May 8, 2012 | 12:47 am

Ayman al Zawahiri is next if Hillary’s India formula works

Posted by Mahim Maher

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If Hillary Clinton’s schedule is to be followed, Pakistan should pencil in May 2013 as a possible time next year when Ayman al Zawahiri, who inherited al Qaeda, will be ferreted out and killed by American forces - on Pakistani turf.

Jokes aside, Pakistanis watched the Secretary of State on Tuesday, May 8, 2012 make an all-too familiar pronouncement that was televised from India.

AFP reported that she called on Pakistan to do more to crack down on violent extremism - a day after she said Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was believed to be hiding there.

“Combating violent extremism is something we all agree on,” Clinton said during a press conference at the end of a trip to India, PTI reported. “We look to the government of Pakistan to do more. It needs to make sure its territory is not used as a launching pad for terrorist attacks, including inside Pakistan.”

In 2010, also in May, Clinton had said the same thing about Osama bin Laden, while she was on a trip to India. PTI reported that she said some people in the Pakistani government knew where bin Laden was. Pakistan has long been accused of playing a double game on terror suspects.

A year later, on May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in an Abbottabad safehouse by elite American forces.

So it seems a trend has been established. Clinton makes a pronouncement in India about most-wanted men and a year later they are found and killed in Pakistan.

Naturally, the OBL killing was a huge embarrassment for Pakistan. The question now is, will the country learn from the past?

For its part, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Monday, May 7, that if America has any solid intelligence information on the presence of al Zawahiri in Pakistan, it should be shared so that the country can look into the matter accordingly.

These developments are taking place as the Pakistani parliament meets on drone strikes as part of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS). Lawmakers are struggling to come up with policy on ties with the US.

In November 2011, Pakistan ordered a review of all co-operation with the US and Nato after the alliance struck a Pakistani army checkpoint, killing at least 24 people. Nato supply routes were closed and protests erupted. Statements were made by the far-right wing groups who seized on the opportunity.

Last month, the Pakistani parliament unanimously adopted a resolution setting new terms and conditions for the reopening of Nato supply routes. It had linked the reopening of supply routes to an end to drone strikes.

America has said, however, that it will continue to carry out drone strikes against militants even if Pakistan opposes it.
Some analysts were talking about Clinton’s comment on Zawahiri in Pakistan on Pakistani television channels on Monday night.
The Americans have been very clear about their strategy to go after al Qaeda. But has Pakistan been able to keep up, they asked.
Analyst Ejaz Haider was critical of the way that Pakistani parliament goes about discussing and dealing with the issue. This is what he said as a guest on Talat Hussain’s News Night show on Dawn News:
“In Gen Musharraf’s time one or two people took decisions and then we took this giant leap and now we have 340 foreign ministers,” he said. Too many cooks spoil the broth?
He said that what should happen is that the members of parliament should have staff who do their research so that there is an informed discourse on the floor of the house.
He referred to the warning signal that Clinton discussed the man linked to the Mumbai attacks on India soil. “Hafiz Saeed was also brought up on Indian soil. What does this mean, what should we be aware of. Do we [Pakistan] believe that al Qaeda is dangerous for us?” He asked if it was not appropriate for Pakistan to work with America, which is for all intents and purposes a superpower and is likely to stay one. Should we not work it out so our common interests are dealt with in tandem? We should work it to our advantage.
What for example is Pakistan going to do about Hafiz Saeed? Clinton said we have not taken the “necessary action” against the man suspected of masterminding an attack by Pakistan-based gunmen on the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008.

India has repeatedly called on Pakistan to bring Saeed to justice, an issue that has stood in the way of rebuilding relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours since the carnage in India’s financial capital, where gunmen killed 166 people.

India is furious Pakistan has not detained Saeed, despite handing over evidence against him.
Washington has offered a reward of $10 million for information leading to Saeed’s capture.
Another guest on the show, a parliamentarian, commented on how Pakistani foreign policy is often said to be based on the emotion of the people. He questioned if this was the correct approach given that countries make their foreign policy given global realities and their national interest.

“We can’t give a figure of how many innocent people and terrorists were killed in drone strikes to the public. We need to decide where we stand in this war?” said the parliamentarian. This is perhaps an indication of the lack of transparency in the public sphere. People are not being taken along when it comes to the realities.

Most Pakistanis seem to have their head in the sand when it comes to terrorism, which is killing their very own people. Perhaps one step in the right direction has been the government’s creation of the National Counter Terrorism Authority.

Talat Hussain quipped, “The country is on auto-pilot.”

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April 6, 2012 | 2:06 pm

Pakistan’s 10 million dollar baby

Posted by Mahim Maher

So the joke with Pakistani Twitterati is that if Hafiz Saeed were on Twitter he could take the handle @HMS_Bounty. For those who may not be familiar with him, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed carries as much head money as Mullah Omar. He has hit the headlines because the American government has offered 10 million dollars for information against him that will stand up in court.
This translates into 900 million Pakistani rupees today.

Who is Hafiz Saeed?

This most-wanted man is the founder of a militant group called the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of God) that made it its business to fight for Kashmir, a territory that Pakistan and India have fought over since they split in 1947.

He is 62 years old and used to be an engineering and Arabic professor.

After 9/11, Pakistan came under pressure to crack down on militants and its then president, Pervez Musharraf, banned Hafiz Saeed’s Army of God.

Hafiz Saeed then resurrected another group, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) but it works ostensibly as a charity. (In fact, for those who remember Pakistan’s devastating earthquake in 2005 may have read news of how this charity was noted to be particularly active in the aftermath, winning hearts and minds).

Lashkar-e-Taiba and JuD are internationally sanctioned for their association with al Qaeda.

Fast-forward to 2008 and the Mumbai attacks. In 11 coordinated hits, including one at the Taj Mahal hotel, about 160 people were killed and up to 300 were injured in one of the most horrifying episodes of terrorism seen in this part of the world. India blamed Hafiz Saeed and his organisation.

For anyone interested in a fuller profile, I’d recommend BBC’s M Ilyas Khan (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17607784). Someone said on Twitter, only BBC could pull it off without mentioning the word ‘terror’ even once. It also calls him Mr Saeed.

Recent developments

On April 2, Hafiz Saeed became one of the most wanted men in the world when US Undersecretary of State for political affairs Wendy Sherman told reporters in India that the American government had placed the bounty.

The US State Department had already told Pakistan to prevent Hafiz Saeed from moving around too freely (which he continues to do) and freeze the assets of his groups.
India welcomed the move. But in Pakistan it opened the floodgates of debate, anger, bewilderment, street protest and fear of a backlash.

The US administration has been unhappy with Hafiz Saeed’s public appearances, including one at a rally in Karachi of February 12.

Enter Difa-e-Pakistan Council, a coalition of 40 mostly ultra-right wing parties, including banned outfits. Hafiz Saeed is a part of it and his organization arranged the Karachi rally.
(For more on Difa-e-Pakistan, I’d recommend reading http://tribune.com.pk/story/339195/the-defence-of-pakistan/)

The DPC is focusing on the drones, the threat of resumed Nato supplies through the Pakistani route, and the award of the Most-Favoured Nation status by Pakistan to India.

DPC has been active on the streets and extremely vocal, so much so that they surrounded parliament and even parties that rely on a conservative vote-bank grew quiet.

Hafiz Saeed has said that Nato supplies cannot be resumed and if this happens, he has hinted at possible attacks. He also said that America is interested in making India happy – something that will strike a chord with Pakistanis who consider our neighbour enemy No. 1.

Interpretation and analysis

On his extremely highly rated talk show (Mon-Wed) analyst Najam Sethi* commented on the timing of the American decision to update its most-wanted list to include three Pakistanis. I have taken the liberty of summarizing and paraphrasing the gist of his arguments.

There is little support in the media as well for the bounty. The mood is to flip the US the finger and tell it to bugger off. We’ll see and bear whatever the consequences. The problem is that the women and men on the street don’t fully grasp the complexities. Who is America to shove this down our throats?

Aha, but it’s come in an election year at a time that former cricketer Imran Khan with his PTI party has been muscling in on the political turf of other parties. Everyone is interested in pandering to the people, assessing the people’s mood. And nothing works better than a little America-bashing to win some street cred.

The only problem is that the Pakistani government and Pakistan Army aren’t going to get into a tizzy about emotions. They have to think about their interests (which they assume are the national interest). They need to think about give and take with the US. Perhaps some deals are in the offing? The army has to think in terms of its supply of guns and helicopters.

The bounty has highlighted one important point – no one is actually explaining what is in Pakistan’s interest. What should Pakistan do now that the US has taken this decision. The government is not explaining it and neither is the army, that is for the most part content to hide behind the government and let it take the stinky decisions and the heat that comes with them.

Right now Pakistan is busy with a parliamentary committee on national security – thus the US bounty comes at the worst possible time. It also comes at the crucial time of Pakistan and the US agreeing to a new framework (April 4). Nato supplies and military reimbursements are key issues. US Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides was in town.

But, according to analyst Sethi, this is not really about the Nato supplies. [I laughed when I heard him say this; in Pakistan the cloak and dagger has become a national symbol]. It is about Afghanistan.

It is about what is going to happen with Afghanistan once the US leaves. It is about Pakistan being finally given some importance in the Afghan issue. Thus, it is NOT a time that Pakistan’s decision makers want to upset Uncle Sam.

Some people see America’s stance as saying, well, OK if you’re going to target us, then we’ll target you.

Analyst Najam Sethi said that he thought that Hafiz Saeed (and he was very careful in his use of words) had, in an emotional moment, used words that could be construed by some as him supporting a physical attack if Nato supplies are restored.

The stupidity is that IF the Pakistani government, let’s say, restores the Nato supply routes and someone attacks them, then under American law this can be considered an attack on America. Hafiz Saeed may not give the orders to attack – it could be his supporters, some other group. That doesn’t matter. What matters is how his words are taken as Difaa-e-Pakistan chief. He will be in hot soup because he said it.

Thus, when the JuD held a rally on April 6 in Karachi I went along to ask some questions. And indeed, one young man there said that if Nato supplies resumed, he would attack Nato containers.
The Nato supply line isn’t just an American headache. It came about after a resolution passed by the UN with 47 countries. We do business and trade with 90% of those countries – so Pakistan had better think twice about upsetting them.

According to Sethi, Hafiz Saeed was already banned for his ‘links’ to banned organisations. But with the bounty, it became clear that the US administration considered that he had crossed the red line with them in terms of terrorism.

According to Sethi, this is now putting Pakistan at an extremely delicate crossroads.

A member of the ruling party asked Hafiz Saeed on TV during a chat show why he was protesting in the Punjab. Why was he not protesting in the tribal belt, whose people had suffered the most at the hands of terrorists?

But, now, since the headmoney has been announced, he can’t go and protest in FATA (the semi-autonomous federally administered tribal areas) because he comes in the line of fire of a drone.

What is interesting is that Hafiz Saeed has always maintained that he is not a terrorist. So, if he doesn’t watch his words now, he will probably just give America more proof. He’s always maintained that he has been fighting for Pakistani rights and sovereignty. The attacks have always come from al Qaeda, the Taliban etc etc… not him.

Now what remains to be seen is when America will ask for Hafiz Saeed to be extradited. This is not new, in fact India has been making similar demands for a while (indirectly supported by the US).
America could say, well we don’t know where Mullah Omar is, but we and you know where Hafiz Saeed is – he’s sitting in Lahore, so please hand him over.

The interesting element of the extradition agreement Pakistan has with the US is that it has a condition. Pakistan will not hand over a suspect until they have committed a crime in Pakistan.

Some media opinion

To give you a little idea about one point in the spectrum of media opinion, I’ll give you the gist of a talk show host’s interview with Hafiz Saeed. Javed Chaudhry may not be the highest rated talk show host but the advantage is that he spoke to the man himself. The show, which aired on April 4, two days after the bounty, on Express News TV channel, which is a sister concern of my newspaper The Express Tribune. But I must clarify that their editorial policies are entirely independent of each other.

It was fascinating for me that host Javed Chaudhry opened his show with a mention of Narendra Modi, an Indian politician, who is linked to the horrific slaughter of Muslims in India in 2002. Chaudhry said, as I expected, that America had not placed a bounty on his head – but it was now gunning for Hafiz Saeed.

Chaudhry, like others, brought up that it was strange for headmoney to be placed on someone who is a public figure, who is available on the telephone and makes public appearances. He has not been convicted of a crime in Pakistan either.

The problem with this scenario is that in the cacophony the American administration made a mistake, which it later clarified. It needed to make absolutely clear and stress repeatedly that it was offering the money for information leading to his arrest that would withstand judicial scrutiny. It’s sad for me to note, but for the average Pakistani, the nuance of diplomatic speak is sometimes lost. People were left scratching their heads why there was a bounty on a man who was openly living in Lahore.

The media didn’t make this distinction either, with a few exceptions.

Hafiz Saeed was taken to court but in the last three years he was declared innocent.

Javed Chaudhry asked, what has America done this? He gave three reasons: America put the bounty to please India; America did it right before Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to India so that he would be skewered by its media and; America placed the bounty to put the Pakistani Army on the backfoot.

Does America want to make Hafiz Saeed the new Osama bin Laden? Will Hafiz Saeed go underground, asked Chaudhry. Does he want protection from the Pakistani law-enforcement agencies? Will he stand by his words or back down? Is he angry or is he afraid?

I put together a transcript of the interview. I’ve translated it from the Urdu and tried to keep it as close in meaning idiomatically as possible. This is not the full interview but the first half in which Hafiz Saeed’s reaction is elicited.

You can find the four-part YouTube video here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyaPsiqa788&feature=relmfu)

Javed Chaudhry: Hafiz sb, they’ve decided head money on you. After this are you feeling a little nervous? [The use of the word ghabrahat seemed deliberate to belittle the issue and American decision]

Hafiz Saeed: Bhai jaan, thanks be to Allah that I don’t feel any kind of nervousness [The use of bhai jaan or ‘buddy’ sets a tone of camaraderie]. But I am a little worried that America doesn’t have information about me. This head money business is for people you want to arrest. Guys who are sitting in some cave or are in hiding and you can’t see them. Oh, buddy, that’s the kind of thing you do for someone you can’t find. My dear, I’m amid thousands of people each day.

By the grace of Allah, we’re doing our work. So this was a kind of [dumb] thing to do [place a bounty]. If America wanted to know, it could’ve asked me, hey, where you at? [I’ve given it the best idiomatic interpretation from the Punjabi colloquial speech he used].

You can always reach me over the phone. So what was the need for such formality? Going to such trouble?

JC: OK. So let’s say if America asks the Pakistani government to send you over, now that they’ve set the head money, to face their courts, would you be willing to go there?

HS: Well, first of all you’ve got to see that in this country, Pakistan, there already exists a judicial system [I noted that he did not use the possessive ‘we have a judicial system’ which may or may not be telling]. So I’d like to ask what American court [have I been accused in]… Usually it is that if you are on the run from a court internationally or are refusing to acknowledge its verdict, they place a bounty.
Can America tell me of one case that they have against me? Or that any their courts have against me? Or that I’m absconding, or in fact any court in any country in the world.

By the grace of Allah there isn’t a single FIR (police case) against me in Pakistan, even though I live here. I don’t travel abroad, all my work is located here. To only make these bad/incorrect decisions based on India’s false and incorrect propaganda (sic) and then for their deputy foreign minister to make that announcement while sitting in India gives just one clear picture that America wants to please India.

JC: If there is a case against you in any court – an American, Indian, Pakistani, European court – will you be willing to face trial there?

HS: Insha’Allah hum tayyar hain. [Allah willing, we are ready (as in the royal third-person pronoun use). Look here, India had actually sent evidence four times in the Bombay case. This case went on in a Lahore high court for six months against me. During that I was under house arrest. The high court put all of the evidence in front and repeatedly discussed it and then gave the verdict that there was no
evidence in the Bombay case from the start that Hafiz Saeed or his group or any of his followers were engaged in terrorism.

By the grace of Allah, they freed me and honourably acquitted my group as innocent. And then, Pakistan’s home minister went to the Supreme Court to please India and filed a writ challenging it. That went on for three months and then a full bench upheld the high court decision. [Repeats verdict]

JC: Can you explain why the US decided to make the announcement in India?

HS: The reason for this is crystal clear. These new policies that are being made, bhai jaan. First India was supporting a separatist movement in Balochistan [JC nods]. It formed a whole network there and was working there. And now America has ganged up with it and is doing the same thing. Their interests are converging [India and US], their armies are collaborating.

JC: So you mean to say that America and India have gotten together and want to harm Pakistan?

HS: There is no doubt about that. This is beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the truth that has come to the fore. Look here, Javed sb, the mistake that American has made, always made, has been that it has come under pressure from Israel and spewed poison and taken decisions against Arabs and the Muslim World. And exactly the same practice is happening for India.

JC: But Hafiz sb, India is a country of 1.8b people, why is it afraid of you, one man?

HS: I’ll explain why. With Allah’s grace, we have taken a stand on Kashmir, we stand firm on it. We are making it clear across Pakistan and we are increasing the people’s pressure on the government that it should follow through on its take on Kashmir. It is duty bound to come through and support Kashmir. And right now the dams that are being illegally built in Pakistan, electricity is being generated from water, and they’re making tunnels and stopping the flow of water to render Pakistan’s land barren, to destroy its industry to enslave it. And then to declare India Most-Favoured Nation to make Pakistan India’s market. It is giving it a path to send goods to Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. So we are openly talking about this.

We are openly saying that we are against these Nato supplies and we have suffered a lot because of the bad decisions made by Pervez Musharraf.

JC: So India is afraid because you speak against it. Tell me Hafiz sb, were you involved in any of the jihadi activities in Kashmir?

HS: Look here bhai jaan, let me explain. Our group’s name is Jamaat-ud Dawa and all our work takes place in Pakistan. However, politically, sympathetically we are with the Kashmiris with the Hurriyet conference. And right now the movement that is against Indian occupation, Indian army occupation, we supported it yesterday and we support it today…

JC: Yes, but these jihadi activities in disputed Kashmir, are you involved/interfering?

HS: Bhai jaan, what I said was about being ‘involved’ – that we support it. [A little irritated]. If the 800,000 Indian soldiers are allowed to put up pickets in every alleyway there, then the Kashmiri people have the right to pick up the gun and ask for freedom. That is what we are saying…

JC: But my question is are you willing to fight, to kill, to die for this?

HS: Bhai jaan [in patient tone], we are taking along Pakistan’s collective opinion on this. Our basic role is to raise a political force and to make people aware of this. See, there are lots of people who are working in Kashmir. There are lots of groups – why is there no bounty on them? Tell me is there any Kashmiri leader with head money in the world? [Wags finger].

JC: But indeed, this is exactly what I am asking you. There are lots of leaders who are in Kashmir and fighting, who are speaking out against India but why are you being targeted? How do you explain that?

HS: Ya, I’ll explain it to you. No one puts a bounty on the people who are fighting. No one has done this with any of the groups fighting. Yes, however, we are by the grace of God raising a voice and the Kashmiris are raising a voice with us. And when they talk about it in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk (Red Roundabout/town square), our position and stance is brought up. And when we say La Ila-ha… our positions are the same, they are with us. And truth be told, we consider Kashmir a part of Pakistan. We consider Pakistan incomplete without Kashmir. And we say that if people from free Kashmir want to go fight, that is their right.

This whole business of a boundary, a border line, is a Hindu plot [not Indian, he says]. We want to make Kashmir one. And if the people of Kashmir want to fight, we totally support that.
That’s why they have targeted me, that’s why they’re quivering.

JC: You’ve said that you are with the Government of Pakistan. The very same government that has given India the status of Most-Favoured Nation. So why aren’t you against that?

HS: By government of Pakistan, I do not mean the Pakistan Peoples Party or the Pakistan Muslim League-N government. A government is a permanent institution that has taken the stand on Kashmir that the UNO resolutions are the way to solve this problem. That they are binding on India. Only Pervez Musharraf came and spoiled the whole thing by presenting new options.
I am not talking about these people and parties who come and go and keep changing seats. I am talking about the permanent forever-going institution that is the government that we are with.

JC: I don’t understand this permanent thing. A state is a state, a government is a government.

HS: I mean, state is state. Governments come and go. Pervez Musharraf came and changed the stance but that wasn’t the… at that time the army rulers had no one to ask them. There was no one to hold them accountable.

JC: So you recognize the state and not the government?

HS: Absolutely. We follow the state and the state’s policies that the government that implements them, not the government that changes the state’s decisions and incorrectly makes policies.

JC: So when Pakistan declares India as MFN, will you condemn it?

HS: No, dear. Right now we are spreading awareness. That is the movement. We are writing letters to parliament and going to the people. We hope to get a positive response from parliament, after all they are from the people.

JC: So you won’t condemn it?

HS: No… uh. There is no doubt that we will create people pressure. And whatever such policies are made, we will go to the people again and create pressure.

JC: So it’s not acceptable to you?

HS: Obviously if they are going to give India MFN and turn Pakistan into its market, no one would acknowledge that.

JC: So, if the government decides to resume the Nato supplies, would you acknowledge it?

HS: Look bhai jaan, I hope that this is before parliament and parliament is not a group of just a few people. There are parties there and serious people. It has people who will be thinking about the national interest above and beyond everything, political policies. We’ve written to them and contacted them, spoken to them and we hope that God willing they will not take a decision against Pakistan’s interests.

More assessment

A reporter who works with me and has covered Hafiz Saeed had this to offer when I asked for a candid picture of the man:

Professor Hafiz Mohammad Saeed – his full title according to his party – has been written about incessantly since the November 26, 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, but you wouldn’t look at him twice if you ran into him on the street.

A pot-bellied man who uses a cane for support and wears starched white shalwar kameez, Hafiz Saeed is far from charismatic or charming. In the years past, he used to refuse televised interviews that would show his face, now he sidles looks at the cameras to see whose photographing and filming him.

He seems to have adjusted to the fame of being the head of Jamaat-ud Dawa. Ask him any question – whether it is on the Lashkar-e-Taiba or Pakistan’s relations with the US – and a rehearsed answer rolls off smoothly. Interviewing him is difficult. He doesn’t get confused for even a second: even if you accuse him of being a terrorist, Saeed will respond calmly. He laughs and makes jokes during press conferences, speeches and briefings to journalists, as much at ease in a five-star hotel (where Saeed met with journalists in Karachi before a rally this year) or on the floor in a camp for people displaced by the floods. Saeed’s facts are often wrong but he presents them convincingly.

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March 24, 2012 | 12:19 am

Sean Penn comes to Pakistan

Posted by Mahim Maher

I hear the helicopters flyover overhead and I know that Sean Penn is in one of them. He’s probably being taken to the airport in Karachi, Pakistan right now and then onwards back to the US. Sigh. He’s dreamy.

The Hollywood icon was in Pakistan for Pakistan Day to visit the Badin desert where the floods hit to distribute relief goods. He spent the morning in Karachi at other engagements, meeting people (story embargoed for print).

“What was totally incredulous for us,” said Razaq Khatti, the Badin correspondent for our newsgroup Express, “was that he came in torn jeans, and I looked at his shoes and he didn’t seem like a Hollywood actor at all. He seemed kinda down to earth. His shoes weren’t polished at all. He wasn’t wearing a suit.”

You’ll have to forgive Khatti. I called him up today to chat about what it was like to meet Sean Penn. “You mean Samson,” he clarified.

He had no idea who Sean Penn was. “Look, if he’s famous, then I didn’t really know,” Khatti said. “I was told that he was in some dead man movie. I don’t really watch art movies. I just watch action films… sometimes.”

Khatti did notice one thing. “You know the amount of money they spent coming to Badin, in helicopters, in Land Cruisers, with all those security people, cost more than the actual amount of goods they gave to the flood-hit people.”

In Pakistan, we have a contentious relationship with aid. It has become fraught with controversy and I believe people are so confused by its benefits or disadvantages that it is sometimes difficult to see through clearly.

We’ve held out the begging bowl so many times that, well, it’s made us angry. Mostly, our leaders are to blame. Trade not aid, many people say now.
In any case, Razaq Khatti’s observations need to be factored in at some level, to be fair.

Those of us who are a little more familiar with Sean Penn’s work figured that he probably came to learn about the place. I was impressed by the fact that he declined to speak to the media, saying that he was there to speak to the people of Badin who were hit by rain-caused flooding in 2011. This was the second year of devastation for the province. Many people are still displaced.

I figured that Penn was here to learn about Pakistan, talk to the people and perhaps he will go back and come up with some more ideas on how he can help.
Penn met the Kohli people of Badin. They are a tribe which has been mostly ignored in terms of development. There was only one literate man who could converse with Penn, I was told.

These people wake up in the morning and wonder how they’ll make it to midday, said Khatti. They watch the cars drive up, accept the boxes of aid and watch the cars leave.
I am grateful to Penn for visiting at a time when most Americans don’t think of coming here. I blame our government and myself and other privileged people for not helping the Badin people or less privileged. It is not Sean Penn’s job to come and help us if we don’t help ourselves. I just hope that Mr Penn visits again.

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March 22, 2012 | 1:02 pm

European extremism vs Pakistan’s

Posted by Mahim Maher

As the door opened and the orderly came in, the man I faced across the desk stopped speaking.
I waited.

As the orderly left, he began speaking again.

This, I thought, was the hazard of doing a side interviews with former intelligence officers. (Although, they say once a spy, always a spy.)

In between these interruptions, doors opening and closing, he gave me a skein so fine, that I barely knew it had been cast in my direction.

In Pakistan, you have to be so careful about what the ‘officials’ feed you. Every reporter worries about the ‘planted khabr’ or planted story. The ones wet behind their ears run with them like excited puppies.

These stories bounce or bomb or at worst create the wrong kinds of ripples.

Something big is going to happen, he said.

I died a little inside. Sigh, I said to myself. If I had a rupee for every time I had heard that one, I’d be able to buy myself a donkey.

But yes, al Qaeda is very much alive and kicking in Karachi. If a few days pass without having been through a bomb blast crime reporters start itching and scratching and wriggling in their seats. “Ma’am, thanda para he,” they say to me. “It’s gone cold.” But the word thanda, or cold, has different shades of meaning. Cool in Pakistan is much sought after because of the heat. Thanda is also like a trail gone cold. Or if you like the Urdu short stories, thanda also echoes with the meaning of Thanda Gosht or Cold Meat by Saadat Hasan Manto, one of the subcontinent’s greatest short story writers. A man carries off a woman to rape during the pillaging of Partition only to discover that she’s been dead all the while. (http://www.chowk.com/Arts/Poetry/Cold-Flesh)

But I digress.

It’s all quiet on the Karachi front, for now. But tomorrow there could be a bomb blast. No one is under the impression that the extremists are not at work. Al Qaeda has invited everyone to the party and now bomb-making experts are passing on the trade to green thumbs, who don’t know the difference between getting laid and getting played.

But the reason why I bring this up is a larger context of extremism.

On March 20, the University of Karachi’s area study centre for Europe hosted the EU Deputy Ambassador for Pakistan Pierre Mayaudon to speak on security.

My subeditor (as in I own their souls) went to cover it. And as she expected, Mayaudon came sufficiently briefed to remain demure and non-confrontational. He missed out on a good opportunity to flex his diplomatic muscle and win over some hearts and minds. But when it came to questions on extremist outbreaks in the EU, he was disappointing.

The killing of Jewish people in Toulouse was noted in Pakistan, needless to say. And in Mayaudon’s audience were mostly faculty members, doctoral and PhD students and a good sweep of media with television channels and newspapers.

But as I edited the copy, I inserted that he did not use this chance to talk, really talk about extremism when he was questioned about it in European countries.

Whether he had answers to offer or not, he would have impressed his audience by being honest. He should have perhaps said that yes, we have a problem with extremism and hatred across the world and it is manifesting itself in ways we had never imagined – some of them are relatively predictable in the face of al Qaeda and others catch us when we least expect it.

I do not believe for one second, at this point in time and given my exposure, that the way to ‘win hearts and minds’ comes with one lecture or talk but I think that every little bit of honesty has the ability to cut through the swathe of spin and doublespeak and the perception of perpetual lying that I see crushing young people in Pakistan.

When you are honest about, say, mistakes you have made, there will be a group of people who will use it against you, but there will be a group of people that will be impressed by the sheer attempt to be honest about what has been done wrong. This is a paradigm we pretty much never get to see on TV or read about in the papers as far as diplomatic positions are concerned.

I met people from a political party last week, representatives who wanted to lodge their complaint with my newspaper that they were not covered enough. I asked the men about a particularly controversial question: what do you think about this new mysterious group demanding a separate province?

Secessionist movements are regarded with a mixed bag of emotions in Pakistan at this particular time. But despite the risks one of the political representatives was honest with us about his personal (and not his party’s) stand on wanting a separate province. I did not agree or disagree with him but I admired his ability to be honest with me. I came out of that meeting with a slightly different perspective on him and the entire idea.

In Pakistan young people struggle with too much media, cloak and dagger intelligence agencies, what they perceive as the Great Game blah blah blah. It scares them that stuff is happening out there that is beyond their ken as Pakistani citizens. Their input on political or foreign policy decision making needs to be much stronger. But if people were honest, diplomats and local politicians, government officials,
I think that we would be able to at least reach them.

Mayaudon would have been eaten alive if he had admitted that certain parts of Europe have an extremism problem, but he should as a diplomat used his position and time with the Pakistani students and faculty to impress them with some line of argument that would have won them over.

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March 18, 2012 | 2:19 am

Yom Kippur and its links to Urdu

Posted by Mahim Maher

Words fascinate me and so do origins. One of the experts in etymology for Urdu, the language of Pakistan, is Khaled Ahmed, who I had the pleasure of interacting with off and on at The Friday Times and Daily Times when I worked there in Lahore. He is one of the giants of Pakistan, the author of many books, a former newspaper editor, and prolific editorial and opinion writer. I once learned that all he does is read, go for his walk and write.

He is currently a director at the South Asia Free Media Association, Lahore.

When looking up a certain word, extortion, or bhatta in Urdu for the city pages I run this Sunday, I decided to flip through Khaled saheb’s excellent book ‘Word for Word: Stories behind everyday words we use’ (OUP 2010). This book is probably not available in LA, so I decided to take one of his chapters on Yom Kippur and copy parts of it here. His examination of the word is an education for both Jews and Muslims alike – they have so much in common:

Taken from pg 6. Anyone interested in the book can probably buy it online from OUP in Pakistan:

Yom Kippur was the day set for Atonement by the Prophet Moses. It brings to an end the Jewish High Holidays. God writes the Book of Life and inscribes the names of those worthy of a good year, but he leaves the last accounting till the final day…

…Yom is the same Arabic yom meaning ‘day’. What does kippur mean? It is written as keepoor in the Hebrew dictionary and is defined as ‘atonement’. It also means ‘to cover’ because the skull-cap that covers the head is keepah.

It seems that atonement is a kind of ‘covering up’ of the distance between God and man. English ‘atonement’ comes from two English words ‘at one’, meaning bringing God and man at ‘one’. Is this idea of ‘covering’ present in our Arabic and Urdu words too?

It comes to light that kippur too has the same counterpart in Arabic. In Arabic the root ‘kfr’ means to ‘cover’. The ‘p’ is changed to ‘f’ because Arabic has no ‘p’ sound. What are the words produced by this root?

The word we use in Urdu for ‘atonement’ comes from Arabic, kaffara. (Mishnaic Hebrew counterpart is kappara.) The root is ‘kfr’ which means to ‘cover so as to conceal’. Kafir is the person who ‘hides the truth’. It also means a ‘dark cloud that covers the earth’, and a ‘tiller of land (kafir) who covers the seed with soil’.

There are other words from this root that we use in Urdu. When we ‘hide’ a blessing of Allah from others so as to prevent them from benefiting from it, it is called kufran (nemat). When a feeling subsides and is covered by other senses, we use the word kafur.

Yom Kippur should not be a strange word for us. We could translate it into Urdu by using the same words: Yom Kaffara. In fact, in the last ten days of Ramadan we pray for forgiveness of Allah more or less in the same spirit.

The ‘beginning of the year’ in Judaism is called Rosh Hoshanah. This is the day when God opens the book of life and begins writing down out accounts. Rosh in Hebrew means ‘head’ or beginning. In Arabic, ras is ‘head’, which gives us raees or leader.

Hoshanah is a joint word containing ‘ha’ (of) and ‘shanah’ (year). The Arabic word for year is sann, which is also at times, used in Urdu. The root means ‘tooth’ and it is the tooth that conveys the year of the animal. Sann is also found in Sunnah (law).

Some scholars relate kippur to Arabic ‘ghfr’. Here again the sense is of ‘covering’. Allah ‘covers our sins’ when he forgives us and is therefore called Ghafur and Ghaffar. But I think kippur is more decisively related to the root ‘kfr’.

That English ‘cover’ which sounds like the root ‘kfr’ is accidental. It comes from Latin (co)perire (to shut) as an antonym of aperire (to open) through the French word couvrir.

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February 29, 2012 | 2:43 am

Banality of evil in Pakistan

Posted by Mahim Maher

Karachi has made violence important to me, not just as a resident of this city but as the metropolitan editor of a newspaper. After reading Susan Sontag on ‘Regarding the Pain of Others’ (2002), I began to wonder how we were unknowingly, as journalists, covering Karachi’s violence. Reporters wander back to their desks, bewildered after a chat with me: “I was thinking of doing a story on the victims of the bomb blast,” they’ll say, pitching the idea.\

“Boring.” I will reply. “Focus on something else.”

They hate me for this. They say I am insensitive. But I have not been able to explain that I do not want them to touch a story like that with a ten-foot bayonet unless they can prove to me that they will do it justice.

We tend to fetishize violence, I argue over and over again. I have no idea what I am talking about. But I know that we cannot speak for others who have suffered. I’ve seen too many badly written sob stories to know this much.

In my quest to read about violence, I’ve been recently drawn to the work of Slavoj Zizek. His book ‘Violence: Six Sideway Reflections’ has alerted me to systemic violence that makes so much violence possible. I think I see this in Karachi each day in the outbursts of street violence, drive-by shootings etc.

One form of systemic violence that we are not taking seriously enough is a topic that has gripped the media of late: the enforced disappearances, not just across the country, but specifically in the province of Balochistan.

A long-running insurgency or fight for freedom and separation has been running in this part of Pakistan. Part of the problem is that the province’s rich natural resources have been plundered, or there are plans to extract them, for the benefit of other provinces. Balochistan is suffering economic colonialism by its own government, in a way. It is Pakistan’s largest province/state but it’s least developed.

The development has been stunted not just because of the tribal landlords and chiefs, but because of the absence of the State’s attention. To make their sense of deprivation worse, over the decades, the non-indigenous paramilitary and armed forces have clamped down on the people and land there. The intelligence agencies use government guest houses as torture cells.

One of the many myriad and complicated problems of Balochistan and its Baloch and Pashtun people (among other ethno-linguistic peoples) is of enforced disappearances. The nationalists/freedom-fighters/insurgents/terrorists are picked up and go missing for years. Their bodies turn up mysteriously. (Much of the same thing is happening in my neighbourhing province/state of Sindh as well).

These days the Supreme Court of Pakistan is hearing cases of the ‘missing people’ – a misleading phrase. Let me bring up one case, being called the Adiala jail case. 

Eleven civilian suspects were facing court martial under the Army Act on charges of attacking the General Headquarters (GHQ) and spy agency’s Hamza Camp base.
They were picked up from Adiala Jail by intelligence agencies after they were acquitted of charges by the court.

The secret agencies have now admitted in the Supreme Court that the 11 men were kept at internment centres. Four of them died in custody of ‘natural causes’. The remaining ones were brought to court with urine bags sticking out of their trousers.

Everyone is hoping that the Supreme Court will take the intelligence agencies to task. How could they pick up men who were acquitted? If a court has set them free, what business does anyone have to take such extra-judicial measures? Do the intelligence agencies not respect a court’s verdict? Are they above the law?

The issue of the ‘missing people’ is not a new one. It has returned to the spotlight because of the chief justice. But just a few years ago, our former president, Pervez Musharraf, (who was once America’s darling, post-9/11), suspended this top judge precisely because he insisted on tracking down these missing people. The chief justice now wants the spy agencies to produce these seven suspects.

There is hope that as the chief justice hauls up the chiefs of the dreaded intelligence agencies (the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence etc), he will apply the same rule of law to them as they do to civilians.

Meanwhile, a judicial commission in Karachi is recording the statements in the cases of 54 ‘missing’ people. Yesterday my reporter returned frustrated because the media wasn’t allowed inside. She did manage to speak to some of the families when they emerged. One man said that this was the sixth commission he was attending. In the end, isn’t it clear to all of us that the intelligence agencies have these people. They should just give them up.

Yes, this sounds incredibly naïve. But brutalizing people just creates more violence in its spin-off forms.

For me, this open secret, this lie, this silence is one of the many forms of violence people face in Pakistan. And it spins out to implicate many spheres. All of the people who go about their daily lives not thinking about all the people who have disappeared are complicit. All these people are complicit for not exerting pressure on the courts, police, agencies, authorities, president, prime minister, elected representatives to give these people justice. It is here that, for me, Hannah Arendt’s words ring true, for several reasons.

Hannah Arendt, a German-born Jew who escaped the Nazis in 1940, went on to become the first woman professor at Princeton University. In 1961 she was sent by the New Yorker to cover the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Her articles were put together in a book in which she coined the phrase, ‘the banality of evil’.

Historian Dr Yaacov Lozowick, a former director of the Yad Vashem Archives explains the term: The ability to commit evil in a way that sounds almost rational or familiar. People who are not actually monsters or particularly ideologically motivated can become cogs in a machine that, under particular extraordinary historical circumstances, makes them commit unbelievable acts of evil.

The banality of evil helps me understand how the members of the intelligence agencies, actual Pakistani men, are able to follow orders from the high command to pick up these people and torture them.
There are no circumstances in which any citizen of Pakistan should be held like this and not produced in a court of law 24 hours after arrest and made aware of the charges against them.

There is NO comparison here between the Holocaust and these enforced disappearances of a few thousand people; I am just saying that Arendt’s theory, which sprang from her intellectual examination of a particular evil, can be, in part, used to explain some forms of evil today. Arendt’s words can be a lesson for us.

Most of all, the banality of evil signals to me, the unthinking ways in which we react to this systemic violence in Pakistan. I used to try to explain this to myself by using the words ‘reader fatigue’. It is a strange phenomenon – our newspaper’s readers react with horror to our coverage of the missing persons trials but little more happens than a few comments on the website. 

Eichmann’s story reminds me of Musharraf as well – ironically because the Pakistani government is preparing to ask Interpol to issue red warrants for his arrest. They want to try him for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. He is perhaps not technically a war criminal – but as many of the Baloch people believe, when it comes to murder of tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti during Musharraf’s tenure, our former president should be forced to give us some answers for what he did.

Hannah Arendt felt that Eichmann never realised what he was doing, part of the banality of evil. For Musharraf and all the men in the intelligence agencies, however, I doubt that this is the case.

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December 10, 2011 | 2:49 am

When will we start talking about the missing people?

Posted by Mahim Maher

There’s a figure of speech among crime reporters in Pakistan, which pretty much anyone across the world can understand if it’s translated: Bæt’ti ke neechay bet’ha dena. Sit you under a light bulb.
I first heard it at Daily Times in Karachi when one of our Baloch reporters resurfaced with his head shaved after an odd absence. When I asked another reporter what had happened, he cryptically answered that they had put him “under a light bulb.”

It was later explained to me that it meant a little chitchat with the intelligence agencies. I suspect no tea was served.

In order for this story to make sense, I’ll have to explain what a Baloch is. The word refers to anyone from an ethnic Baloch background, most likely someone from the Pakistani province/state* of Balochistan, although Baloch people are scattered across the country.

Balochistan is a bit of the ‘dark’ province in Pakistan to borrow from an Orientalist reference to Africa. The reason is a long-simmering insurgency and separatist movement, primarily but not exclusively based on what many Baloch (and indeed other Pakistanis) call an unfair exploitation of the province’s rich natural resources. I am not an expert on the Balochistan situation, which is why I’m trying to be as careful as I can while trying to convey what I know.

The reason I bring Balochistan up today is because it is International Human Rights Day, which the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has dedicated to Balochistan, where hundreds of men have disappeared over the years, ostensibly picked up by the secret agencies, tortured and then killed. Ironically, reporters call the secret agencies ‘farishtey’ or ‘angels’ because they are invisible and hover from above. They come in and do their work and no one knows.

I’ll give you an example of the clampdown on reporting on Balochistan. It is difficult for even the HRCP, Pakistan’s most well respected human rights agitator, to pin down a proper figure of how many people have gone missing or were killed. According to its estimates, 5,000 to 6,000 people (mostly men) have been abducted. From July 2010 to November 2011, 225 bodies have been found – but as anyone can guess, this is well below what the actual figure could be. One of the Baloch separatists gave us a list of the missing and dead yesterday – it was 38 pages long.

Even if I would personally want to confirm each case, or dispatch a reporter in Balochistan to do it, that wouldn’t necessarily be possible. Reporters who ask too many questions get put under a light bulb.
One of them, who has been writing about Balochistan for a long time from Quetta and has since left the country, was repeatedly threatened not to stick his nose in places where it didn’t belong.

So, no one is really willing to talk and investigations, even by the HRCP, are extremely difficult to accomplish. Because of the security threat even international journalists can’t go to the province.

In a press conference at the Karachi Press Club (in Sindh), the chairperson of the Baloch Human Rights Organisation, Nargis Baloch, appealed to the Supreme Court to take suo motu action of human rights violation by state agencies in Balochistan. I reproduce here our reporting of it:

She lashed out at the role of Pakistan Army in the province saying: “Balochistan has been handed over to the army since former president Pervez Musharraf’s regime.  Today there is just a dummy civilian government in the province.”

“Security forces have killed hundreds of innocent Baloch scholars, doctors, students, lawyers and Baloch leaders. Hundreds of Baloch are still missing from various parts of the province while decomposed bodies of people kidnapped from various areas are found on a daily bases,” she said…

Sometimes they (the state agencies) leave papers with decomposed bodies saying loyalty is with the state, Baloch said.

Aside from these press conferences where some information is given, it is a virtual blackout. But worse is that it has actually extended to the virtual world as well. I went to the website for Baloch Hal (which
I assume translates into the Condition of the Baloch). It showed up on a Google search, but when you clicked to go to the website it was blocked by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. I tried
Facebook and encountered the same thing. Scores of Baloch separatist websites have been given the same treatment.

The politics in Balochistan is dirty and all sorts of groups are involved. But someone in the newsroom said to me yesterday that it seemed like a never-ending attrition; the more the ‘secret agencies’ pick up Baloch men and the more violence that is perpetrated, the stronger the resentment and hatred will build.

Indeed, as with all violence, it begets more violence. The Baloch separatists blow up gas pipelines and railway tracks, damaging infrastructure in their own backyard. And worse still, they have been lashing out by killing Punjabis in Balochistan. Their ire is directed at Punjabis, as this province has traditionally been perceived as the seat of power in Pakistan, where all the decisions of government and army are made.

There is a relatively more contained separatist movement in my province of Sindh where ‘nationalist’ parties are forever haranguing the government over the distribution of resources – whether gas or water etc. Someone once told me that naturally resentment would build – imagine villages by gas fields have no gas themselves. They just see the gas pipelines pass through as silently as the people who have disappeared.

In the papers today there is an advertisement from the government. It says ‘Protection of Human Rights [sic] Symbol of an Independent Nation’. It mentions as one important initiative taken the ‘Aghaz-e-Huqooq Balochistan’, a package on the start of rights in Balochistan. But as reports continue to surface of missing men, reports that can’t be confirmed because reporters aren’t allowed to do their job opening, I wonder if this government and those before them have done its biggest province justice – ever.

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October 31, 2011 | 1:46 am

For Daniel Pearl, music circles the earth one more time

Posted by Mahim Maher

Each year an invitation lands on my desk from the US consulate in Karachi for the Daniel Pearl Music Day. And each year I marvel at this phenomenon. Even my sister, who was up by the time I got back from this year’s concert, remarked: “Man, I don’t know how his parents do it. If something like that had happened to my son, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with that city.” She was talking about Karachi where Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered ten years ago.

Unfortunately, even this year’s concert couldn’t be held for the open public, which would be ideal. Karachi doesn’t have many concerts for security reasons. The police and law enforcement agencies don’t like crowds gathering in one place because of the threat of bomb attacks, which is very real. As a result, young people have been missing out on what is otherwise a normal part of growing up – going to concerts for your favourite bands.

At the US Consul General’s residence on Saturday, Oct 29, I was introduced to an attaché called Kevin Murakami. I lamented that the concert wasn’t open to the public and he frowned in thought before asking me if I had any solutions. Suddenly, I thought, why don’t we try to live stream it next year via my newspaper’s website http://tribune.com.pk, which has all the bells and whistles. Ideally, our sister concern, Urdu television channel Express News, could also broadcast it live. And if we published it properly perhaps young people in Karachi could actually take part like this? Mr Murakami agreed that it was an idea. And I will definitely pursue it on my end. 

The line-up this year was fantastic, we had Mary McBride and her band, who became the first Americans to perform in Karachi for a
Daniel Pearl Music Day. It was a fitting choice for the 10th anniversary. I discovered that McBride sang for the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack and has even worked with Elton John among other big names. I couldn’t say that I fancied her brand of music much but she had a presence on stage and a great voice. I chatted with two band members backstage about their experience in Pakistan, asked them the usual boring questions of whether they were frightened to come etc. etc. And it struck me, that evening, how I was talking to Americans after so very long. You see, there are no white people left in Karachi because of the security threat. You’ll see the odd Russian at the supermarket really early in the morning, but that’s about it. Even the Chinese, who come here to work on development projects, keep a low profile. And they’re from a friendly country.

I realized it was important to keep talking and spreading the word about Daniel Pearl Music Days when someone who came to the event asked me to explain what it was all about. Apparently they had not been briefed about it. As the music played this person asked me, ‘So what is this all for?’ I had to explain as best as I could who Daniel Pearl was, what happened and how the music days came about. This person then paused, as if to digest this information and then leaned forward and asked me in a conspiratorial tone, ‘So, was he like a Raymond Davis?’ I nearly fell off my chair! ‘NO! NO! It’s not like that at all!’ I whispered back fiercely, my heart slamming against my ribcage. I wanted to pull my hair out. ‘No. Daniel Pearl was a CLEAN reporter… not an agent or spy or anything like that!’ I looked at their face again, to see if this person had comprehended what I was saying. ‘You’re a reporter right,’ they asked, looking at me with a tilt to the head. Well, actually I’m the city editor, I felt like saying with a bruised ego. But I sighed. ‘Yes, I’m a reporter, but we’re here to remember the reporters who have lost their lives. And Daniel Pearl was a reporter, a clean reporter.’ This answer and perhaps my demeanor seemed to satisfy this person. They leaned back, ‘OK, I believe you, but only because you seem honest to me and a nice person and you told me your name.’

As I walked away I thought how little it takes to misunderstand something you don’t know anything about. I thought about how important it was for journalists to get simple facts and truths out there enough in the public sphere so the record is set straight. I realized that this person had conflated two American names, personae, just because of inherent suspicions about Americans. Earlier in the evening, I was chatting with Mushtaq Rajpar, who works with the US consulate, and Razzak Abro, a reporter with Pakistan Today, who used to be my chief reporter at Daily Times. We had talked about Sindhi media and exposure and strengthening the hands of Sindhi journalists who need training. I thought, we really have our work cut out for us, not the English press or TV, but the local language media – Urdu and Sindhi – in particular. We need to be reaching people who can’t read or write English or want their news delivered in indigenous languages. I’d wager that the American PR machine in Pakistan needs to work closer with them. Perhaps the Daniel Pearl Foundation needs to have Sindhi and Urdu dubbed messages and invite more Sindhi and Urdu people who can spread the Pearls’ message of harmony for humanity.
(For my story in The Express Tribune, please go to: http://tribune.com.pk/story/285270/music-circles-the-world-to-make-a-pit-stop-in-karachi-for-daniel-pearl-once-again/)

Journalists recently killed in Pakistan and remembered on Daniel Pearl Music Day
Daniel Pearl (February 1, 2002) Wall Street Journal
Misri Khan (September 6, 2010) Ausaf and Mashriq
Abdul Wahab (December 6, 2010) Express News
Pervez Khan (December 6, 2010) Waqt TV
Nasrullah Khan Afridi (May 10, 2011) Khyber News Agency
Saleem Shahzad (May 19, 2011) Asia Times Online
Asfandyar Khan (June 11, 2011) Akhbar-e-Khyber
Wali Khan Babar (June 13, 2011) Geo TV
Shafiullah Khan (June 17, 2011) The News
Faisal Qureshi (October 7, 2011) London Post

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