Suicide attackers are enemies of Islam, Pakistan: SIC

LAHORE: The suicide attacks are forbidden and totally against the teachings of Islam, and suicide bombers are the great enemies of Islam and Pakistan.

The Sunni Ittihad Council urged the judiciary to take strict action against those involved in suicide attacks on mosques and shrines.

This was the crux of the speakers at ‘Istehkaam-e- Pakistan Sunni Conference’ organised by Sunni Ittihad Council (SIC) at Minar-e-Pakistan (Iqbal Park) on Sunday.

The SIC Chairman Sahibzada Haji Muhammad Fazal Karim, in his address, condemned the terrorist attacks in various parts of the country, especially on mosques and shrines of saints. He called for an open trial of those arrested for their alleged involvement in terror activities.

Fazal Karim said that at Minar-e-Pakistan, they took oath for making every effort to save Pakistan, adding, now the country’s politics would be done on merit and the SIC would raise up a leadership from middle class of the society.

He said that SIC would not tolerate any negative change in the textbooks of various educational institutions of the country, and would ensure an equal educational system for the rich and the poor.

Since the masses are well aware and awakened to achieve their rights, he said, the SIC would not be at peace until it establish ‘Nizam-e-Mustafa’ in the country.

Fazal Karim urged the judiciary to take strict action against those involved in the heinous crimes of suicide attacks on mosques and shrines.

He also demanded the government to expose the elements resorting to target killings especially in Karachi, the largest city of Pakistan. He also impressed upon the government to improve further the law and order situation in the country.

The SIC advocates the proposal of the formation of new provinces for better administration and management, he added.

Ulema, Mushaikh, Shrines’ Sajadanasheen, and religious scholars including Syed Mushahid Hussain Gardezi, Mufti Muhammad Haseeb Qadri, Allama Naeem Javed Noori, Pir Safdar Shah, Ejaz Sarwat also addressed the conference.

10 injured during protest against Davis release

LAHORE: Punjab police baton charged Pakistan Tahreek e Insaf workers when they were trying to enter Americian Consulate in protest against the release of U.S national Raymond Davis involved in murder of two youths.

Police torture injured ten of the protesters while six others were arrested on Wednesday night.

According to details, PTI organized a protest outside U.S Consulate at Empress Road. During the protest the party workers burned the effigy of Raymond Davis, while a group of youngsters removed the security barriers and they tried to enter the U.S Consulate. However, the police present on the occasion resorted to baton charge the protestors and arrested six of them.

Gaza’s fallen women: doing time for ‘moral’ crime

World.Down.com

GAZA CITY: Najwa Abu Amra cries inside a Gaza jail as she explains how she got here. Struggling to care for two sons and a drug-addicted husband, she agreed to sleep with a man for about 50 dollars.

A Palestinian Hamas policewoman unlocks a door at a women’s prison run by Hamas in Gaza City on December 9, 2010. The prison consists of two rooms that house 19 women, some doing time for “moral” crime, and a handful of children.

She had resisted prostitution in the past, but she was getting desperate.

“My husband isn’t normal, he was telling me to sleep with men because they would give him money,” She said. “He did what he liked and he didn’t give me anything. I didn’t know what to do”.

Her husband showed no interest in caring for their two boys, one aged nine, the other just three. When she walked out, trying to prod him into better behaviour, he married a second wife.

“I had two sons, one of them is deaf, I didn’t have a choice,” she explains as the other women prisoners look on, some of them clutching their own children.

Out of desperation, she dialed the number of a man she had met months earlier, and agreed to sleep with him for 200 shekels (54 dollars or 41 euros).

Not long afterwards, Abu Amra was arrested on suspicion of immoral behaviour.

She was hauled before a judge and ordered to attend 30 days of pre-trial detention at the Training and Reform Centre for Women, Gaza’s only prison for women.

The facility is run by Hamas, which has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007. The group won legislative elections in 2006, and a year later seized control of the coastal enclave after deadly confrontations with rival Fatah.

Since coming to power, the Islamist group has sought to bolster Gaza’s conservative religious mores, although it has rescinded some controversial measures, including one banning women from publicly smoking the water pipe.

The prison, such as it is, consists of two rooms that house 19 women and a handful of children. The rest of the building, which is still under construction, houses a men’s prison and administration offices.

Inside one of the rooms, 11 women sit on foam cushions and thick rugs, their thin blankets piled in a corner. One nurses a child in the dimly-lit room, which has only one tiny window letting in very little light.

In the other, eight women sit chatting with their female prison guard, Umm Ahmed, who treats them with a mixture of sympathy and revulsion.

‘Moral’ crimes are rarely sentenced

Abu Amra’s two boys are still with her husband, but another woman, a tired and scared-looking prisoner who refuses to give her name, is rocking her newborn son in her arms.

He was born just three days earlier and doesn’t yet have a name. His mother was transferred to a hospital for the birth then returned to jail shortly after. His father is a man she slept with for money, Umm Ahmed says. But the new mother claims otherwise, describing the man as her husband.

She says her family arranged the marriage while she was in jail, hoping it would be enough to get her out and minimise some of the public disgrace they face. Umm Ahmed says the family has done no such thing.

It is a common solution, said Nasser Deeb Suliman, director of prison security, especially when the man in the question is someone the family knows.

“If it was with a neighbour or a friend, usually the family will decide to marry them, and then the woman can be released,” he said.

The woman’s sister, who also refused to give her name, is in a similar situation. She is heavily pregnant and due to give birth this month, after spending almost half of her pregnancy in prison.

Suliman said the women are divided between the two rooms according to the severity of their crimes, but 21-year-old Tahrir, who was convicted of murder, is in the same room as women accused of prostitution and pick pocketing.

In the next room sits Rihab, a quiet and pale 34-year-old whose arms are covered in scars from cutting herself. She talks openly but without pride about how she ended up in prison.

She didn’t need money; she had a job at a local hospital. Her crime was to choose to sleep with two men, both of whom ended up in prison as well.

“I did it, I’m not going to lie, I did it twice,” she said. Her family was furious at first, but her father has forgiven her.

“He told the neighbours I’m in Egypt, he’s going to get a lawyer for me,” she said. The two men have already been released, after hiring attorneys to argue their cases.

Those accused of “moral” crimes are rarely sentenced, Suliman says.

Instead, a judge extends their 30-day detention period several times, releasing them between four and eight months later – less if a woman gets married, and more if she is a repeat offender.

Some women are more reluctant than Rihab to admit why they are in jail.

Kholud, 18, and her mother, who declines to give her name, have been in prison for two months, and say they were jailed over a family dispute.

Umm Ahmed openly contradicts them, but they refuse to change their story.

Outside the cell, the guard takes a visitor aside, her face sad but her voice filled with disgust as she describes the women as part of a brothel.

“The whole family was rotten. They were all involved. The father was in charge. The guy who was with the daughter was also with the mother,” she says.

“Don’t believe everything they say.”

Shahzain Bugti called US embassy at the time of arrest

QUETTA: The US embassy in Islamabad on Friday confirmed that the provincial chief of Jahmoori Watan Party (JWP) Shahzain Bugti had communicated with them at the time of his arrest two days ago.

Jamhoori Watan Party’s provincial chief Shahzain Bugti arrives at the Anti Terrorism Court in Quetta.

Talking to Express News, US embassy spokesman Alberto Rodrix said that Shahzain had contacted an official in the American embassy.

Rodrix said that Bugti had discussed his arrest with the official. The spokesman said said that the US respects Pakistani law and that Bugti’s arrest is Pakistan’s internal matter.

Shahzain Bugti, the grandson of late Nawab Akbar Bugti, was arrested by paramilitary troops on Wednesday when they found a huge quantity of arms and ammunitions from vehicles in his convoy during a snap check at the Buleli check-post on the outskirts of Quetta.

Shutter-down strike

The JWP called for a shutter-down strike in Balochistan today to protest the the arrest of Shahzain Bugti.

Various parts of Balochistan observed the strike.

In Quetta, business centres remained closed and few vehicles ventured on to the city’s roads. Tight security measures were in place to avoid any untoward incident, with political parties and trade organizations also supporting the strike.

Shahzain Bugti’s arrest: Shutter down strike being observed in Balochistan

JWP activists forcefully closed shops and resorted to aerial firing in a few areas in Quetta, with police confiscating their firearms.

Muslim ‘Radicalization’ Is Focus of Planned Inquiry

By: RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON – The Republican who will head the House committee that oversees domestic security is planning to open a Congressional inquiry into what he calls “the radicalization” of the Muslim community when his party takes over the House next year.

Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, will become the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Representative Peter T. King of New York, who will become the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he was responding to what he has described as frequent concerns raised by law enforcement officials that Muslim leaders have been uncooperative in terror investigations.

He cited the case of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan man and a legal resident of the United States, who was arrested last year for plotting to bomb the New York subway system. Mr. King said that Ahmad Wais Afzali, an imam in Queens who had been a police informant, had warned Mr. Zazi before his arrest that he was the target of a terror investigation.

“When I meet with law enforcement, they are constantly telling me how little cooperation they get from Muslim leaders,” Mr. King said.

The move by Mr. King, who said he was planning to open a hearing on the matter beginning early next year, is the latest example of the new direction that the House will take under the incoming Republican majority.

Indeed, Mr. King, a nine-term incumbent from Long Island, said that he had sought to raise the issue when Democrats had control of Congress, but was “denounced for it.” He added: “It is controversial. But to me, it is something that has to be discussed.”

Mr. King’s proposal comes amid signs that deep anxieties about Muslims persist in the United States nine years after the 9/11 terror attacks and an outcry this year over a proposed Islamic center near ground zero in New York City.

Told of Mr. King’s plan, Muslim leaders expressed strong opposition, describing the move as a prejudiced act that was akin to racial profiling and that would unfairly cast suspicion on an entire group.

Abed A. Ayoub, the legal director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said Mr. King’s effort ignored that Muslim leaders around the country had been working closely with law enforcement officials since the 2001 terror attacks.

“We are disturbed that this representative who is in a leadership position does not have the understanding and knowledge of what the realities are on the ground,” Mr. Ayoub said, adding that Mr. King’s proposal “has bigoted intentions.”

Salam al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, also expressed deep concern and noted that his group would be holding a convention this weekend at which members would discuss the impact that the Republican takeover of Congress could have on Muslims.

“He basically wants to treat the Muslim-American community as a suspect community,” Mr. Marayati said of Mr. King. He added that Mr. King was potentially undermining the relationship that Muslim leaders had sought to build with law enforcement officials around the country. Tensions have occasionally erupted in recent years over counterterrorism measures that civil rights groups and others said had gone too far.

In 2007, for example, the Los Angeles Police Department was forced to abandon a plan to create a map detailing the city’s Muslim communities after civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders denounced the effort as a form of racial profiling.

Mr. King has used his position on the House Homeland Security Committee to elevate similar issues. In 2006, when his party controlled the House and he was chairman of the committee, Mr. King was the first Republican in Congress to break ranks publicly with President Bush over the president’s plan to give a company in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, control of six American ports. Mr. King joined Democrats in calling the port deal a potential threat to national security, and the deal eventually collapsed.

Mr. King also opposed the plan to build an Islamic center near ground zero, urging the developers of the project to meet with 9/11 families to identify a more appropriate location for the center.

“This is such a raw wound, and they are just pouring salt into it,” he said, referring to the developers of the proposed Islamic center.

Mr. King, who has conveyed his intentions to Republican leaders in the House, said he would seek comment from mainstream Muslim leaders so that the hearings he was planning to hold were not one-sided, with only people critical of Muslims.

But Mr. King suggested that Muslim leaders had minimized the extent of the problem he said he had identified. “They try to tell me that it is not as bad as it seems,” he said.

Arundhati Roy and Kashmir’s struggle for justice

Murtaza Shibli

The news that the prize-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy may be arrested for her remarks about Kashmir is not surprising. It is a sign of growing Indian intolerance towards the issue. During the current phase of the Kashmiri intifada, the only Indian response to Kashmiri demands for justice and self-determination has been the use of overwhelming military force. More than 112 civilians – mostly youths – have been killed and several thousand injured, mainly by the Indian military and paramilitary.

The current unrest in Kashmir has met with an increasingly brutal response from the Indian military.

In the absence of strong international criticism, the Indian state has been emboldened to crush any dissent or demands of justice ferociously. Intimidating Kashmiri civil society has always been part of the standard Indian response, but it has grown exponentially over the last few months. In early July, the police arrested Mian Qayoom, president of the Kashmir Bar Association (the main lawyers’ body), for protesting against human rights violations. He was arrested under the draconian Public Safety Act, which authorises incarceration for up to two years if the authorities feel that the detainee may disturb peace and order or threaten the security of the state.

Several other human rights activists, such as Ghulam Nabi Shaheen and political workers remain behind bars, along with hundreds of Kashmiri youths who have been detained for offences such as throwing stones at gun-toting Indian armed forces.

Frustrated by having to treat the mounting casualties amid curfew restrictions and with dwindling medical supplies, a group of doctors at the government medical college in Srinagar staged a peaceful sit-in – only to be accused by the police of various “offences” including rioting and “disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant”. The police also accused them of inciting people and using “anti-national slogans”. The largest local newspaper, Greater Kashmir, lamented that creating an atmosphere of intimidation in this way “speaks of the mindset that always contributed to the worsening of the situation”. It continued: “Rather than establishing a connect with its people and knowing from them what has gone wrong and how can it be corrected, government, by initiating such actions against people, is only pushing the situation towards worse.”

From the very beginning of the current unrest, the government adopted the policy of restricting journalists reporting on demonstrations and brutal government responses. The Indian army and paramilitary forces beat several journalists, refused to respect their curfew passes and even forced closure of leading newspapers as their offices remained locked and the journalists were denied access. In one such incident in July this year, 12 photojournalists working for local, national and international publications suffered serious injuries from security forces trying to stop them recording the demonstrations. One of the BBC’s Urdu service journalists, Riaz Masroor, was stopped and beaten by police as he went to collect his curfew pass on 9 July. According the BBC, he suffered a fractured arm.

In September, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) renewed its call to allow Kashmiri journalists to cover the unrest. This is how Anuradha Bhasin, the executive editor of the Kashmir Times, described the situation to me in an email in September: “The level of intimidation is so high that many reporters have been forcibly doing table [desk-based] stories, mainly operating from the homes. And as an editor, sometimes, even I find that a safer arrangement, given the vulnerability of the reporters in simply stepping out of their homes”.

The current phase of intifada has deeply exposed Indian vulnerability in Kashmir. In absence of any Pakistani support to the new generation of Kashmiris, Indian claims to blame Pakistan, Islamic terrorism and Lashkar-e-Taiba have lost credibility even among its own population.

This has provoked several newspaper reports and opinion articles by Indian journalists and commentators that not only question India’s brutal tactics but also have shown sympathy to Kashmiri demands. It has created what Roy rightly describes as “panic about many voices”, and the threat of charging her with sedition, she says, “is meant to frighten the civil rights groups and young journalists into keeping quiet”.

As the “ISI or Laskhar-e-Taiba” theory of the protests becomes increasingly untenable, Kashmiri demands are finding greater resonance within Indian civil society. The threat to Roy may be a crude attempt to prevent such criticism from gathering momentum at a time when Barack Obama is planning a visit to India next month. India is determined to keep Kashmir out of the picture and, to achieve this, intimidation and terror against Kashmiris has already entered another phase.

Malik sees global plot to destabilise Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Wednesday said in the Senate that Pakistan was being destabilized under a well-planned international conspiracy because it was an Islamic state and a nuclear power.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Interior, Senator A. Rehman Malik talking to the media persons outside Parliament House

Winding up the debate on the law and order situation in the Senate, with particular reference to Karachi, the minister said foreign intelligence agencies trained the Pakistanis and used them for attacks in Pakistan and abroad to advance their agenda. “They also try to pit one sect against another in the country,” he said.

On the last day of discussion on the Karachi situation, the minister had to face strong criticism from the opposition senators, particularly from Professor Khurshid Ahmad and Sajid Mir, who said that the government itself was facilitating foreign hands as they referred to issuance of visas to nationals of a third country in Dubai.

During his speech, Rehman Malik also claimed that the law and order situation was improving with reduction in incidents of target killings in Karachi and Quetta.

He said a decision was taken to take action in six police stations of Quetta, which were no-go areas and as a result 103 proclaimed offenders, 97 target killers and 60 absconders were arrested and since then there had been no incident of target killing in Quetta city.

The minister offered that a fact-finding mission should be sent to determine whether the FC was in any way involved in the Panjgur incident. He said he was also ready for a judicial inquiry or inquiry within the Senate.

The interior minister said the poor law and order situation in Karachi was mainly because of political polarization and the government, including the president and the prime minister, were trying to resolve it. He said there were also other factors of unrest and violent incidents in the city like economic pressure, drug and land mafia.

Rehman Malik said he never talked about initiation of a Swat and Malakand-like operation in Balochistan. About the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, he said the province was a frontline region in the war on terror and suffered heavily both in terms of life and property. He, however, said the situation had improved as a consequence of the operations launched by the Army and law enforcing agencies and now life had returned to normal in the troubled areas.

The interior minister said the government was following the 3-D policy, which was working well. He said the government was pursuing the policy of reconciliation but it could not talk to those who trampled the Islamic teachings by indulging in acts of terrorism.

He said it was the duty of the government to protect life and property of citizens but it was the nation’s collective responsibility to sit together and formulate an effective strategy. He said he was ready to give an in-camera briefing to parliament so that the members might have an idea what actually was happening.

About issuance of visas to nationals of a third country in Dubai, the minister said the visas were issued within rules. “How the visas can be refused when there was nothing wrong with passports and applicants themselves,” he asked.

Professor Khurshid said that Pakistan government should find ways to come out of the war on terror as it had resulted in insecurity and deterioration of the law and order situation in the country. He regretted that incidents of target killings were continuing in Karachi despite assurances from the interior minister. “The government is not alive and sensitive to the law and order situation, particularly in Karachi and Balochistan,” the JI senator observed. He said culprits were receiving patronage from politicians.

Professor Khurshid said all was not good with the lower judiciary and the masses were not getting speedy justice from there. “The improvement in the working of the Supreme Court and high courts should also trickle down to the lower judiciary,” he said.

Senator Sajid Mir of the PML-N said the statements of rulers about improvement in the law and order situation and their assurances in this connection were baseless.

He said the government itself was facilitating enemies of the country and in this connection he referred to the issuance of visas to nationals of a third country in Dubai. “Such an attitude and presence of foreign agents in the country will deteriorate the law and order situation,” he said.

He observed that incidents of terrorism in the country could not be controlled till the time the US forces and Indians were present in Afghanistan.

Maulana Abdul Rasheed asked the interior minister to apprise the House of the actual reasons behind the acts of terrorism and target killings.

NNI adds: Rehman Malik said that violation of Pakistan’s territorial integrity by any country would not be allowed and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani would raise the issue with the US.

Talking to the media outside the Parliament House, Rehman Malik said that Pakistan registered a protest with the US, Nato and Afghanistan over transgression of its territory. He said that an investigation was underway and a report in this regard would be made public soon.

Earlier, Malik told the National Assembly that Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s brother had appealed in US Supreme Court against his sister’s 86-year conviction. He said the US did not fulfill legalities of the case. He also asserted that the concerned lawyers did not defend the case as was expected from them.

Talking about his meeting with Dr Fauzia Siddiqui, the minister said Dr Aafia’s family was not seeking any assistance from the government. However, he confirmed the family was being provided all kinds of legal and monetary assistance.

Amnesty condemns India arrest of Kashmiri lawyers

WORLD BULLETIN

A leading human rights body condemned the Indian authorities over detention of two Kashmiri lawyers, according to a Kashmiri news report said.

A leading human rights body condemned the Indian authorities over detention of two leading Kashmiri lawyers and asked an immediate release of them, according to a Kashmiri news report said.

Amnesty International has condemned the arrest of Mian Abdul Qayoom, the president of the Kashmir Bar Association, and Ghulam Nabi Shaheen, the President and Secretary of the High Court Bar Association of Kashmir as an attempt to “stifle legitimate and peaceful protest” in the restive region.

The lawyers arrested respectively on unspecified charges of encouraging pro-freedom activity against India.

They were booked under a Public Safety Act that allows for detention of up to two years without charge or trial on the presumption that so-called future acts harmful to the state may be committed.

The state government must “immediately end the preventive detention” of both lawyers,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty International Zarifi said in a statement posted late Wednesday on Amnesty’s website.

“Children at risk of arrest”

Meanwhile, in New York, Human Rights Watch has said that hundreds of children were at risk of arbitrary arrests in occupied Kashmir.

Killing of two Kashmiri boys by Indian troops during the pro-independent protests sparked a new vawe of anti-India demonstrations on June 11.

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia Director, was quoted as saying that the authorities in Kashmir needed to comply with international law and give special attention to the requirements of the children.

Indian troops killed two more Kashmiri youth and an unnidentified gunmen tortured to death a civilian after abducting him from his house in another district.

In June, 33 Kashmiri men were killed, including 4 children, according to Kashmir Media Service.

Pakistani student Britain couldn’t deport was ‘involved in planning attack in US’

By Duncan Gardham

A suspected terrorist who Britain is unable to deport has been arrested on suspicion of plotting to bomb New York’s underground system.

A US warrant was issued for Abid Naseer, who is accused of helping an al-Qaeda cell planning suicide bomb attacks in the city.

Naseer was arrested on Wednesday in Middlesbrough, sources said, and the US authorities have requested he is extradited for trial.

He was among a group of 12 men arrested in Manchester last year accused of plotting to blow up shopping centres, but was never charged. Naseer, 24, was subsequently released and is thought to have been put under a control order and electronically tagged. In May the Special Immigration and Appeals Commission ruled that he was connected to al-Qaeda but could not be deported back to Pakistan on human rights grounds.

However, US authorities believe he stockpiled July 7-style bomb making materials for the planned attack in Manchester. The same type of material was to be used in the thwarted bomb attacks on the New York Metro.

He is also believed to have been in touch with the same senior al-Qaeda commanders.

The US Department of Justice (USDoJ) said the American plot was “directly related to a scheme by al-Qaeda plotters in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United Kingdom.”

Naseer is accused of providing material support to al-Qaeda and conspiracy to use a firearm in New York and elsewhere.

According to a US statement, “large quantities of flour and oil were found” when Naseer’s address in Cheetham Hill, Manchester was raided by police.

The operation, codenamed Pathway, had to be brought forward 24 hours after Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick was photographed entering Downing Street to brief the Prime Minister with details of the raids visible.

Two members of the US cell, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty to planning to conduct suicide bombings in New York using improvised explosive devices made from supplies such as hydrogen peroxide, acetone, flour and oil – ingredients similar to those used in the July 7 attacks five years ago.

In other addresses, Greater Manchester Police allegedly found surveillance photographs of public areas in Manchester – thought to be the Arndale shopping centre – and maps of Manchester’s city centre posted on the wall with one of the locations from the surveillance photographs highlighted.

Another student called Tariq ur-Rehman who returned to Pakistan after he was released from British custody, was allegedly recruited at the same time. The US Department of Justice said ur-Rehman was not in custody.

A US indictment says Naseer and ur-Rehman were members of a terrorist cell coordinated by Rashid Rauf – a British al-Qaeda commander who was also involved in the July 7 attacks of 2005.

Rauf is thought to have been killed in Pakistan by a missile from a US drone in November 2008 but according to the indictment the plot was also allegedly directed by Adnan el-Shukrijumah, known as “Hamad”, a 34-year-old Saudi citizen with a $5m price on his head from the FBI, and Saleh al-Somali, another al-Qaeda commander.

All three were said by the US to be leaders of al-Qaeda’s “external operations programme”.

The students were allegedly recruited in Peshawar, Pakistan in November 2008 along with the leader of the US plot, Najibullah Zazi.

After returning to Britain, Naseer allegedly sent emails to the same account that a man calling himself Sohaib, but also known as Ahmad and Zahid, was using to communicate with the US cell on behalf of al-Somali.

The Daily Telegraph previously reported that MI5 tipped off the FBI about the US plot and published the emails that used the names of girls as code words for bomb-making ingredients and a wedding to refer to the planned attack between April 15 and 20 last year.

Zazi had agreed a similar code, the Americans say, and emailed Sohaib that the “marriage is ready” just before he left Colorado for New York City in early September last year.

Indian army’s atrocities in Kashmir

The recent incident in which a serving India Army Major from 4 Rajput Regiment assigned a Special Police Officer (SPO) to trap three unsuspecting youth from Nadihal village to Indian Army Camp in Jammu & Kashmir, on the promise of jobs and money but were murdered. Later they were projected as hard core militant. This is not the first incident of its kind as there are over 800 such incident so far reported Kashmiris are suffering since 1935, first it was Dogra Army under the patronage of British imperialists and now Indian Army has taken the charge. If we recall, on March 20, 2000, Indian media projected that a group of Lashkar-e-Tayyiaba (LeT) militants massacred 35 Sikhs in the village of Chittisinghpora in Anantnag district. In a mere five days, the Indian Army claimed that elements of its Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police killed all the five foreign militants involved in the incident in a joint operation at a place called Pathribal. Ironically, Army claimed that bodies off the entire militant were burnt to unrecognizable degree and have been buried in a mass grave. Interestingly, it came to light at a later stage that elements of RR had killed the Sikhs to spread communal hatred among the Kashmiris. In the mean time, immediately after the massacre of the Sikhs, five local Kashmiris got missing. Their relatives also lodged report in the Anantnag police station about the disappearance but after the publication of news about Army operation in which five militants were killed, the relative requested for exhumation of the bodies. Interestingly, the family members and the villagers identified the bodies and reveled that they were simple people and had nothing to do with militancy or LeT.

It is generally observed that the Politicians in New Delhi usually get disturbed over the reaction of Kashmiri leaders over pity issues. They view that when Indian centre has already done enough for the development of Jammu and Kashmir state then why majority of the Kashmiris are not satisfied and look for opportunities to protest and create law and order situation. One would like to remind them pre-independence period when Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and other communities in India were doing the same to get rid of the imperialist intruders. Today there is a clear message for India to get out of Jammu and Kashmir state. One wonders that if New Delhi has any doubt in its mind, Kashmiri Hindu Pandits and Sikhs may be asked whether they would like to become part of India or otherwise. If in India failed to attract Hindu and Sikh minorities living in Jammu and Kashmir state to become part of Indian union, New Delhi should not have any doubt about the Kashmiri Muslim majority. It is open like a book that majority of Kashmiris want to join Pakistan while a small percentage look for complete independence.

It is sad to observe that despite all the advertisement about Human Rights and presence of International law and statues like Hague and Geneva Conventions, no action has been taken against Indian Army. One wonders why so far no one is able to file case against the Indian Army for committing war crimes. In this civilized world, the genocide of Kashmiris is openly taking place by Indian security forces and its intelligence units but no one is there to stop them. The notorious Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is being used as a shield by Indian authorities to provide indemnification to war criminals for their atrocities committed in the line of duty, or so called good faith. Last week, top Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was arrested from special prayer meeting convened by him at Hazratbal Shrine and is booked under section 151 and 107. He is presently confined at Central Jail Srinagar. The highhandedness of Indian authorities can be judged from the fact that Syed Ali Geelani was also arrested last month and released under court orders but he has been again arrested. It worth mentioning that Indian authorities are waiting for the deaths of top Kashmiri leaders like Syed Ali Geelani so there is no one to take the name of Kashmir Movement.

However, the people of Pakistan including people of Jammu and Kashmir pray for their long life and life of sons and daughters of leader like Syed Ali Geelani. Kashmiris throughout the state are observing “Bandh” and protests. All shops, markets and business centres remained closed and traffic was off the roads. Protesters pelted stones on security forces but Indian authorities instead of realizing their crimes started using coercive methods to bring things back to normal. The recent brutalities by the Indian forces are yet another example how India has been dealing with Kashmiris since 1931.