9/11 - Changed perceptions

I was just reading this nice blog on Dawn today by a former student, who was there in USA when planes struck Twin Towers.

I was in Pakistan at that time and I was also a student, a sort of a fire-brand type. It was evening and darkness had already pervaded our university. I can clearly recall that that day I was sitting in my computer lab and for some reason I was late in going home. Almost all my classmates had already left for home. On another system my classmate, Ovais, was sitting when he suddenly called me over informing me that some building in USA is under fire. I looked at the screen and thought maybe some odd fire had broken inside. I was wrong. Ovais hastily told me that it was some plane, which had hit the twin towers. Twin towers for me was a new term. I went home.

At home, as soon as I entered, my mother greeted me with more than a flourish and invited me to look at the screen, which was positively blackened with the dark, billowing smoke coming out from the towers. It was CNN and the anchor was horrified at what was happening just behind her. I was just beginning to settle when suddenly a plane took a sharp turn and rammed into the second tower, which till then had been standing amidst chaos and drama. It later emerged that planes had been hijacked and used as suicide material. What an ingenious idea that was, I had thought. And I was really very glad, just like my parents and siblings, that finally that great Satan had been 'controlled'. Future events and the consequences for Muslims the world-over would prove us all wrong. These terrorist attacks into the heartland of USA had not only shaken the great Satan, it had in effect woken them up and all of us to the reality of international terrorism. A reality, which sadly has harmed interests of Muslims world over.

Today I and my parents feel that the events of 9/11 were not perpetrated by Jihadis (as CNN would have us believe) but by real terrorists, people who have no faith or religion. Today I can see clearly that killing of innocent Americans, whether Jews or Christians or Muslims, won't serve anyone's purpose. We cannot ask for revenge on a common American for the misdeeds of their Army and politicians in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine. This we all Muslims should understand and realize. We cannot isolate ourselves from the real world and continue to fool around. We must consider murderers and killers as terrorists and not some good Muslim Knights.

Today I am not happy that common Americans were killed that day. I just hope I wasn't happy in 2001, when the events broke out. But I was and I accept it now.

The Rapist Police of Pakistan

Pakistani police is fond of raping. They don't care whether one is a boy or a girl and they damn care for the age of the person being raped. They rape boys and girls and minors. And they drink lots of alcohol. I cannot imagine a person in his right senses raping a boy. And alcohol, as we all know, takes away lots of human senses. I today searched the stretched term, 'pakistani Policemen rape' on google.com and came up with lots of links of rape by our so-called defenders of law. So many links that I am assuming that google itself may well be drunk enough to churn out so many of these beastly links. Here is a summary of few of the rapes committed.

1) ...three officers arrested a boy, beat and raped him in custody, and distributed a video of the rape. [March 14, 2009].

2) Police Rape and Torture a 3 Year Old Girl [July 6, 2009].

3) Policemen gang-rape 13-year-old girl for 21 days [May, 2010].

4) Christian burnt to death in Pakistan, policeman rapes his wife [March 14, 2009].

5) Earlier this week, a young woman alleged that she had been gang raped by four policemen in Rawalpindi [June 28, 2005].

I hope in earnest that these rapist policemen are raped in public by donkeys and dogs because our worthy Supreme Court appears helpless over them.

Who burnt Boultan Market, Karachi

One of the most remarkable markets of Karachi, alas, is no more.

Did Shias burnt it to the ground, angry after their 43 members were blown up and distributed across M.A. Jinnah Road, Karachi? Did MQM did it to kick out the erstwhile Memons and Delhi Wallas from that place? Did India or Isreal or Blackwater did it? Aha, Blackwater.

My first and foremost view is that Shias, out of rush of blood and emotions, did the trick. They burned down the plastics market and the perfume market and all that and did not allow fire brigade to come in until very late in night when everything was ashes. CCTV footage, first shown by Mustafa Kamal on GEO, clearly shows that. These are the mourners, and as Mr. Kamal makes it abundantly clear to all and sundry, not the MQM jiyalas.

Shias, off course, deny charges. But cameras this time have proven beyond doubt that the crazy fire, which later caused losses into billions of rupees and thousands of shops burnt, were caused by Shia mourners. I also have first hand account of a friend whose friend was killed by the Shia mob. This mob was trying to set his building on fire. On resistance, Gilgiti Shia shot him dead and fled from the scene. Punjabi-dominated police, as is expected of them, did nothing to prevent the tragedy.

But Shias are telling us all that they don't carry all these chemicals needed to burn so many buildings. Well, fair enough.

You see, whenever something bad happens petty criminals and enemies of the state jump into the fray and do all sorts of nasty things. Their only purpose appears is to loot and run. That is not probably what happened as most of the property was burned and not looted. But the critical CCTV footage is being held back by MQM men. Not sure why. Perhaps because they are involved. Perhaps there is some other reason. Many from Boultan market have claimed openly that MQM wanted entire market to shift to Sohrab Goth to allow more breathing space to the city. This was off course not acceptable to thousands of shopkeepers, many of whom are some of the richest and oldest traders of this country. If that was what MQM wanted, they got more than their deal.

As far as India's involvement is concerned, no serious thinker is thinking about it. India has better things to do. It is focusing on how to break loose Baluchistan from Pakistan so that Pakistan becomes a weak state. It won't probably go about doing things in Boultan market.

What can I say about Israel. If a cockroach is found dead in Burewalla people claim that Israel's Mossad had killed it!

My cousin, Imran Kholia, explained his loss to Dawn paper, “My seven brothers and I used to sell wrist watches, cosmetic items, toys, optical frames and other items to support our families and 25 children. We had 22 warehouses located above our stores, which have been destroyed, except for an 80 sq foot area.”

“The tragedy is that my building wasn’t on fire when I had reached here at around 6:45 p.m. [on Monday]. We pleaded with the firemen to stop the fire raging close to our store, but they replied they had to refill their tanks. It took them more than two hours to get water. However, by 9:00 p.m., it was too late and the fire had spread,” explains Kohlia, who claims to have suffered a loss of Rs. 90 million, including property and goods.

“My biggest fear now is that I feel that the government may want to take over our property, which if you take into account the whole locality, is worth billions,” says Kohlia. “But come what may, we will resist any such attempt. We have been doing business here for generations and will continue to do so.”

I am probably thinking about Shias and MQM combined. They both have a track record of extreme level of violence and brutality. I call them Modern Yazeedis.

Greed at the forefront of terrorism

In Karachi every second man believes that most Pakistanis who are caught abroad having connection to a certain illegal activity is a Punjabi. That may be a pun but after repeatedly reading carefully the data of men and women caught in various countries (of Pakistani origin) I can confirm to my readers that indeed the assertion is to the point on most occasions but not all.

Pick Dawn (Pakistan's top English daily) any time of the year and the chances are you would find lot of Pakistanis caught smuggling heroin / drugs, caught while crossing into either Turkey or Greece; caught while attempting to fleece a foreigner women by first marrying her then getting off with her hard earned money. Most of the times the mention of a certain Pakistani caught, executed, remanded in custody will be from our biggest province, Punjab. Yet, somehow, Punjabis of all shapes and sizes deny this vehemently. As I write this blog today, early Sunday morning, I have yet another evidence to prove that greed and not religion is at the forefront of terrorism dropping from Pakistan's soil. Yet again men from Punjab are to be found guilty; yet again our Punjabi brothers will deny anything to do with this. But somehow, the entire operation in Mumbai last week was carried out by Punjabis (I won't call them Muslims for various personal reasons). The damning proof is for everyone to read from Guardian, ne of the best English papers in the world today:

'Ajmal Amir Kasab, interrogated in custody after last month's attacks, which killed 163 people, reportedly told Indian security officials that he came from a place called Faridkot in the Punjab province. His father was named as Mohammed Amir, married to a woman named Noor.'

and further,

'A villager, who cannot be named for his own protection, said the village was an active recruiting ground for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. 'We know that boy [caught in Mumbai] is from Faridkot,' he said. 'We knew from the first night [of the attack]. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong,' he added.

According to the villager and other locals, Ajmal has not lived in Faridkot for about four years but would return to see his family once a year and frequently talked of freeing Kashmir from Indian rule.'

Greed is a natural phenomena but a disproporionate quantity of it may be found amongst most Punjabis. For instance, they divert lot of water causing massive poverty in Sindh province; they disallow other ethnic groups to become part of our elite army; Punjabis remain an exclusive nation which sees itself as a superior ethnic group in Pakistan; they have more education than anyone else in Pakistan (this last example may not be itself a bad greedy bit but certainly it allows for much more), much thanks to Punjabi bureaucrats who are sincere to their own nation but not to all Pakistanis. Punjabis, as the popular saying runs around much of Karachi, interior Sindh and Baluchistan, can sell his mother for good money. So why won't he kill / maim helpless Mumbai wallas for millions of bucks (investigations into the actual amount paid to these terrorists by LeT are underway)?

I think that I am increasingly sounding very anti-Punjabi but for all these years data analsis collected in my brain tells me that indeed Punjabi greed has made Pakistan poorer not richer.

And somehow, we need to stop all this. This tremendous appitite for more and more money is causing massive international embarassment for all Pakistanis. I hope that saner voices among Punjabis would prevail in future and would be able to stop younsters, in search of a free ticket to Mumabi and a million dollar prize, from acting like killer machines.

Just hopes!

Karachi after Ramazan 2008

Everyone in the street is unhappy over lot of things. KESC gets the most marks and every second citizen thinks that it is better to have no KESC at all. Or if we really want it it should be a governmental body rather than a profit making foreign occupied existence. Unfortunately, no one heeds to the local man on the street. Zardari, the all-powerful president of the country, is too busy shuttling between UK, Dubai and Islamabad. He has no time to give to us.

Second most important issue relates to the future of MQM and its appointed (mostly corrupt and highly illiterate) gang of ministers, sub-ministers, their jamadars, police-wallas, officers, etc. Zardari is very keen on getting his own Nazim the hot seat of Karachi. He does not care about other, smaller cities of the state. But being a Nazim of Karachi means that virtually you can hold the country in a fix. With your orders, imported items may not travel up-country, a potentially explosive and worrisome issue for Punjabi establishment. As a city nazim you can also run around and make importers / exporters pay extra taxes. Water is also dependent on you so are the key areas of the country, the hottest Estate right next to Arabian Sea. And Zardari, being a Mr.10%, won't really like to share this cake with people like MQM.

So when he really starts removing MQM appointed men and women from key posts including the post of Nazim, what will happen to Karachi?

People on the street tell me, with much fear in their eyes, that a return to bloodshed which we saw in 90s, is imminent. It is a haunting feeling and one which educated, business-minded, settled Karachites really dread. If Karachi is in trouble country can't be much behind. Therefore, this idea of a possible confrontation between MQM and Zardari is bound to get people sweating everywhere from Khyber to Arabian Sea.

But is that the real issue we are facing right now? Well, no. Some hidden forces seems to be working round the clock to make Karachi into an inferno which will eventually burn the entire country. You can note that no major businessman is happy with how things have been going around. Karachi has started resembling pre-war Baghdad, if you will. And that is not a sort of thinking we want right now. A major issue concerning Karachi, apart from the displacement, is the threat of Talibanization of the city with crude force. And backing them will be their brothers, the Pashtuns from the North. And I am sure no Urdu-speaking or Karachiwalla (any ethnic group) can match the will-power or the fire power of Talibans and Pashtuns. And this prospect of Karachi acting as a battleground for power-hungry MQM vs Islam hungry Taliban is not a good one. If something of that sort happens - and we hope our trained and professional army will do something about it - then we can be sure that Karachi won't a place worth a visit.

I hope that these things won't happen but man on the street has been saying such things for some time now and it is worrying me a lot. And Altaf bhai, Pir of London Town, won't be happy either.