Category: Terrorism

Iron Man, SP Khan, the lead character of the Bollywood movie Shootout at Lokhandwala and our own late Sultan Rahi of Maula Jatt fame; my friend, Chaudhry Aslam has been compared with all of these. However, the former three were merely fictional, while Aslam was the real character. After Friday prayers this week, in a leafy suburb of West London, prayers were said for his departed soul with everyone present uttering a louder than normal and heartfelt ‘ameen’ as if they all knew Aslam. This only proved that he had developed a global following, just like all these fictional heroes he has been compared with.

I can recall the early days when I got to know Aslam as a sub-inspector, serving under my late father Arif Jah Siddiqui in District Central, Karachi. Aslam had his first posting as SHO of the Gulbahar police station. Two things were very clear from the onset: he was devoted to eradicating crime and was fearless to a fault. He never had time to deal with the bureaucracy of police work — and believe me, there is a lot of it if you are responsible for a police station or a team. He would delegate all this to his trusted subordinates and instead, took up the onerous task of patrolling the roads and narrow lanes of his area. He always believed that if policemen were doing their jobs out in the open, people could see them and feel more secure, while criminals would think twice before committing a crime. His style was uncomplicated and that was the reason that officers and jawans developed a strong loyalty to him.

Aslam encountered many difficulties during his career; however, his morale was never subdued. He was imprisoned for more than a year and a half. Even during this period in Central Prison Karachi, whenever I visited him, he was in good spirits and this kept the morale of his fellow imprisoned officers and jawans high as well. He was a man with a big heart and took special care of his subordinates and their families, giving both his time and money generously to help them in their hour of difficulty. When he was bailed, he made sure that every member of his team was treated fairly. Finally, all of them were acquitted of the charges that had been levelled against them.

Despite getting rapid promotions, he never gave up frontline detective and investigative work. As a matter of routine, he would be busy all night, seeking information, planning surveillances, plotting raids and travelling to some of the most hostile parts of Sindh and Balochistan to assess the ground realities. This hard work and diligence made him a very successful police officer. He would delegate tasks but would never lose control. The junior officers knew that their boss was very much on the ground, so they had to do their jobs as thoroughly as possible.

The other aspect of his personality was his accessibility to everyone, including the vast network of his informers, journalists, colleagues and friends. He would answer his mobile directly, so much so that if anyone needed to meet him in his office, one would just need to call him on his mobile and he would ask the guard to allow the guest to come through the checkpost. He was a people’s man and had no desire for protocol, a secretariat or a posh office.

From the time he took command of the anti-extremist cell of the CID, he had to severely restrict his movements. Whenever, during my visits to Karachi, I went to see him, we would walk around the CID compound for hours exchanging notes. On occasions, I felt that he had huge pent-up energy, which needed to be released but he did not have the luxury to vent it like a normal person would, by freely moving around the city and socialising. On these instances, he came across as a lion in a cage, pacing the available space up and down.

Aslam had made many enemies, a negative fallout for all diligent police officers. The principal reason for this was that he was among the very few officers, who had the courage to take action against all types of criminal syndicates operating in Karachi. There have been some discussions about his approach towards eradication of crime. He has been marked as brutal and unforgiving. I question these commentators as they may not know the circumstances under which these officers are required to keep the average citizen safe and secure. They work on severely depleted resources, are under constant threat as are their loved ones and know that one wrong step can get them embroiled in litigation, and they may even end up facing imprisonment. Is there any other profession where a person takes on such enormous risks? One should not forget that the police service is merely a reflection of the society it serves and we fall far short of being an ideal society.

Aslam’s martyrdom is an international tragedy. His work has been instrumental in stopping large terrorist attacks in Pakistan and other countries. He delivered results at the frontline of the war on terror and in the end, gave his live in protecting innocent citizens, and eradicating crime and terror from this world.

I met him on January 31, 2013 at the funeral of another martyred officer. Little did I know that this would prove to be our last meeting. I pleaded strongly with him that he should take a break from this madness of fighting terrorism and come with me to the UK. He responded in his typical friendly style, “Aftab bhai would you take the whole of Karachi with you?” I said I could not do that but wanted him to come with me, and he said, “Bhai, don’t worry. I will be okay here,” and that was Aslam. I will always remember him as a man of high morale and a police officer dedicated to his profession to a fault.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2014.

December 27, 2013 marks the sixth anniversary of the murder of Benazir Bhutto and there is no indication that we are any closer to knowing on whose orders the killing was carried out. The PPP, led by Asif Ali Zardari, swept to a landslide victory in the election that followed her death, and it might have been expected that every resource at its disposal would have been deployed to catch those responsible. Little could be further from the reality. There was no post-mortem so there is no clear determination as to whether she died of gunshot wounds or the result of striking the door of the armoured hatchway of the armoured capsule she was in at the time — or possibly a combination of both. Whatever forensic evidence was on the scene was washed away within an hour of her murder and subsequent inquiries into her death have reached no clear conclusions either.

The UN report into the case, which had been demanded by former president Zardari, was sharply critical. It concluded that her death could have been prevented if appropriate security measures had been in place, and that the Scotland Yard forensic investigation team were gravely misled by the Pakistan police. The intelligence services were less than helpful and Rehman Malik, responsible for Benazir Bhutto’s security at the time, is said to have been unable to provide a straight answer to any of the UN team’s questions. The conclusion of this report was that the failure to properly investigate her death was deliberate and the conspiracy mill remains in uninformed overdrive. On the day she died, none of the agencies tasked with her protection were adequately discharging their duties and subsequent to her death, their investigation has been at best flawed, at worst deliberately hindered. The chances of ever getting to the truth fade almost by the day. Commemorative rallies and functions in celebration of the life of Benazir Bhutto are no substitute for an open and honest investigation. Going by the past six years we expect no early result.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2013.

Islamabad, Dec 19  — Health workers administering polio vaccinations came under fresh attack in Pakistan on  Wednesday, a troubling development in a nation that remains one of three in the world where the disease has yet to be eradicated.

Three workers were killed in separate attacks, a day after five others died in similar circumstances. All of them were part of a massive vaccination campaign nationwide. The attacks prompted authorities to suspend the campaign throughout the country.

— Two men opened fire on an 18-year-old worker as he was vaccinating children on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar. The worker died of bullet wounds to the head, said Dr. Janbaz Afridi, the provincial director of the polio campaign.

— Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying a vaccination campaign supervisor and her driver in Charsadda — killing them both.

— Also in Charsadda, two female workers narrowly escaped when some men began shooting at them.

— Three other female workers also escaped unhurt when they were shot at in Nowshera district.

All the attacks Wednesday took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province rife with Islamic extremists.

On Tuesday, five workers were killed: four in Karachi; and a 14-year-old volunteer in Peshawar as she and her sister were leaving a house after administering vaccines.

Pakistanis have viewed polio vaccination campaigns with suspicion after the CIA’s use of a fake vaccination program last year to collect DNA samples from residents of Osama bin Laden’s compound to verify the al Qaeda leader’s presence there.

Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in May 2011.

In June, a Taliban commander in northwest Pakistan announced a ban on polio vaccines for children in the region as long as the United States continues its campaign of drone strikes in the region, the Taliban said.

CNN was not able to reach the Taliban for comment regarding the latest attacks. Polio, a highly infectious viral disease that can cause permanent paralysis in a matter of hours, has been eradicated around the world except for three countries where it is endemic: Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan.

After the number of cases spiked sharply last year, Pakistan stepped up its eradication efforts. The numbers fell from 173 last year to 53 this year, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Karachi, Dec 10: In 2013, the people of Pakistan have remained at the mercy of state and non-state actors which resort to violence as a means to secure power, the Hong-Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) said on Monday.

The detailed report has been released to mark Human rights Day that falls on December 10 (today). Rights violations are widespread due to the failures of, and lack of reform in, the country’s institutional framework, in particular key institutions of the rule of law: the police, prosecution and judiciary, according to the report.

Throughout the year 2013, the AHRC has documented how too many lives, and the dignity of those living, have been snatched by a callous state and inhuman cruelty in Pakistan.“This year, absence of a functioning criminal justice framework has allowed, or even caused, torture in custody and extrajudicial executions to increase rapidly.

“During the year, hundreds of incidents of sectarian violence, targeted killings, terrorist attacks, and suicide bombings were witnessed, as well as killings conducted,” the report said.But that is not all. In 2013, the nation faced the promulgation of two draconian ordinances that have restricted freedoms further. It also witnessed the absence of the rule of law, killings of persons from Muslim minority sects, honour killings, trafficking of women and children, torture in custody, disappearance after arrest, and extrajudicial executions, suicide attacks on religious sites, persecution of the religious minorities, forced marriages, assassination of journalists, enslavement of children, poverty levels rising to 34 percent and power blackouts that brought industrial and commercial activities to a standstill, the report said.

The year 2013 also witnessed, for the first time in Pakistan’s history, peaceful transfer of power from one civil government to another following a general election. Every political party, including that which won the May 11 election with a two-thirds majority, complained about gross vote rigging.

“The new government, on assuming power, immediately began acting on its distaste for human rights. It merged the Ministry of Human Rights with the Ministry of Law and Justice, denying the people opportunity for redress for human rights abuses. The government has turned a blind eye to the arrogance of the police and armed forces in its refusal to comply with the orders of the courts,” the report said.

The government – in attempt to limit freedom of expression, freedom of movement, constitutional protection from arbitrary arrest, security of individuals, right to property, and civil liberty – promulgated two ordinances (Pakistan Protection Ordinance and an ordinance amending the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997). With these ordinances it has provided law enforcement and security agencies unlimited powers to search houses without warrant, shoot suspects on sight, confiscate property, tap telephones, and hack computers, and has established a parallel judiciary, creating special courts and special prosecution. These ordinances were promulgated to bypass parliament and open debate.

“Balochistan remains in a grave situation in 2013. Thousands of people are missing after arrest. Human rights abuse is the norm.,” the report said.

“In 2013, four hundred and fifty (450) persons disappeared after their arrest by the Frontier Corps (FC) and other forces in Balochistan. In Sindh province 35 persons disappeared this year; the number of disappeared for KPK province is 110 persons. In Pakistan-held Kashmir, nationalists struggling for independence of both India-held and Pakistan-held Kashmir disappeared constantly – 52 such persons disappeared after their arrest.”

“As many as 180 bullet-riddled bodies of Baloch missing persons have been found this year. In Sindh, during joint operations of Pakistan Rangers and Police, 53 persons were extra-judicially killed in vast numbers of encounters. In Karachi alone, 34 persons were killed in extra-judicial executions,” the report said.

“However, intelligence agencies brazenly ignore Supreme Court’s orders to produce the missing victims. Two judicial commissions established to probe cases of disappearances have been unable to get explanations from the intelligence agencies, and their recommendations have been ignored.”

The new head of the Pakistani Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah, has ruled out peace talks with the government, vowing revenge for his predecessor’s death.

A Taliban spokesman told the BBC the militants would instead target the military and the governing party.

Mullah Fazlullah was named the new leader six days after Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in a drone strike.

Mullah Fazlullah is a particularly ruthless commander whose men shot the schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai.

‘Just a trap’

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to power in May pledging a negotiated settlement to the insurgency.

Mullah Fazlullah, believed to be in his mid to late 30s, led a brutal campaign in Swat between 2008 and 2009, enforcing hardline Islamic law that included burning schools, and public floggings and beheadings.

A military operation was launched to retake the area.

Mullah Fazlullah fled over the border into Afghanistan but Islamabad says he has continued to orchestrate attacks in Pakistan.

He was accused of being behind a roadside bomb in September that killed Maj Gen Sanaullah Niazi, the top commander in Swat, along with two other military personnel.

Mullah Fazlullah was known for his radio broadcasts calling for strict Islamic laws and earning him the nickname “Mullah Radio”.

In one undated video he pledges to do everything possible to introduce the laws, saying: “We will eliminate anything that will get in the way of achieving this goal: father or brother, soldier or police.”

The shooting of Malala Yousafzai in October 2012 sparked outrage in Pakistan and across the globe.

The teenager had spoken out against the Taliban’s restrictions on girls’ education.

She was airlifted to the UK for hospital treatment and now lives in Birmingham with her family.

This year Malala, now 16, addressed the UN General Assembly and won the European Union’s Sakharov human rights prize.

Prior to the latest Taliban announcement, the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad said that Mullah Fazlullah was not a member of the Mehsud clan and, if appointed, would face a challenge to control the Mehsud fighters, who make up the bulk of the Taliban’s manpower.

The TTP is a loose umbrella organisation of about 30 militant groups.

Khalid Haqqani has been named deputy leader of the TTP, but he is not thought to be linked to the Haqqani network that is fighting Nato-led troops in Afghanistan.