission on Road Transportation has recommended that the two countries should open many additional international crossing points at Pishin and Reemdan (Iranian side), Mand and Gabd (Pakistani side) for promotion of trade and commerce as well as people-to-people contacts between them.

Presently, there is only one international crossing point between the two countries at Taftan on Pakistan side and Mirjaveh on Iran side.

The joint recommendations were signed at the concluding session of the 7th Pakistan-Iran joint commission on road transportation here on Tuesday.

The two sides discussed the problems being faced by the transporters and traders at the crossing point of Taftan-Mirjaveh and agreed to resolve them. The meeting also recommended visa abolition for drivers of trucks/trailers/buses as a measure to facilitate people to people contact and economic activity between the two countries.

It was also decided that National Logistics Cell (NLC) would establish a modern cargo terminal at Taftan.

Both sides agreed on working hours from 070am to 0700pm to facilitate the visitors (Zaireen) at Taftan-Mirjaveh border.

The Pakistani side told the meeting that National Highway Authority had incurred an amount of Rs2.3 billion during last three years on maintenance/rehabilitation of 605 km Quetta-Taftan Highway (N-40), and plans to upgrade the road to international standards in future.

It was decided that NHA would set up three rest areas at Taftan, Yakmach and Padak on Quetta-Taftan Road for convenience of the travellers.

Both sides also agreed to coordinate efforts to curb human trafficking, including issuance of fake passport and visas.

Iranian side assured the meeting that they would expedite the process of ratification of International Road Transport Agreement (IRTA-2008) with Pakistan and complete it within next the two months. Pakistan has already ratified the document.

Senior Joint Secretary communications Abdul Basit headed the 12-member Pakistani delegation.

The other members of the Pakistani side included representatives from foreign office, interior ministry, commerce ministry, national logistic cell (NLC), customs, NHA, ministry of communications, provincial transport department, government of Balochistan and members of transport associations and chambers of commerce and industry.

Iranian delegation was headed by Ali Reza Mujarrad, director general transportation and terminal including experts, members and representatives of transportation and road as well as officials of Iranian embassy in Islamabad.

More border crossing points: Pakistan, Iran agree to promote trade | Business | DAWN.COM

Pakistan 'arrests CIA informants'


WASHINGTON — Pakistan's top spy agency has arrested five Pakistani informants who assisted the CIA ahead of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The men arrested reportedly include a Pakistani Army major said to have copied the license plate of cars that drove up to bin Laden's compound in the military town of Abbottabad, two hours from the capital Islamabad.

The Pakistani military denied that any army officer had been detained over what it called the "Abbottabad incident".

"The story is false and totally baseless," it said in a statement. A Pakistani security official earlier told AFP that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency had no immediate comment on the report.

US officials told the newspaper that Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta raised the fate of the CIA informants during talks with Pakistani military and intelligence officers in Pakistan last week.

At a closed briefing last week, the CIA deputy director rated Pakistan's counterterrorism cooperation with the United States as three out of 10, officials told the newspaper.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States, wary at the best of times, deteriorated sharply over the bin Laden raid on May 2, which humiliated the Pakistani military and invited allegations of incompetence and complicity.

As US President Barack Obama seeks to bring an end to the war in Pakistan's neighbor Afghanistan, US and Pakistani officials have sought to play down any unease between them.

Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, told the Times that the CIA and the ISI "are working out mutually agreeable terms for their cooperation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage."

US officials told the newspaper that ISI spies have resisted performing surveillance operations for the CIA, refused to grant visas to US intelligence officers and threatened to place more restrictions on US drone flights.

The United States said last week that it had nearly completed a drawdown in military personnel demanded by Pakistan, thought to reduce the number of trainers from 130 to fewer than 40.

The Times also said the CIA was preparing to relocate some of its drones from Pakistan to a base in Afghanistan in order to survey the mountainous tribal areas along the border.

AFP

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