NATO truckers under probe for sabotage

By Manzoor Ali

Police in Nowshera district are investigating five cases in connection with the recent upsurge in attacks on NATO supply trucks.

The skeleton of a burnt Nato oil tanker near a police observation point in Nowshera district.

Authorities responsible for carrying out the investigation suspect that NATO tanker drivers and transporters themselves could possibly have been involved in sabotage. Allegations that transporters themselves were involved in these attacks have been made earlier, but this is the first time that authorities are formally investigating such complaints.

Police in Nowshera said that two such cases were under investigation by the Pabbi police station, while three others were being investigated by the Azakhel police station. At least four people are in custody and an FIR has been registered against the owner and driver of a NATO tanker that had been attacked in the area.

A senior police official told The Express Tribune that circumstantial evidence raised their suspicions. In the majority of cases, drivers and cleaners escape from the scene soon after the attack rather than informing the police about the incident, the official said.

Transporters’ frustrations

A tanker driver requesting anonymity also said such sabotage incidents take place. ‘Authorities allow only 30 to 40 tankers to cross into Afghanistan from the Takhta Baig checkpost and the others are made to return to Mianwali. If in the meanwhile their permits expire, they are stranded for a long time.’

Some of the drivers who are tired of this going back and forth may have sabotaged their own vehicles, although other people may have been involved, he added.

PNS Mehran — how many attackers?

The filing of the FIR by the Pakistan Navy in the PNS Mehran case seems to suggest that the civilian and military authorities are not on the same page regarding possibly the worst attack ever on our armed forces. While the government, through the interior minister, has said that terrorists were part of the attack, and of these two may have escaped, the FIR, filed in Karachi on May 24, states that between 10 to 12 people stormed the naval base, out of which only four were killed while the rest escaped. This discrepancy may seem minor, especially when compared to the massive intelligence failure that permitted such an attack to be successfully pulled off, but by now the authorities should have known how many people were involved in the attack, what their names were and where they lived, given that the attack wasn’t something that happened and was over in a flash butlasted almost 17 hours. That they can’t even agree on the number of attackers shows that an investigation has barely begun and this will only serve to embolden the militants.

Flames and smokes belches out from a Pakistani military air base after an attack by militants in Karachi on May 22, 2011. Militants stormed one of Pakistan’s biggest military bases in the country’s largest city late May 22, At least 10 people were wounded as blasts and gunshots rang out at the sprawling base used by the Air Force and Navy in the centre of Karachi.

The ease with which military installations were attacked and how, according to a BBC report, the attackers knew, for instance, the barracks where Chinese engineers were being housed, hints at some kind of collusion or help from the inside. Those who may have sympathy for the cause of the terrorists may be in low-level positionsbut they need to be identified and removed from the services. Another internal inquiry, which is what the government has promised, will not suffice since these may be less concerned with gathering information and more with hiding failures.

What is needed even more than independent enquiries is an improvement in the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the agencies. Even if they do not support militant groups now, we know that the military used them as part of their Kashmir and Afghanistan policies of the 1990s. This alone should be a huge advantage in gathering intelligence about them. Without knowing where militant groups are going to attack in advance, the agencies all but ensure they will attack often and successfully.

Davis CIA’s acting chief in Pakistan?

LAHORE - Raymond Allen Davis, who killed two Pakistanis last month in the provincial capital, is second-in-comm-and to Jonathan Banks, the former station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Islamabad, The Nation has learnt.

Well-placed sources said that the highly-trained operative of the CIA was the second important man of the CIA in Pakistan after ex-station chief Jonathan Banks who left Pakistan after his cover was blown. Banks left Islamabad when Karim Khan, a resident of North Waziristan, submitted an application at the Secretariat Police Station, Islamabad for a FIR against the CIA station chief for the killing of Karim’s brother and son in one of the drone attacks directed by the CIA boss in Pakistan.

The sources said that Davis could be called the deputy station chief of the CIA in Pakistan, or the acting station chief.

They said that after Banks left the federal capital, Davis assumed the charge of his office by carrying out all the tasks previously under the domain of his boss, including gathering information for drone attacks. The sources said that one of the main tasks of Davis was to keep CIA network intact in the tribal agencies as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Establishing their point regarding Davis, the sources said that the detained killer of Pakistanis demanded ‘naswar’ in jail, which reflects he visited the KP frequently. He also speaks the local languages and has complete information about the cultures being practised in all the provinces.

The sources said that monitoring and assisting other operatives gathering information about religious and rightwing organisations, especially those who take a sharp line against the US or India, was also on Davis’ duty list.

The sources said it is believed that the US operative was establishing a local network for the CIA in Pakistan by recruiting the locals through various front organisations, of which some were launched in Pakistan and some from other friendly countries of the US in the western world.

The sources said that Davis was trying to establish a local CIA network in Punjab, mainly in the southern parts of the province.

To a query, the sources said that security services were ready to thwart any conspiracy against the country hatched locally or internationally. The security agencies always exposed the enemies of the state and averted several threats to the security and integrity of the country, the sources added.

Monitoring Desk adds: US national Raymond Davis contacted his family members back in American and talked with them for 12 minutes, reported a private TV channel Sunday.

Davis told them the situation and asked them to pray for his release. He said to his family members not to worry about him but only pray for him. He said, “I have committed a mistake, and I have realized it.”

After talking to his family members on the phone, Davis became sad and didn’t even eat chocolates and drinks the US Consulate sent for him.

Shershah scrap market carnage: As no one comes forward to testify, 9 men walk free

By Zeeshan Mujahid

KARACHI: Nine suspects, who had allegedly confessed to being involved in the Shershah market carnage, were acquitted on Wednesday because of a lack of evidence and witness testimony.

File photo of rangers around the market after the attack on Shershah market.

Justice Sajjad Ali Shah of the Sindh High Court, in his capacity as the administrative judge for the Anti-Terrorism Courts of the Karachi division, ordered their release after even the case’s complainant failed to identify any of them.

He had named Muhammad Tufail, Abid Ali, Asghar Ali, Tahseen, Abdul Rasheed, Johar, M Aijaz, M Iqbal and Muhammad Akbar in the case.

Thirteen workers and owners of shops in the Shershah scrap market were killed on October 19, 2010, when unidentified men on motorcycles opened indiscriminate fire in the market. Six shopkeepers, Kashif, Arsalaan, Rashid, Zeeshan, Arif and Imran, were injured.

On Wednesday, the accused men were produced before the judge by the investigation officer, who wanted more time to question them, arguing that they were not cooperating and had not confessed any connection to the crime.

The man who registered the case, Muhammad Nafees, was in court because of orders passed on January 19.

At the last hearing, the court had ordered for a joint interrogation team to submit a report. It was presented to the judge on Wednesday. When the judge asked Muhammad Nafees to identify the accused men present in custody, he said he had never seen them before and they were complete strangers.

Rao M Sharif, counsel for the complainant assisting the Special Public Prosecutor, said the complainant was not identifying the men because he was scared. If their remand were extended, we may discover something more, he added.

The bench declined the request, however, and ordered the release of all the men accused in the case.

Neither was any material connecting the accused to commission of the said crime placed on the record nor was an identification parade carried out and since all the accused were named with parentage, therefore the attendance of the complainant was directed.

The IO stated that despite all efforts by him none of the witnesses was ready to identify any of the accused.

The halfhearted request for the extension of remand by the IO was without any purpose, the AJ said in his detailed order.

He then directed the police to release the accused men under section 497 (2) of the CrPC after they furnish personal bonds before the IO.

Case history

An FIR was registered on October 20, on the basis of a written statement by complainant, Muhammad Nafees.

The Gulbahar police first arrested Lal Muhammad Magsi and later nominated Aslam Pervez, Shafi Muhammad and Nawaz.

The nine accused men acquitted on Wednesday had voluntarily surrendered before the Special Investigation Unit earlier this month while three others, Hameed alias Mulla Raju, Noor Muhammad alias Baba Ladla and Rashid, are still absconding.

Talking to the media on Wednesday, one of the acquitted men said that they are all poor workers in the graveyard adjacent to the place of the attack (Mewashah graveyard). We are not part of the alleged Lyari gang, he added.

Special Public Prosecutor Arshad Cheema said that the accused have been exonerated for want of evidence but they can face a trial if any investigator manages to find evidence against them. He said that the state should have been the complainant in this case rather than an individual person.

To another question on whether an order was passed against the complainant for lodging a false FIR, Cheema said that if at any stage it was proved that the FIR was false, prosecution under Section 173 of the CrPC would be initiated against the complainant.

Taliban are official in Punjab now

By Umar Cheema

ISLAMABAD: Though the provincial government is in a state of denial, the Punjab Police have officially admitted for the first time the movement of the Taliban, their network in district Jhang and southern Punjab and their fund-raising and recruitment drive in the province.

The Jhang city police have filed an FIR, the first-ever in the Punjab, which is a severe indictment of the provincial government. The FIR No 320, registered under 11 F/7 Anti-Terrorist Act by the police itself on the basis of their human intelligence, depicts the grim realities of Talibanisation in the Punjab.

The criminal report filed against the district head of a defunct organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad, discloses that Taliban commanders often come to the city on their way to southern Punjab as the network of Tehrik-e-Taliban is fast expanding in the region. SHO Kotwali Police Station (Jhang city) confirmed to The News the FIR, a copy of which is available with this correspondent, but was reluctant to go into the details. The DPO Jhang and the IG Punjab were not available for comments despite repeated calls and messages.

Jhang, the hotbed of sectarianism, is the hometown of the provincial police chief, Tariq Saleem Dogar. A recent World Bank report has found negligible development spending in the district, Rs 300 per person as compared to Lahore’s Rs 35,000 per person.

The Punjab government has always denied the presence of the Taliban network in the southern belt. The DG Rangers, who once dropped hint of their existence, was contradicted by provincial law minister, Rana Sanaullah, who had formed an electoral alliance with a defunct organisation in a by-election, ran campaign together with their top leader, and released the most dangerous sectarian militants as part of a deal.

The FIR and police intelligence reports indicate the Taliban are thriving in the region. The recruitment drive has also been launched recently in some religious schools. The FIR is registered against Dr. Imran, former head of Jaish-e-Mohammad in district Jhang, who has been accused of recently hosting a prominent Taliban commander carrying head money of Rs 10 million. It says Dr. Imran “runs the network of Tehreek-e-Taliban and Taliban would often come to see him on their way to other districts of South Punjab.” He has also been accused of involvement in fundraising.

The FIR is based on police intelligence that presents far more pessimistic picture than what has been reported in the FIR. The intelligence report indicates that the district head of Toba Tek Singh is a former gunman of Osama bin Laden and a driving force behind the network’s expansion in the southern belt. The Taliban commander mentioned in the FIR without name is Commander Qari Matiullah alias commander Abdul Samad, said a police officer.

According to the police intelligence, Taliban leaders frequent a number of seminaries in Jhang. An under-construction seminary in Jhang district serves as a meeting point of the Taliban leadership. Three other seminaries run by their sympathisers have launched a drive to recruit youth for training in the tribal area, says the report. Mentioning the discussion in a recent meeting held on May 1 in a seminary located in Jhang city, a police source said the religious leaders who spoke on the occasion urged the need for reviving the spirit of 1985 when a war was fought against the Afghan rulers. Jhang and other districts of central and South Punjab are now the main target of Taliban, said a police officer who cited under-development as the reason why such networks thrive. A recent World Bank report has found that the southern belt is the last priority in terms of development by the Punjab government as neither it is ready for fighting militancy nor investing in development.

A Taliban sympathiser, however, claimed that Taliban are fighting against the killers of innocent people. He said innocent people were being killed in the name of war against terror. He said anyone whose mother or children were killed was bound to take up weapons. He said Taliban were not terrorists but wanted implementation of Sharia laws.

Multibillion dollar ISAF smuggling racket exposed

Customs staff made millions

By Ikram Hoti

ISLAMABAD: Authorities in Islamabad have finally uncovered the ingenious working of the international smuggling syndicate, which had dodged the system to evade a minimum of Rs 1 billion a day (unbelievable as it may sound) in duties and taxes by clearing their containers load of shipments at Karachi Port, at the Amangarh Customs Station Nowshera, and at the Torkham Pak-Afghan border.

The modus operandi was innovatively simple. This syndicate first got itself entrenched in the Customs staff at upper and the lower levels on these stations; then it produced forged documents showing their smuggled goods shipments as ISAF consignments; then more fake documents were submitted showing the same as Afghan Transit Trade consignments; and, finally Customs staff were heavily bribed to prove on the ledgers that all these transactions were clean as a whistle.

The Customs Intelligence Director General (CIDG) Lutfullah Virk last month told The News that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had set up a committee of examiners at the highest levels to make an effort and arrive at some fair conclusion on the findings of the CIDG staff on 1,007 missing containers declared as consignments of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) meant to be transported to Afghanistan via Pakistan Customs in Karachi, Amangarh and Torkham.

Out of these, 42 containers had been located and FIRs had duly been lodged at Peshawar. Collector Customs Peshawar, Nasir Khan told The News that his office was the first to have lodged an FIR in this connection against two lower level officials.

In the investigations conducted so far, it has transpired that the action was too little and too late. The criminal activity actually started at Amangarh and Torkham a couple of years ago and has been perpetrated not just at the lower levels but touches the highest ranks as well.

The Peshawar Customs knew all along that the smugglers had been faking the ISAF papers and double-declaring their consignments for smuggling: after showing them as ISAF shipment at Karachi and then as Afghan Transit Trade goods at Amangarh.

When the CIDG smelled a rat in this activity and launched inquiries a couple of months ago, his staff was provided with the proof by the Torkham Customs staff that the ISAF-declared containers had actually crossed the Pak-Afghan borders and there had been no faking of papers or double-documenting the consignments for smuggling.

The proof was on the Goods-Declaration papers, on which signatures of the lower and higher officials on duty had been acquired, to show that the ISAF-declared consignments did cross the border and none of them were rerouted to Peshawar for marketing the goods imported under the ISAF-ATT double covers. When the CIDG staff at Peshawar launched a signature-reconciliation process, the officials who were reported to have allowed the clearance refused to accept that these were their signatures, or that they had anything to do with rerouting these consignments into Pakistan.

Suspecting bigger than routine theft, the CIDG launched a Karachi-Amangarh-Torkham reconciliation of Goods-Declaration papers on ISAF and Transit Trade consignments, and it surfaced that there did exist a Customs gang in Peshawar that perpetrated the crime in close coordination with the international syndicates and the customs station staffs.

Further inquiries also revealed that there had been quarrels among higher position officers in Peshawar over their ‘share’ in speed money and ‘commission’ on clearing the smuggled goods under the ISAF-ATT cover. These quarrels became known to the CIDG staffs at Peshawar, who duly reported them to the CIDG.

In a latest move, these higher level officials are being directed to appear before the investigating committee and explain their position and if found involved in this racket, their cases might be referred to the chairman FBR for fixation of penalty, which could be removal from service, demotion, and even FIRs against them for supervising an international racket of smuggling misusing the international antiterrorism forces’ cover of consignments.

Evangelist Amit Killed during RSS attack in Madhya Pradesh

By: Itarsi

Amit Gilbert 25 years old was a M Div student in the Itarsi Fellowship Churchs Bible college.He went to attend a covention on 17th April’10 at 8:30 p.m organised by Pastor Santanan Lal in a village called Salapur, 40 kilometers from Betul District of Madhya Pradesh. While the meting was on, around 15 RSS people barged into the Christian meeting of around 400 people attending. The attackers first destroyed the Bibles and cassette tapes kept in the book stall in the premises then they started breaking the tube lights with huge sticks and then it became dark and then started attacking the believers and others who came to attend the meeting.

In the meanwhile everyone started running in different directions and Amit Gilbert also started running for his life ,as he ran in the dark there was an open well as found in the villages here and it is said that Amit fell into it which had one and a half meter water he hit his head on the edge ( a section of the villagers believe that the radicals threw him in the well) His brothers found Amit missing they started searching [the RSS people left the scene after 20 minutes] later they found his dead body in the well then police from Sarni police station came and took his body out.Amits body is in the MPEB hospital Sarni his post mortem will be done. Cremation may take place on 10th April. FIR has beeen lodged in the Sarni police station. Please pray for the family members and relatives of Amit.

Back to the brink

Kashmir Times

Ominous signs of reverting back to the suicidal strong-arm policy

Paradoxically, while Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has been asking the Union government to resume dialogue with the separatist leaders to  resolve the prolonged crisis , offering to act as a facilitator, his government appears to be re-embarking on a course of confrontation.
There are ominous signs of reverting back to the suicidal policy of strong-arm methods to deal with the alienated sections of he
population , suppress their urges and aspirations and silence every voice of dissent. The policy of “healing touch” initiated
by the PDP-Congress coalition in 2002, which paid some dividends in creating a relaxed atmosphere and bridging to some extent the
prevailing trust-deficit , despite its half-hearted implementation, seems to have been abandoned in favour of a policy of repression and
political vendetta, which in the past had proved counter-productive. Instead of taking further steps to build bridges of understandings
with the separatist leaders for resuming a meaningful dialogue to find a peaceful solution to the problem, the State administration is
sparing no efforts to rub salt on the past wounds instead of applying any healing touch. The arrests of a number of separatist leaders
under the infamous Public Safety Act without any rhyme and reason, refusal to set them free despite the courts quashing their detentions
, putting senior Hurriet leaders like Ali Shah Geelani frequently under house arrest or denying free movements to other leaders like
Yasin Malik and their right to hold rallies, make it obvious that the State government is bent upon closing all the doors for
negotiations and pushing the separatist leaders to the walls. The latest case in this regard is the remanding of the senior Hurriet and
Democratic Freedom Party leader Shabir Shah to CIK custody in a 19 year old case on the basis of an FIR in which Shah along with Syed
Ali Geelani, Prof Abdul Ghani Bhat and late Abdul Ghani Lone were accused of ” instigating youth to take arms training across the
Line of Control ” in 1991. Shah , who had earlier been ordered to be released by the High Court , quashing his detention under PSA,
has been in jail for the past several months . Instead of setting him free , in compliance of the court verdict, the State authorities ,
as a matter of political vengeance and lack of faith in democratic norms, have now invoked an obsolete and absurd FIR to keep him behind
bars. This despite the fact that Shah was incarcerated in Jodhpur jail from 1989 ( when he was arrested) to 1994 , making the FIR lodged
against him 1991 as baseless .

Tragically, at a time when there was need to pursue the policy of healing touch more vigorously for creating a climate of trust, needed
for resuming the desired dialogue process, the state rulers are embarking on a path of confrontation . A large number of separatist
leaders and activists are involved in a number of such cases filed against them since the launching of their violent struggle for azadi
. Inexplicably, even after their release from prisons these cases against them have not been withdrawn. They have to frequently appear
before the courts outside Kashmir valley causing them avoidable inconvenience nad hardships which naturally adds to their bitterness .
Withdrawal of all these cases along with the release of all other political prisoners languishing in jails for years, could have been a
major confidence building measure. There were several other ways for creating a climate of trust necessary for pursuing any meaningful
process of dialogue to find a peaceful solution to the Kashmir problem. There has been no let up on the human rights front with the
authorities failing to strengthen institutional mechanism for bringing the culprits to book. At a time when there was a need to heal the
past wounds for overcoming trust-deficit those at the helm have embarked upon a course of confrontation not only with the separatists
but also with the mainstream opposition and other critics of the government policies and actions. The present government has even backed
out from its commitment made while assuming office like the removal of troops from the civilian areas, repeal of draconian Armed Forces
Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and restoration of people’s civil liberties. The State Government has not even bothered to implement some
of the recommendations made by the group constituted by the Prime Minister on the Confidence Building Measures and Human Rights headed
by M.H.Ansari, presently Vice President of India . The present policy of confrontation can only obstruct rather than facilitating the
process of dialogue so necessary for breaking the logjam.