Hindustan Times

Jobless for 2 years, man puts daughter on sale in Pak

A jobless man who put his young daughter on sale in the city of Hyderabad on Friday has received an overwhelming response in the form of financial assistance and offers of employment a day later.

Muhammad Ayub, who has been jobless for two years now after he was sacked from a state electricity company, offered to sell his daughter so that his family could make ends meet.

Ayub sat in front of the Hyderabad Press Club and made his offer. His daughter and other family members were with him when he announced his decision.

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Labels: electricity company, employment, Hyderabad, hyderabad press club, jobless man, Pakistan, poor section, power company, sale

Supreme Court decision has Pakistan in fix, Musharraf may stay away

While it's still early to say what the long term implications would be of the Supreme Court (SC) verdict, one outcome that is clear -- former President Musharraf would not be returning to Pakistan any time soon.

Leading lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan told reporters that while he would want Musharraf to be put on trial, "I don't see him coming back to Pakistan any time soon."

Ahsan and other legal figures are also of the opinion that the SC decision would also make other dictators "think twice" before they try and subvert the constitution of Pakistan.

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Labels: former president musharraf, implications, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, pervez musharraf trial, sc decision, supreme court decision has pakistan

10 years later: The war that India forgot

It used to be an eerie landmark; the tree I saw everyday in the summer of 1999, blackened and ripped by incessant bombing at the old brigade headquarters, is green again.

But much else has withered. The legacy of the Kargil war, one of the toughest wars of modern military history — far tougher than Iraq and Afghanistan — has been shortchanged by India’s politics.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government has mostly looked away since 2004 when it came to observing the anniversary of the BJP government-era war. President Pratibha Patil was requested to come to Drass, but declined, army sources said.

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Labels: brigade headquarters, drass, india and pakistan war, india forgot, indian army, indian soldiers, Kargil, Kargil war, military history, Pakistan, singhs government

Terror comes home to Inter Services Intelligence

Pakistan's political was attacked yet again when gunmen detonated a car bomb on Wednesday near police and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) offices that killed about 35 people and wounded 250.

The blast, in which several ISI agents were reported killed, flattened one building and sheared the walls off others in one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan this year.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the bombing could be retaliation to the government’s military offensive to rout Taliban militants from the northwestern Swat Valley.

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Labels: bombing, intelligence report, isi agents, isi offices, Lahore, military offensive, Pakistan, pakistan attacks, taliban attack on isi, terror, terrorism

Pakistan goes to war with itself, 50 Taliban killed

The Pakistan government claimed successes in its war against militants in Buner on Wednesday after capturing strategic points and villages. However, the army action has led to internal displacement of hundreds of people, aid agencies have warned.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen.Athar Abbas told the media that 50 militants were killed in the operation when security forces, backed by gunship helicopters, pounded militant positions in Buner on Wednesday The military operation started on Tuesday .

General Abbas told a press briefing in Islamabad that two caches of arms belonging to militants were also destroyed in Buner. He said the military operation was underway in Ambela and Milandar and that stiff resistance was being faced by the troops in mountainous area of Ambela.

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Labels: ambela, buner, gunship helicopters, Pakistan, pakistan army action, pakistan government, taliban, war against militants

Battlefield Lahore

Pakistani commandos regained control of a police academy outside Lahore on Monday evening after militants rampaged through the complex, killing at least eight cadets and wounding scores before holing up inside for hours.

Fighters loyal to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud were suspected of carrying the attack, interior ministry head Rehman Malik told a news conference. He said one of the suspects was an Afghan.

“Four terrorists were killed and three arrested,” interior ministry secretary Kamal Shah said. He said 89 policemen were wounded.

Punjab police chief Khawaja Khalid Farooq said eight recruits were killed though there had been reports the toll would be higher as there were 900 cadets in the academy at the time of the attack.

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Labels: Afghan, assassination attempts, cadets, Lahore, militants, Pakistan, Pakistani commandos, Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, police academy

Murali hints at insider role

Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan hit out at the security arrangements in Pakistan and suspected militants had inside information about their movement.

“Somehow in this incident there were no police with guns on the bus,” the 36-year-old off-spinner said.

“If someone was there with a gun we would have had a chance of defending ourselves,” he said.

“Normally all the buses go and , we have four or five escorts,” Murali said, revealing his anguish that there could have been inside information about the Sri Lankan team's bus route to the Gaddafi Stadium.

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Labels: Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore, Pakistan, security arrangements, Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, Sri Lankan team's bus route, suspected militants

'Taliban a common threat to India, Pakistan, United States'

India, Pakistan and the United States face a common threat for the first time ever in the Taliban, US special representative Richard Holbrooke said in Delhi as he wound up a fact-finding trip to the region.

"For the first time in 60 years, your country, Pakistan and the US all face an enemy that poses direct threats to our leaderships, our capitals and our people," he said after meeting Pranab Mukherjee.

"I do want to underscore the fact that what happened in Swat demonstrates a key point and that is that India, US and Pakistan all have a common threat now."

In a meeting at the US ambassador's residence, Holbrooke wanted to know what India would do in case it faced another Mumbai-style attack.

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Labels: India, Mumbai-style attack, Pakistan, Pranab Mukherjee, Richard Holbrooke, Swat demonstrates, Taliban threat, United States

Taliban stage mini-Mumbai in Kabul

Eight Taliban gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked three Afghan government buildings on Wednesday in a coordinated assault that killed 20 people in the heart of Kabul. All eight attackers also died.

The assailants sent three text messages to the leader of their terror cell in Pakistan before launching assault, said Amrullah Saleh, chief of Afghanistan's intelligence agency underlining the links between militants in the two countries.

Five men armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked the Justice Ministry in late morning, shooting at workers and temporarily trapping the minister and scores of others inside, witnesses said. The gunmen appeared to hold the building for about two hours before Afghan security forces regained control about midday, according to an AP reporter on the scene.

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Labels: Afghan government buildings, Afghan security forces, attack in Kabul, Kabul, mini-Mumbai in Kabul, Pakistan, Taliban gunmen

Together against terror

Outrage over the November 26 terror attack in Mumbai that left at least 164 people dead and over 300 injured, brought India’s feuding political classes together in Parliament on Thursday .

Cutting across party lines, politicians mounted a scathing attack on Pakistan with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and BJP’s L.K. Advani calling it the “epicentre of terrorism”.

In a parliamentary resolution that capped the day long discussion in both Houses, Parliament condemned the “attacks in Mumbai by terrorist elements from Pakistan” and committed to ceaselessly work to wards exposing and punishing the terrorists and those who train, fund and abet them.

“This House expresses its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous terrorist attacks in Mumbai by terrorist elements from Pakistan…Notes that this outrage follows acts of terror committed since the beginning of this year,” the resolution said, authorising the government to “take further measures” to safeguard national security .

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Labels: 164 people, 26 terror attack in Mumbai, 300 injured, Angry House condemns, epicentre of terrorism, India, Manmohan Singh and BJP’s L.K. Advani, Pakistan, Together against terror

Pakistan rocked

A strong earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale jolted parts of the Balochistan province in Pakistan on Wednesday morning, leaving about 170 people dead in its wake, officials said.

“There is great destruction,” said Ziarat mayor Dilawar Kakar. “Not a single house is intact.” In the village of Sohi, a reporter saw the bodies of 17 people killed in one collapsed house and 12 from another. Distraught residents were digging a mass grave in which to bury them.

“We can't dig separate graves for each of them, as the number of deaths is high and still people are searching in the rubble of many other homes,” said Shamsullah Khan, a village elder.

Other survivors sat stunned in the open, with little more than the clothes in which they had been sleeping.

Hospitals in the nearby town of Kawas and the provincial capital Quetta, 50 miles (80 kilometers) away, were flooded with the dead and injured. One patient, Raz Mohammed, said he was awoken by the sound of his children crying before he felt a jolt.

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Labels: Balochistan province, collapsed house, destruction, earthquake, graves, Pakistan, Richter scale, survivors, Ziarat mayor Dilawar Kakar

Shame in Orissa

A Christian soldier who fought in the 1999 Kargil war against Pakistan is in a refugee camp today after he and his family were driven out from their native village by Hindu mobs.

Motilal Pradhan of the 244 Medium Artillery regiment lost one of his brothers when his house in the riot-ravaged Kandhamal district was set on fire on August 24.

"I have fought against ULFA (the Assam militant group), served in insurgency-infested Baramulla region and fought in Drass sector during the Kargil War. We were called Drass Devils," he told HT as he stood in the middle of the government-run refugee center - one of the two such centers - in Bhubaneswar. There are around 500 others like him at the center.

"But now," Motilal said, "I cannot return to my own village." Motila1and several others have got a message from his village: reconvert to Hinduism and then think of returning to Gadragaon.

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Labels: 244 Medium Artillery regiment, Bhubaneswar, Christian soldier, Drass sector, Hindu mobs, Kandhamal district, Kargil war, Motilal Pradhan, Pakistan, refugee camp, shame. Orissa, ULFA

Pakistan has a raging fire on its hands

The Saturday before this weekend’s was India’s Capital. This Saturday, it was Pakistan’s. Both were victims of deadly terror strikes; Delhi debilitated by a string of bombs planted in dustbins, Islamabad ignited by a truck bomber.

Even as the Delhi Police claimed to have “cracked” the September 13 serial bombings, Islamabad was still coming to grips with the seismic shock of a suicide bomber ploughing an a 1,000-kg-explosive-laden truck into the Marriott Hotel.

The Marriott, at the foot of Islamabad’s green Margalla hills, was frequented by the city’s rich and powerful joined by the Serena recently, it was the only five-star hotel in the Pakistani Capital.

“We have a full-fledged, raging fire on our hands,” Ayaz Amir, Pakistan’s leading columnist, told HT on telephone from his Chakwal residence near Islamabad.

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Labels: dustbins, green Margalla hills, Islamabad, Marriot hotel, Pakistan, suicide bomber, truck bomber

Obama: Pakistan using United States aid against India

US Presidential candidate Barack Obama has said that Pakistan was using American aid to fight the war on terror for "preparing for a war against India".

The Democratic nominee said the US was providing Pakistan military aid "without having enough strings attached". "They're (Pakistan) using the military aid... Pakistan... They're preparing for a war against India," he told Fox News.

Obama vowed to hold Islamabad accountable for the massive military aid it has received from Washington if he is elected to the White House.

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Labels: aid, American aid, Barack Obama, Democratic nominee, elected, fight, India, Islamabad, Pakistan, Pakistan military, terror, United States, US Presidential candidate, war, Washington, White House

Kashmir burns as Hye die in police fire

Five People, including a prominent leader of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, Shaikh Abdul Aziz - chief of the Peoples' League - were killed in police firing on Monday as thousands of Kashmiris poured into the streets, responding to a call to march across the line of control (LoC) towards Muzzafarabad in Pakistan. Curfew was clamped in all towns of the Valley and hundreds of arrests were made.

The call was given by Kashmiri fruit growers to protest the alleged economic blockade of the Valley by agitators in Jammu, which was preventing them from transporting their perishable produce to markets across the country The march was intended to emphasise that if their produce could not reach Indian markets, they would send it to Pakistan instead. It had the support of Kashmir's chamber of commerce, traders' federation, as well as all factions of the separatists and the People's Democratic Party (PDP).

The largest of the marching processions began in Sopore, led by Shaikh Aziz and another separatist leader Shabir Shah, swelling to nearly a lakh as it moved along the Srinagar-Muzzafarabad highway Around 300 trucks and buses were part of the caravan.

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Labels: burns, call, Curfew. Kashmir, economic blockade, Indian markets, Jammu, Kashmiri fruit growers, LoC, Pakistan, PDP, police fire, Valley

Pakistan wanted Afghan jihadis to help in Kargil

Pakistan had sought the services of "20,000 to 30,000" Afghan jihadis as possible rein forcements during the Kargil conflict nine years ago, a new book by Pakistani author Shuja Nawaz reveals.

"Mullah Mohammad Rabbani, the Afghan President at the time... was asked by Pakistan to provide 20,000-30,000 'volunteers' for the Kashmir jihad. He startled the Pakistanis by offering 500,000!" Shuja Nawaz, whose brother Asif Nawaz was army chief in the 1990s, says in his 585 page book Crossed Swords.

This damning nugget of information is attributed to an interview with Khwaja Ziauddin, who was the ISI boss during Kargil and the man appointed to replace Pervez Musharraf as army chief on October 12, 1999, by then PM Nawaz Sharif. According to the US-based author, there was a broader Kashmir plan at work that had been presented and discussed by Musharraf with Sharif and his key aides in 1999 though key Pakistani military officials involved in Kargil were unwilling to provide details.

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Labels: Afghan, Asif Nawaz, help, jihadis, Kargil, Musharraf, Pakistan, Pakistani Military, PM Nawaz Sharif, wanted

Gas pipeline deal soon, says Iran President

Iran, Pakistan and India would soon give final shape to the proposed three nation gas pipeline, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday night. But he placed a question mark on the implementation of the June 2005 gas-by-ship contract.

The Iranian President conceded there was a clear link between the gas by ship deal to sell 5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to lndia and New Delhi's decision to vote against Tehran at the IAEA governing board in September 2005.

Talking to the press after talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said: "Each vote has its own impact." But he added that the India-Iran relationship was "deeper than a vote". India's vote against Iran at the IAEA "related to the past", he said. "We are now looking forward."

The IAEA votes took the Iranian nuclear issue from the domain of the atomic watchdog to the UN Security Council. Ahmadinejad was pleased that Indian officials had given a "good and appropriate response" to Washington when it came forward with words of advice for Iran before his brief visit to Delhi.

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Labels: decision, Gas pipeline deal soon, IAEA vote, India, India-Iran relationship, Iran, Iran President, New delhi, Pakistan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Tehran

Brown wants India to be a bigger global player

BRITISH PRIME Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday he hoped that India would join a proposed standby, rapid response international team to provide both civilian and military support to help failing states get back on their own feet. In an exclusive interview to the Hindustan Tirnes, Brown said when dealing with a broken-down state or a conflict zone, there was need not only for peace, but also for reconstruction and development. Supporting India's case for the lifting of restrictions imposed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group on civilian nuclear commerce, Brown said Britain would also back India's entry into the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-led Financial Action Task Force to combat terrorism funding. Brown hinted that the West, which had backed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in the war against terrorism, would look at the country closely after the February 18 general elections. "We have see how the polls are conducted," he said. "We're always...

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Article taken from the issue: 22 Jan 2008

Labels: british, election, India, Pakistan, Prime Minister, terrorism, war

Benazir Shot Dead

FORMER PAKISTAN prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday in a suicide attack shortly after a political rally in Rawalpindi's Liagat Bagh. Bhutto, 54, suffered bullet wounds to her neck and head. She was declared dead in hospital. Thirty other people died in the attack, almost all victims of the suicide bomber who pushed through the security cordon on a bicycle. He blew himself up immediately after shooting Benazir "The man first fired at her vehicle. She ducked and then he blew himself up," said police officer Mohammad Shahid. She collapsed inside her Toyota Land Cruiser, which pulled out of the melee and drove to RawalpindiGeneralHospita1nearby She is believed to have died of excessive bleeding and heart failure.

"We have been robbed of a great leader and a symbol of courage and determination," said Farahnaz Ispahani, a woman member of Bhutto's party Benazir's husband, Asif Zardari, who rushed to Pakistan from Dubai (where he lives), said it was a targeted attack. Benazir became the first woman prime minister in the Muslim world when she was elected in 1988 at the age of 35. She was deposed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan in 1990, reelected in 1993, and ousted again in 1996 amid charges of corruption and mismanagement. She said the charges were politically motivated but in 1999 chose to stay in exile rather than face them. The fatal attack took place at the main gate of Liagat Bagh, one of the major public parks in Rawalpindi, the garrison town next to Islamabad. After her return from self-exile two months ago, her political convoy was bombed in Karachi. In that incident as well, shots were fired at her van.

On Thursday afternoon, Benazir completed her speech well ahead of the sunset deadline that the election commission had set for political rallies. As her vehicle was leaving the ground, the suicide bomber struck. In her speech, Benazir spoke of the risks she faced. "I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis," she told the rally It was a promise that she was unable to keep. People cried, hugged each other and shouted anti-Musharraf slogans outside the hospital where she died.
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Article taken from the issue: 28 Dec 2007

Labels: assassinated, Benazir Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto killed, Pakistan, rawalpindi

Hindustan Times

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Jobless for 2 years, man puts daughter on sale in Pak

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Supreme Court decision has Pakistan in fix, Musharraf may stay away

Friday, July 24, 2009

10 years later: The war that India forgot

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Terror comes home to Inter Services Intelligence

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Pakistan goes to war with itself, 50 Taliban killed

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Battlefield Lahore

Friday, March 6, 2009

Murali hints at insider role

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

'Taliban a common threat to India, Pakistan, United States'

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Taliban stage mini-Mumbai in Kabul

Friday, December 12, 2008

Together against terror

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Pakistan rocked

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Shame in Orissa

Monday, September 22, 2008

Pakistan has a raging fire on its hands

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Obama: Pakistan using United States aid against India

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Kashmir burns as Hye die in police fire

Friday, June 13, 2008

Pakistan wanted Afghan jihadis to help in Kargil

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Gas pipeline deal soon, says Iran President

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Brown wants India to be a bigger global player

Friday, December 28, 2007

Benazir Shot Dead

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