FC warned against mocking Baloch dresses
QUETTA, July 31: Nationalist groups would take strong action if Frontier Corps personnel continued to ridicule the Baloch dress code and insult Baloch elders and youths for wearing certain clothes, chief of the National Party Dr Abdul Malik Baloch said here on Friday.
Addressing a press conference, he said that Baloch people were being humiliated for wearing a different type of Shalwar-Kameez which was a serious matter.
He urged provincial government to take action against FC men who were victimising Baloch youths.
He accused the FC of turning Quetta into a war zone and said that the Baloch people faced the wrath of FC personnel whenever any incident occurred even in the city’s suburbs. He said that they had hoped that things would improve with the PPP-led government, but the situation had worsened in Balochistan. Instead of ending military operation and freeing political workers, the government had intensified punitive actions, he added.
He condemned target killings and said it was the responsibility of the government and law-enforcement agencies to arrest the culprits. Dr Malik said that although he was not prepared to to mediate between the government and militants, he would fully back talks to resolve the Balochistan issue. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/fc-warned-against-mocking-baloch-dresses-189
Senators concerned over FC ‘excesses’ against Baloch youth
The Daily Times, July 29, 2009
ISLAMABAD: Senators from Balochistan on Tuesday expressed concern over what they claimed “excesses” of the Frontier Constabulary against Baloch youth and demanded the government take notice of the situation.
Those who spoke on the issue on points of order included senators from the treasury and opposition. They said the already fragile law and order situation in the province would worsen if the government did not take corrective measures.
Senator Abdul Malik Baloch, who was the first to raise the issue, said that the Frontier Constabulary was picking up Baloch youth without registering cases against them and keeping them in custody.
“If this practice continues, the situation will deteriorate,” the senator warned.
Demands: Senator Ismail Buledi asked the government to immediately halt the operation by the Frontier Constabulary in Balochistan and produce the people still missing.
Federal Minister Israrullah Zehri went further, accusing government agencies of protecting the people involved in target killing instead of punishing them. Hasil Bezinjo said that on one side the government was talking of resolving problems of the people of Balochistan, while on the other, the Frontier Constabulary was “committing excesses against them, barging into their houses and picking up innocent people”.
Referring to a recent statement by Interior Minister Rehman Malik about the Baloch, Bezinjo said “There should be a difference between the policies of former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf and Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik. “The government should move forward and try to find solutions to the problems instead of having them suppressed by the Frontier Constabulary,” he said. /www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\07\29\story_29-7-2009_pg7_4
August 1, 2009 No Comments
US: Proof of Indian meddling in Balochistan not provided
By Anwar Iqbal in The Dawn, July 31
WASHINGTON, July 30: Pakistan raised the issue of India’s involvement in Balochistan with the US, but provided no credible evidence to support their claim, says America’s special envoy Richard Holbrooke.
“I would be misleading, if I said it didn’t come up,” said Mr Holbrooke when asked if Pakistan brought up this issue during his visit to the country last week.
Responding to the second part of the question — “if Pakistan also gave credible evidence to support its claim” — Mr Holbrooke said: “The narrow answer to your question is no.”
Pakistan raised this issue with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well at a bilateral meeting in Egypt on July 16.
On Wednesday, Mr Singh defended the inclusion of Balochistan in an India-Pakistan joint statement issued after the meeting but said he received no dossier from his Pakistani counterpart on India’s alleged involvement.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Pakistan linked its action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba with New Delhi ending its covert operations in Balochistan.
The report said that in conversations with the Obama administration, Pakistan’s army chief indicated that India needed to stop meddling in Balochistan in return for Pakistan’s actions against the Lashkar.
At his briefing in Washington on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Holbrooke also refused to discuss Occupied Kashmir, saying that it was outside his area of responsibility.
“That issue is outside my area of ability to discuss,” he said when asked to what extent the resolution of the Kashmir issue would help him in achieving the US goal to dismantle, disrupt and defeat the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mr Holbrooke cast doubt on the success of Pakistan’s Swat valley offensive, saying that it was unclear if the military had defeated the Taliban in the region or simply driven them underground.
“We don’t know exactly to what extent the Pakistani army dispersed or destroyed the enemy,” he told his first media briefing after his visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan last week. “The test of this operation is, of course, when the refugees return. Can they go home? Are they safe? And we’re just going to have to wait and see.”
Mr Holbrooke said that during his trip he wanted to visit Swat as well but the Pakistani military advised him not to do so now.
“I asked to go to Swat or Buner knowing that I wasn’t going to be able to go to Mingora, but I wanted to establish the limits of what was possible here,” he said.
“And the military said they really would prefer we didn’t do it now. And look, ‘prefer’ means ‘no’. So we didn’t.”
Mr Holbrooke, however, said the US was in constant touch with Pakistan to help it deal with any spill-over effect of stepped-up operations by international forces on the Afghan side.
He said that top US military commanders in Afghanistan often visited Pakistan to discuss the issue. “So the military-to-military discussions are helping to harmonise the situation” in the area, he said.
The purpose of these consultations, he said, was to alert Islamabad of any movement of militants from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
Mr Holbrooke urged the international community to provide sustained economic support to Pakistan so that it could deal with the problem of the Swat refugees and the economic and energy crises.
“Pakistan is critically important to the rest of the world” and could not be ignored.
Secondly, he said, what happened in Pakistan affected Afghanistan.
Mr Holbrooke also praised the Pakistani leadership for shifting some of its forces stationed along its eastern border with India to the western frontier bordering Afghanistan to fight out Taliban and Al Qaeda.
“The Pakistanis have moved a very large number of troops from their eastern border to their western border. That’s a historically significant redeployment,” he saidhttp://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/proof-of-indian-meddling-in-balochistan-not-provided-us-179
August 1, 2009 No Comments
Balochistan HC wiped out: The News, Aug 1
ISLAMABAD: The Balochistan High Court (BHC) lost all of its five judges, including its chief justice, after the Supreme Court decision.
All the BHC judges, including Chief Justice Amanullah Yasinzai, Ahmed Khan Lashari, Akhtar Khan Malghani, Nadir Khan Durrani and Kailash Nath Kohli, were among those sent packing. As the Islamabad High Court (IHC) lost its very existence, four of its judges were deprived of their judicial status, while the remaining four judges will go back to their respective high courts from where they were inducted into the IHC.
The four justices who would stay on the bench are confirmed judges. They included justices M Bilal, Munir Paracha, Raja Saeed and Qilbe Hassan. Those who stood sacked were Intikhab Shah, Arshad Tabraiz, Amjad Iqbal Qureshi and Ramzan Chaudhry.
Senior lawyers said the appointment of a large number of judges to fill the vacancies falling vacant in the high courts would have to be geared up. Among these nominations, appointments for the BHC would have to be accorded top priority.
They said never in the history of the country such a large-scale purge had taken place in the superior judiciary. The number of judges who had to go home because of the 1996 judgment of the Supreme Court in the Al-Jihad Trust case, commonly known as the judges’ case, was much less as compared to the present tally.
The lawyers said dozens of new appointments in the superior judiciary would be made by President Zardari on the recommendations of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on proposals forwarded by the chief justices of the high courts. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=23613
August 1, 2009 No Comments