Return of the Brazen

Minority community targetted to terrorise and mislead

This was the second time in a row that I returned to the city of Lahore after it had come under attack. Attacks on the Ahmedi places of worship had left the alreday quiet city because of sizzling heat, totally mute.

The usual crowded roads were empty and people scant and those who had to come out were in a hurry to get their jobs done and move indoors. Ofcourse that is natural reaction when you know that gunmen could pop out of nowhere and start killing people leisurely.

Punjab Police in the line of fire- did their best

The fact that TV News crews were faster than Police, invited critics' wrath and so has the Punjab Government for not being able to take action in advance despite being warned by the Federal Government. Then, there is a rather simplistic view that it was an attack against minorities in a country that has poor history of providing rights to the ones who are not in majority.

While TTP ( Punjab) takes full responsibility for the well rehearsed attack, it gives a chance to the world to call Pakistan a supermarket for terrorists. Somehow , there are a few who say that TTP doesnot represent Pakistan's extremist face, rather its a show of resources and dedication that the external anti Pakistan elements possess to support these terrorist groups .

How are we tackling these destructive designs? That is a disturbing question.

Ordinary Pakistanis attacked-traumatised kids

TWOSOME

Aerial view of the Attabad Lake in Hunza

1. May 28 is the latest date given by National Disaster Managment Authority Chairman when the Attabad Lake in Hunza will be full to the brim and the water might begin discharging into the spillway that has been built with the help of Chinese Engineers. It could just splash on to the areas around it in a very cruel manner since no expert has been able to assess the force with which it will overflow.

The big question here is why has there been no sense of urgency or concern shown by the Government in two things:

• Preventing loss of acres of farmland, orchards and so many households
• Having had immediate feasibility studies and technical evaluations conducted to determine if this huge water reservoir could actually be used to generate electricity.

Natural disasters will continue to strike but will we ever be able to set up effective early warning mechanisms instead of setting up authorities that just sit and watch.

2.Police raided , what they call was a Walima party, in Peshawar and arrested Rani a teenaged eunich and 42 year old fertiliser dealer Iqbal for trying to get married. Both deny the charges and say that Iqbal was there to attend the birthday party of Rani. The pair have been remanded for 15 days in Peshawar's central jail. If found guilty, the pair could face life behind bars.

Rani and Iqbal with Police in Peshawar

I just wanted to share with you how one journalist has put the story into context while filing it to a foreign news agency-take a read:

Peshawar, a city of 2.5 million and the gateway to Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, has been hard hit by bomb attacks blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants in recent years.

Pakistan is a deeply conservative Muslim country where relations outside marriage is taboo and homosexuality illegal.The eunuch community, which includes hermaphrodites, transsexuals, transvestites and homosexuals, is mocked, pitied and shunned by society. They frequently beg on the streets and many end up as prostitutes.

In a move toward granting the country's estimated 500,000 eunuchs rights, Pakistan's top judge has ordered the government to recognise them as a distinct gender -- although how it will be implemented remains to be seen.

Painted Veil

Khalid Khawaja-Some call him a double agent , others a human rights activist. He was shot reportedly by a group Asian Tigers in Waziristan. His family plans to sue television anchor Hamid Mir because they think his conversation with an Usman Punjabi had his captives get confessions out of him and subsequently kill him.





Madhuri Gupta-the junior Indian diplomat posted in Islamabad She is now behind bars in India after she was found to have spied for Pakistan. She always used to travel to New Delhi from Islamabad on her private car using the Islamabad Lahore motorway.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving gunman of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks now sentenced to death by Special Court in India. He carried out everything totally James Bond style. He is allegedly from Pakistan.

Faisal Shahzad- a Kashmiri and Pashtun Pakistani under detention in US for being the Prime Suspect in the Times Square bomb plot in New York on May 1. Because of being trained in Waziristan reportedly, miliatry offensive in North Waziristan is likely according to many.

Just one more! Dr. Afia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist held in US for assaulting US soldiers in Afghanistan. All of these people are the real news makers of today. They have the power of defining not only diplomacy between countries but also fate of a nation like ours.

But who empowers them to such an extent that they become capable of doing what they have done? What motivates them to risk everything they have in life to pursue a seemingly treacherous path? Have they reached their destinations? Do they see something that we donot understand? Are they forced into all of this or they just love the thrill? Are they the real Osama Bin Laden? Will we ever get to find out about them beyond their trials? Does media know the truth about them?

Keep Watching!

Facebook Status

It was one of those days when you come across a development that affects everyone . Most of the 45 million Facebook users in the country are pretty sad that they won't be able to get their regular shot to satiate their addiction to Facebook in Pakistan for some time to come because of the Lahore High Court order. The issue is turning into a debate....local media and the international ones are speaking about it, mostly not sure about what to say.

Its an altogether different way of creating unrest around the world. This highlights the importance of social media that defines much of public opinion these days.Take the case of recent UK election.

Now that people have been absolutely enchanted by the phenomenon of social networking that makes you come close to even strangers ( who can sometimes even murder you) irrespective of cast, colour, region and religion gets you into believing that the world has become a very neutral place. Incidents such as this one make you realise that it still has not.

Reaction from Muslims across the world has been somewhat mute if not non existent. It has not so far been like the 2006 Denmark case of blasphemous cartoons when Danish dairy demand in its biggest Gulf market had gone for a toss....Publishing blasphemous cartoons had cost money to Danish business but is blocking facebook in just Pakistan going to mean anything for the website owners?

But there have been many across the world who have had issues with facebook's privacy policy and thousands are planning to quit facebook for good by May 31 because they still are not sure about how secure they are on facebook. But many want to stay because young people think that employers these days value good social media skills and hence prospects of better jobs flourish.

Muslims perhaps are still wondering, how to respond to this offence to their religious sentiment. This time what has been used to hurt them is something that has gone beyond geographical boundaries...its not a matter of a single country, cartoonist or one newspaper. Its a comunity thing.....a human need ( socialising). Using facebook , that has more to it than meets the eye.What was once just a want has now become such a need that it is hard for people to imagine a life without it and rightly so , when they have a completely different personality on the web leading a starkly different life.

Facilities such as Black Berry(BB) have been suspended in obedience to Pakistan Telecom Authority's directive. BB users will ofcourse have their own set of problems arising as a result of that.

Islam forbids the depiction of Prophet Muhammad ( S.A.W) in the form of any drawing or picture.

So, whoever has called for that caricature competition, has in a way committed an act of terror against all these Muslims , whose daily life has become extremely dependant on the connectivity and promptness and the opportunity to show that I am there!. All of that has been sabotaged.

At the same time, somewhere in their hearts they love their Prophet ( S.A.W) too.

Ammi

The prettiest girl I ever came across in my life is my mother. Behind her quiet demeanour , is an ocean of wisdom and sweet affection that she accumulated over these years and that too with a silence and endurance that only she could be capable of. Many years ago when I came to learn about mother's day, I was thrilled beacuse it came at a time, in my own time I had just begun to realise then,what a treasure God had given me in her form.

I literally have no clue what to say about her....as all she has ever been to me is a friend. A true friend...the greatest thing about which has always been and still is, to be able to talk to her about anything under the sun, within decent limits for she had at the same time given me great sense of observing some limits in every aspect of life. And I found out one day that she always aspired to take me in her firendship rather than a cold parent -child classical relation.What happened was that I gave her a greeting card on Eid that simply said...Eid Mubarak , my friend! As she read that, her eyes were filled with tears of joy!

The mornings of long summer holidays when I was growing up , were always lit up up when I looked out from my bedroom window on to the terrace and there she was always found with her reading glasses on , going through the newspaper with her head tilted to one side. Later she would cook me the best breakfast in the world ...... She never allowed me more than one egg at a time, to keep my allergy away.Interestingly, she is not that into cooking and can only passionately cook breakfast. But she eats pizza with me only because I like it. I have always seen her eat so little and so gracefully that I have ended up associating eating less with proud sophisticated ladies.

Its an infinite list of gifts for a lifetime that she has given me. Making me believe in myself, to get to know myself is one of them. Perhaps her untiring encouragement in everything I did or planned to do was an effort to enable me to trust my ownself. She makes me believe that even if I wanted to touch the sky , I could work to accomplish that. Sometimes I attribute my misgiving to her for instilling certain qualities in me that are simply not relevant to today's society....respecting others, seeing the good in others, speaking the truth and following the truth wherever I see it, honesty, passion, to go skin deep and appreciating the beauty of a soul. God is always there to listen to me , she wants me to know.

She loves to read....just today she was asking me if I was reading any books and if I ate properly..what did I have for dinner etc? She admires beauty in all forms and always taught me how to stop and smell the roses. If I know that Islamabad is beautiful , it is because of her. Telling me how beautiful the Margallah hills looked, the different shades of green that trees have, the shapes of the clouds against the blue sky, which bird chirped what way in the morning. With all of this in the mind, it is easier to live by her mantra that you come in this world alone, live here alone and then leave alone.....so don't worry and relax!! Love she thinks is very overrated but at the same time she herself, can never stop loving.

Childhood memories ....ah its going to be a painful sweet recalling them but in short, she got me anything I wanted but at the same time letting me value what I got, even if it was a small dinky car from Shah Jee's in Super Market, where I used to take an hour chosing the model I wanted. Patiently, she would wait.

I can go on and on and yet fail to embody her personality ever.....so, I just want to say I love her and miss tremendously not being with her everyday and not getting that life giving hug from her each day of my life.

Vista

You can run but cannot hide or better still you can check out any time you want but can never leave....it goes something like that as far as I can remember. That is exactly how I felt yesterday. I had thought I would let developments surrounding Faisal Shahzad, set like freshly prepared jelly desert before I could make more sense of it.

But open my yahoo page, msn, news rundown or even talk to anyone and this is what people want to say about.

Although governments of US and Pakistan still are waiting for some formal investigations to come to a resonable conclusion, yet fingers have been pointing towards Pakistan. One analyst on the Wall Street journal even going to the extent that the amount of terrorists that Pakistan produces can be traced to the formation of the country on the basis of Muslim majority areas back in 1947.

How will North Waziristan be tackled? Even Drone strikes, many say, have not been able to resolve the problem...Lets see....but security analysts in the country are of the view that Pakistani troops are already safeguarding the country against India on the East and then in South Waziristan and all the adjoining agencies. The West thinks its because of a deal with Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur that is preventing Pakistan Army entering it. Hafiz Gul Bahadur does not take part in terrorist strikes in Pakistan it is believed.

The solution some say , lies in the coalition forces manning the crossings that lead from Afghanistan into North Waziristan. That will help.The world should have matured enough to undestand that the state and people of Pakistan donot support terrorism.

As far as Faisal Shahzad, many girls find him nice to look at.