PAKISTAN | AN IDEOLOGICAL NATION

By : Nauman Umair Khan

Neither I'm a primary school teacher nor you guys are that wee kids :) but still we need ignition every now and then, don't we? Every now and then we need to be reminded of our true identity, identity that is so pure, so powerful, so spiritual. Spiritual, yes, the spiritual existence of ours dates back to ages unknown but what i wish to remind you of is what you should be reminded of, of an idea that is powerful like any other idea and immortal too. Immortal, yes, our enemy tries to chase us down every now and then, but we suvive, sometimes we resist to exist and sometimes exist to resist, we'll never fall for we're an ideological nation. We, like any other nation, were born in the heart of a poet, our physical birth took place in the words of his poetry, words that inspired a resistance, resistance that inspired a movememnt, movement that inspired a resolution, resolution that did impossible yet inevitable. My forefathers sacrificed b/c they had a hope, a vision. They left everything and eventually lost their lives at the indo pak borders just b/c they had an inspiration pushing them to heights of sacrfice and eventually martyrdom. Yes, our enemy started conspiring against us from the very first day, first it was partition, then 1965, then 1971, then 1999. Apart from these dates which we'll never forget, they did various other nasty things too and still continue to do. But did they win, i guess, they didn't and i say they won't. At partition we were nothing but an idea and we survived, didn't we? Just don't forget that our mothers and sisters were raped, our fathers and bothers were burnt alive but at the same time we musn't forget that it weren't our Sikh brothers, they were just being pawns, the real players were sitting somewhere back. Then we lost Kashmir and few other areas but we survived for we weren't just pieces of land, we were an idea. Then came 1965, the funny dream of our enemy, they truly underestimated us, they forgot our ideological existence, they forgot that ideas don't fear tanks. Had it not been for those unsung soldiers (gumnaam sepahi) and our brothers in arms, we might have lost our physiscal existence. Then came 1971, years of brainwashing and some mistakes on our part gave our enemy an advantage over us, we lost a part of us, yes we did but then it made us stronger in many different ways. Then came the nuke shyt, our enemy thought they will nuke us down in near future but they forgot that ideas are nuke-proof too. We survived those years regardless of internal political turomoil and external threats. And later on we proved once again to our enemy that underestimating us is the worst mistake they can ever make. Then the world changed, fall of two towers induced war on two of our neighbours and this once again gave our enemy an advantage over us, their dream of eliminating our strategic depth was at the brink of realization and rest is classified history :) All i'd say in the end is that please recognize your hidden potential both as individuals and as a nation. You'll never be destroyed, mark my words, for you're an ideological nation. You'll be chased down every now and then but you'll never go down. LONG LIVE PAKISTAN ♥

Indian ire at Fai

ONE can understand why New Delhi welcomed Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai’s arrest: there is perhaps no other American who has done more to bring the cause of Kashmir’s freedom to the notice of a wide range of fellow Americans than this tireless crusader for Kashmir’s freedom.

An irate letter written to then president Clinton by the Kashmiri Women for Communal Harmony, an Indian American women’s organisation, perhaps testified to the effectiveness of Fai’s campaign when it protested against the positive tones in which Clinton had replied to his letter.

On Dec 27, 1993, responding to Fai’s letter, president Clinton said he “shared” Fai’s belief that “we all must look closely at our policies with regard to human rights”, and then added what to KWCH was a provocation, “I look forward to working with you and others to bring peace to Kashmir, and appreciate your input”. This “appreciation” was too much for the KWCH, which sought to add to Clinton’s knowledge by saying that Fai’s Kashmiri American Council was “a stunt” and alleged that the president’s letter had given “respectability” to Fai.

During the first Clinton term, the White House, the State Department and a large number of congressmen both Republicans and Democrats repeatedly asked India to address America’s human rights concerns and enter into talks with Pakistan with a view to a final settlement of Kashmir.

A bewildering variety of activity comprised Fai’s campaign — letters to American leaders, ‘vigils’ outside the White House, personal meetings with congressmen and media personalities, ads in newspapers and demos in Washington D.C. and elsewhere. All this activity was spread over four decades and aroused no suspicion in the American security agencies. Fai’s biggest success came during then Indian prime minister Narasimha Rao’s visit to Washington in May 1994, when an unusually large number of congressmen mobilised themselves on the Kashmir issue. In one week alone, 10 congressmen wrote to president Clinton, urging him to raise the Kashmir issue, India’s defiance of UN resolutions and its violations of human rights during his talks with the Indian prime minister.

Dan Burton, the fiery Republican from Indiana, wrote a letter to secretary of state Warren Christopher, urging him to “express our deep concern about the human rights situation in Kashmir” and to ask Rao to allow the holding of prayers in the Hazratbal mosque, which “continues to be surrounded by military bunkers”.

At the Rayburn Office Building, congressman after congressman, and at least one senator, came to the podium to denounce human rights abuses by India in Kashmir. The occasion was the launching of a book by Prof William Baker, the chief guest being Azad Kashmir prime minister Sardar Abdul Qayyum.

The speeches and the letters to Clinton were uncomfortable for the Indian lobby, because they involved some prestigious names, including Senator Paul Simon, the Democrat from Illinois, who was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House majority whip David Bonior and Dana Rohrabacher a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congressman Bonior, perhaps the most outspoken of them, referred to the “breaking of the shackles of totalitarianism” throughout the world, and demanded the total withdrawal of Indian troops from India-administered Kashmir. The House majority whip regretted that his country did not really understand what was happening in Kashmir and urged president Clinton to raise the issue with Mr Rao. He was convinced the people of Kashmir were bound to achieve their freedom.

Congressman Rohrabacher not only supported the cause of the people of Kashmir, he paid tributes to Pakistan for its role during the Cold War, especially during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

On May 19, the KAC got a full-page ad published in The Washington Post. Entitled, ‘What Prime Minister Rao will not tell President Clinton’, the black-bordered ad dwelt on the situation in India-administered Kashmir and focused on the human rights situation.

The outcome of the Clinton-Rao meeting was a disappointment for India, for in his very opening statement Clinton called for talks between Pakistan and India to solve the Kashmir issue. Calling for ‘talks’ normally should provoke no government. But so closed has been the Indian mind on Kashmir that Indians squirm at the mere mention of Kashmir.

That the Indians were prepared for some rough moments during the White House talks became clear when an Indian newsman asked Rao whether Clinton had twisted his arm. To a burst of laughter, and showing his arm to the newsmen Rao said, “My arm is absolutely intact. The president didn’t even touch it”. Clinton was, of course, tactful. He expressed the usual warmth reserved for a visiting head of government, spoke of values that united America and India but then replied “differences remain” when an Indian newsman asked him whether there was an identity of views between the two leaders.

The joint statement issued after the talks contained on the American side’s insistence the following fifth point: “The two leaders agreed on the need for bilateral negotiations between India and Pakistan to resolve outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, as envisaged in the Simla agreement.” Without Pakistan being there, Clinton insisting on a Kashmir solution in a bilateral US-India statement was quite a success for Fai. It is true that others also helped, including first and foremost the Pakistan embassy headed by Dr Maleeha Lodhi, various Pakistani associations and the American Muslim Council, led by Abdul Rahman Alamoudi (arrested in September 2003). But no one played a greater role in highlighting Kashmir’s cause than Fai, assisted by a fellow Kashmiri the late journalist Khalid Hasan.

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Decade on, Shazia seeks father’s whereabouts

Srinagar : For past over a decade, Shazia Anwar of Doolipora Vilgam in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district has been searching for whereabouts of her father, Syed Anwar Shah, who went missing in 2001.

 Life took an ugly turn for Shazia after her father left for routine work and went missing. “After he did not return till evening, we grew anxious and searched for him at all possible places, but failed locate him. We lodged an FIR, but the cops too failed to locate his whereabouts,” said Anwar’s wife, Naseema Begum who along with her daughter, Shazia participated in a sit-in organized by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) at Pratap Park here. 

 Pertinently, the APDP organizes monthly sit-in here to press for whereabouts of their relatives who went missing in custody of various security agencies since 1990.
 Naseema said Shazia was only a year old at the time of the incident. “Over the years, Shazia accompanied me to jails and interrogation centres. She used to wake up in night and ask for her father’s whereabouts. In the initial years, I used to tell her that he would return, but gradually the reality dawned upon her,” she said.  

 “I approached everybody including police and civil officials for tracing my husband, but except assurances and promises, I got nothing,” says Naseema.
 Disappearance of the sole breadwinner has made the going tough for the hapless family. Presently putting up in two rented rooms at Safa Kadal, Naseema’s brother-in-law sells clothes on handcart to support the mother-daughter duo.  

 Naseema tied nuptial knot with Anwar in 2000. “We were living a happy life despite living in abject poverty. Birth of daughter added more joy to our lives, but his disappearance shattered my life,” she says. “We wouldn’t rest until we trace his whereabouts. We want to know whether he is dead or alive?,” Naseema said as Shazia looks on. 

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Embarrassment for Indian Army and Police - Man killed in Poonch encounter not a Militant

Jammu:  In what could be a major embarrassment for the police and Army, it now turns out that one of the so-called 'Lashkar militants' killed in an encounter less than 24 hours ago, was not really a militant but a civilian resident of Poonch.

Army sources now say that their whole operation was based on an input from two men - one from the Special Operation Group of the police and the other from the Army with some 'malafide' intention. Based on their information, the Army launched the operation and killed him.

Both the men have been arrested, but the questions that now arise are how did this encounter continue for close to 12 hours? And what about the weapon that Army claimed to have found on him?

Independent inquires have been ordered by the police and the Army into the incident.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has, meanwhile, strongly condemned the killing of the civilian saying the guilty should be arrested. He also said that the Army and the police were misled.

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Kashmiri woman gang raped in Delhi

45-year-old was kidnapped while returning from Delhi airport, taken to a south Delhi house and sexually assaulted by three yet unidentified men

Some things never change. Nullifying claims made by Delhi Police Commissioner BK Gupta on ensuring safety of women in the Capital, a 45-year-old Kashmiri woman was allegedly kidnapped and raped by three unidentified assailants in Malviya Nagar area of south district. According to police sources, the incident took place on the night of July 29 when the victim (identity withheld) was going back to her cousin's house in Kalkaji from Delhi airport. She had gone to drop off her daughter, who was going to Pune. As per the FIR (which has been lodged at the Malviya Nagar police station), the victim was going to Kalkaji in an auto when it developed a snag.

House of horrors: The building in Khirki Extn. where the incident

occurred. Pic/Mid Day

Dead stop
"I took an auto after dropping off my daughter at about 7.30 pm. The auto broke down near Dhaula Kuan road. I got out of the auto to look for another. In the meantime, a white Innova car arrived with two. The person who was sitting on the front seat beside the driver (about 35-40 years of age) asked me where I was going and I told him the situation. They offered me a lift on the pretext that I wouldn't find an auto here and accepted as they seemed gentle to me," the FIR said.

Representative pic

"I stayed in the car for about 20-25 minutes after which the vehicle stopped near a gate. One of the men got out of the car and forcibly dragged me to the second floor of the house where there was already another person. They raped me there," read the report. The victim also said in her statement that the assailants had switched on the TV on a high volume due to which her screams could not be heard by the neighbours.

'They took turns'
"The man who offered me a lift raped me first. He was wearing a red T-shirt. The driver of the car, who was wearing a white-striped shirt, followed," the FIR said. Police sources said that the victim then tried to run away from the room but was caught by the trio. They then discussed something and after sometime dropped her in the middle of the road at an isolated place and escaped in the same car.

"The woman went back near the place where she was taken and then made a PCR call. We reached the spot and went to that house. However, by then they had escaped and there was no one in the room and there was no sign of the car," police sources said. The room was properly scrutinised by a female investigating officer. The trio is still at large.


No trace
The address written in the FIR which the police team checked is JH-37, Khirki Extension, Malviya Nagar. A case has been registered in connection with the incident and a probe is on. The victim had come to Delhi to meet her cousin. She is a resident of Kashmir and runs a travel agency there. Police sources said that they have not been able to crack the case yet and senior officials are monitoring it directly. "We have asked the deputy commissioner of police and other officers to look into the matter and give results soon," a senior police officer said, on condition of anonymity.

Don't take that ride!
Beware of taking a lift from unknown persons in the Capital, especially during late hours. A modus operandi, which is being extensively used by criminals in the Capital, involves offering people lift at nights, sometimes demanding nominal charges and at other times for free, and then rob the unsuspecting hitchhiker and/or sexually assault them. It happens usually near places like airports, railways stations and Metro stations.
>> Crime Branch of Delhi Police recently caught a gang who would first offer lift to people and then rob them. The gang was busted following a complaint filed by a railway employee. The accused had given him a lift, promising to drop him off at Bahadurgarh on payment of a nominal fare. As he sat inside their car, they beat him up and robbed him at knifepoint. After robbing the victim, they used to cover his face with a polythene bag, tied his hands, before dumping him at a secluded place to ensure that the victim could not note down the number of the car.

>> On May 25, Delhi Police arrested the driver of a pre-paid taxi for molesting an Australian woman after she boarded his vehicle from Indira Gandhi International Airport on Thursday. The incident took place a day after an Australian woman was molested by a tailor, who had offered her a lift in his car, in Mandir Marg area of Central Delhi. The 60-year-old woman came to IGI police station and filed a complaint after which the police took the action. The complainant had come from Australia in the morning via Singapore by a Jet Airways flight.

>> A drunken youth allegedly tried to molest a 25-year-old IGI Airport executive while she was waiting for her office cab in Dhaula Kuan on the night of February 5. Police officials said that Deepak, a resident of Sector 7 RK Puram, tried to hug and kiss the victim at around 1.00 am when she was waiting for her cab near Satya Niketan bus stand on Ring Road. Police officials near the spot heard her cries and rushed there and nabbed the accused.

Need more reasons?
Three incidents of rape and an attempt to rape with minor girls were reported on Wednesday. In the first incident, a 17-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped by her neighbour in Greater Kailash, south Delhi. Police said an FIR has been registered in this regard at Chittaranjan Park police station. The name of the accused was not disclosed. The victim, Priya (name changed), is a resident of Greater Kailash part II. Rape was confirmed after she was taken to AIIMS for check up. The second incident was reported from Malviya Nagar, where a youth, identified as Sansar Singh, a local resident, was arrested for raping a 17-year-old girl. "Police were informed about the incident on Wednesday. Singh has been arrested," said a police official. Meanwhile, an attempt to rape was reported from New Friends Colony, south-east Delhi. A police source said the victim is a 13-year-old girl. "The accused is also a juvenile. The victim was sleeping in her house when the accused tried to assault her. The father of the victim, however, came home, following which the accused fled. Police were informed and he was caught from a nearby area," said a police source. An FIR in this regard is yet to be registered. A 26-year-old baba was arrested for allegedly raping a teenager, who had ironically approached him for counselling regarding her repeated sexual abuse by her former employer. Police said Baba Wam Dev Ram alias Bam Dev, also known as Ramji Maharaj, was apprehended from Punjabi Bagh area of west Delhi on Tuesday. He originally hails from Heala Ranchi in Jharkhand. "He is also wanted in another gang rape case, registered at Rani Bagh police station and a 2006 kidnapping case, which happened in Simdega, Jharkhand," said a senior police officer. According to the officer, the 18-year-old victim approached the police in May, claiming she was raped by a baba. "She told us she was repeatedly raped by a man while working in Amritsar. In April, a woman brought her to Delhi and sent her to the baba for counselling. The baba was popular for giving counselling to tribal girls," said the officer. "On May 6, he came to her house when the woman was not there. He then raped her and threatened here of dire consequences, if she told anybody about it," said DCP (west) V Ranganathan. "During interrogation, the baba told us he has studied up to Class XII. He became very popular in Ranchi and came in contact with some people in Jharkhand, who ran a placement agency in Delhi. He then started bringing unemployed girls from Jharkhand to the Capital, nearly 6-7 years ago. He also opened an NGO, BB Tribal Welfare Society, in Rani Bagh and started counselling tribal girls. In the garb of help, he used to rape them," said Ranganathan.

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Stike against Custodial Killing

Syed Ali Shah Geelani

Via: Qaid-e-inquilab Syed Ali Geelani

Chairman Hurriyat Conference, Syed Ali Shah Geelani has called for a complete shut down in Kashmir on August 3 against the killing of Sopore youth in police custody. In a statement issued, Geelani described Nazim Rashid’s custodial killing as the worst form of state terrorism.
The killing of innocents in Sopore at the hands of unidentified gunmen, he said, has become a daily affair.
Mr. Geelani said that New Delhi and its stooges in Kashmir have created a martial law like situation. Pro-freedom youth are being hunted down and booked under PSA, enforcing silence of graveyard with the help of police and armed forces, which they term as peace. Mr. Geelani said that the pro freedom youth are being target arrested and subject o inhumane torture by police and armed forces.
Time and again it is coming into observation that unidentified gunman kill people and it appears that these are handiworks of agencies who want to instill fear among the people.
In that matter of Nazim Rashid Shala, the statement of his father Abdul Rashed Shala is of significance in which he had said that Nazim was present at the spot talking to Muhhamad Ashraf Dar about some business when unidentified gunmen had shot at Dar. Thus it is evident that the agencies arrested Nazim to wipe off the eyewitness of their crime.
He further said that oppression and tyranny is ruling the roost in other areas of valley and Muslim belt of Jammu region as well.
Army camps have been installed at various places and the honour of our mothers and sisters is not safe with Damhall Hanji Pora and Pattan episodes being the latest examples.
Mr. Geelani said that the leadership is being confined to their homes and is not allowed to meet people. Frontline leadership is being held under the draconian law of PSA and these so called democratic leaders are misleading the world opinion about Kashmir
Mr. Geelani said that thus we are not left with any other option but to observe a complete strike to express our sentiments to the world .
Mr. Geelani said that strike is the last weapon with our oppressed nation and is a method to express our grief and anger. We are not being allowed to hold peaceful protest rallies therefore we have no option left with us other than strike.
Mr Geelani made a fervent appeal to all sections of the society to observe complete strike on 3rd august Wednesday at all costs..