Taliban gun men revisited Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan on Friday May 28, targetted two mosques of minority Ahmadis and killed seventy people. At least 90 people were injured. The last major attack was in March when a double suicide bombing killed dozens. This was for the first time Ahmadis were attacked. Hitherto, militants were targetting Shia Muslims.

Ahmadis consider themselves Muslim and follow all Islamic rituals. But they were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan in 1974 and in 1984 they were legally barred from proselytising or identifying themselves as Muslims.

“Punjabi chapter” of th....... Read more

The writer is a freelance columnist in Pakistan.
The Pakistani politicians have consistently refused to learn from history. And the result is that the democratic forces have continued to suffer due to the endless squabbles between the politicians of different political parties.
Nevertheless, the failure of the present political leadership of the country to evolve a system of tolerance, fairplay, equity and due process of law has resulted time and again in the emergence of anti-democratic forces, which have made a mess of this country after coming to power. So when the two major political parties – Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) – agreed on the Charter of Democracy everyone believed that the politics of vengeance and vendetta had been buried for good. While a little maturity can be seen among the top political leadership of the country, unfortunately mudslinging has continued unabated, especially the lower tiers of ever....... Read more

(New Holland, 208pp, £9.99, ISBN 9781847734532)
Book Review in Times Higher education. UK

Reviewer: Farzana Shaikh
Associate Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), London

It has become fashionable among Pakistan’s beleaguered liberal classes to try to dilute the influence of a heavily Islamised state narrative by promoting an alternative vision. Invoking the pre-Islamic history of the country’s ethnically diverse regions, it summons the idea of a Pakistani “nation” whose defining feature is not so much a shared religion – Islam – but the collective culture of communities long settled in the valleys of the River Indus.

This attempt to recast Pakistan as an “Indus Valley nation” has two objectives. The first is to settle the question of Pakistan’s national identity by identifying its “local” roots. By so doing, Pakistan appears....... Read more

The writer is an economist working in Islamabad.
In his article of May 18, Mr Kashif Jahangiri repeats his claim that the current movement for Hazara province is a reaction to the “contempt” shown by Pakhtuns to Hazarewals. As I mentioned in my earlier article, this labelling is not unique to Pakhtuns and Hazarewals, and it’s also not one-sided.

While Mr Jahangiri bemoans the label of “Punjabi” and the contempt contained in it, I would remind him of labels like “Khocha,” “Akhrot” and “Phairay Pathan” that are tagged on Pakhtuns by Hindko speakers. Of course, I speak of my own experience, and I certainly have not met every Hindkowan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to ascertain whether they think of Pakhtuns as mentally deficient lower-life forms. I also cannot conclude on the basis of my personal experience whether these comments end at banter or are signs of deep-seated hate in the hearts of Hindkowan....... Read more

ABBOTTABAD/MANSEHRA: Activists of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Wednesday staged protest rallies in support of a separate province for Hazara.
The rally in Abbottabad was led by JI Central Secretary General Liaqat Baloch, leaders of the Hazara Tehrik action committee including Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani, Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob, Abdur Razak Abbasi and Dr Azhar Jadoon.
The JI secretary general said it would lead to a revolution in the country if the Hazara province was not created forthwith. He added the JI would support the Hazara Tehrik long march towards Islamabad and receive the participants at Jhari Kas.
Liaqat Baloch flayed the Awami National Party (ANP) for promoting regional and ethnic politics. He asked the government to remove drawbacks in the 18th Amendment and establish Hazara province through another amendment.
Earlier, speaking at a rally in Mansehra, the JI leader said the ANP never accepted existence of Pakistan and it was striving for greater Pakhtunistan after d....... Read more

ISLAMABAD: The government will facilitate the judiciary if it decides to summon former president Pervez Musharraf, Law Minister Babar Awan said on Wednesday.
Winding up the debate on the president’s address to the joint session of parliament in the Senate, he said, “The government will not create any hurdles in the way of the apex court if it summons Musharraf in connection with the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).” However, he said the government was not ready to violate the constitution and the law pertaining to “certain issues”.
In his speech, the law minister praised the president, saying that Zardari’s third address to parliament was proof that the roots of democracy were being strengthened in the country.

He said the presidential address was a road map for the government and that following the map would result in progress on the country’s political, economic and democratic agenda.

Appear in court: “The Pakistan People’s party (P....... Read more

LAHORE: Intelligence agencies, including the Inter-Services Intelligence have presented an investigation report to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani regarding an audiotape of the telephonic conversation between TV anchor Hamid Mir and an unidentified Taliban militant, a private TV channel reported on Wednesday.
Quoting reliable sources, the channel said the report submitted by three intelligence agencies confirmed the authenticity of the audio clip after a detailed investigation.
Original: “The conversation between Hamid Mir and the Taliban militant is original and has been proved by the audiotape,” the report said.
Mir is currently working as Islamabad Executive Editor for Geo News channel.
According to BBC Urdu, the Jang Group has set up an investigation committee and has announced the conducting of an impartial investigation in this regard.
A large number of websites carry the contents of the audiotape, describing it a candid conversation on the tel....... Read more

ISLAMABAD: The ripples caused by the emergence of an audio tape on the web last week of an alleged telephone conversation between a prominent Pakistani journalist and a Pakistani Taliban militant has blown into a full-fledged controversy, with the journalist and television anchor now completely denying his involvement and many others calling for a high-level investigation to establish truth.

Hamid Mir, who finds himself in the midst of a raging debate on the issue of journalistic ethics, has moved a step further from describing the taped conversation as doctored or concocted to completely denying that it was his voice. And for all this he is blaming the country’s top civilian intelligence service, the Intelligence Bureau Directorate which, according to him, was part of a larger game to malign him and a few others.

Shocking as it is, the telephone conversation revolves round the alleged dubious role of an Islamic hardliner and former ISI operative Khalid Khwaja, and that....... Read more

The author is a former Pak envoy
 Vangaurd Books have done a great service by republishing the book Tribal Fighting in NWFP by General Sir Andrew Skeen. This was first published in 1932 and surprisingly is still extremely relevant, particularly as the US and Pakistan army are testing their mettle against the tribes. General Skeen served in the British Indian Army rising to the position of Chief of the General Staff. He saw active service on the Frontier from Mastuj to Kalat and has written a remarkable book on his experiences and his recommendations for updating the 1925 Manual of Operations in the North West Frontier of India.
The book has also been reissued to the Pakistan army and would provide valuable guidance on how to reduce casualties, while operating in FATA. This seems to be absolutely necessary since under the previous command the army exhibited a remarkable degree of ineptitude, lack of professionalism and callousness towards loss of life, whic....... Read more

The Dawn, May 18
LARKANA, May 17: Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz chairman Basheer Khan Qureshi said on Monday that despite Supreme Court having taken suo motu notice of enforced disappearance of party leader Akash Mallah and worker Noor Mohammad Khaskheli, the government was not ready to release them.

Addressing participants of a procession at Royal Chowk here, Mr Qureshi said that he feared threat to their lives and alleged that the government was trying to release accused in JSQM worker Mushtaque Khaskheli’s murder case. Khaskheli was killed when a procession led by him in Karachi in July last year was fired upon.

Activists of JSQM held demonstrations across the province to voice protest against enforced disappearances of their colleagues and undue delay in dispensation of justice in Khaskheli murder case.

Mr Qureshi said that certain conspirators were out to create a rift among Sindhi leadership.

He criticised local Hesco managers for wha....... Read more