Karachi News


DAWN/The News International, KARACHI	15 November 2008, Saturday, 14 Ziqaad 1429

www.karachipage.com (click on underlined key-words/dates to get more details)
Ex-MQM activist shot dead; labourer killed in crossfire
MQM, ST vow to foil ‘conspiracies’
Mirza condemns targeted killings
9 Nadra staffers sent to jail
Suspected militants loot Rs4m from bank
Garment factory owner killed
Karachi a pollution hotspot: UN report (more)
Importance of Urdu highlighted (more)
Shakaib Qureshi acquitted in Murtaza Bhutto case (more)
Mumtaz Bhutto condemns Qadirpur gas field sell-off (more)
8 peasants recovered from illegal captivity (more)
Imran hits out at JUI for maligning journalist (more)
Foreign journalists hurt in failed kidnapping bid (more)
9 Arabs among 13 killed in drone attack (more)
20 militants killed in Shabqadar action (more)
4 snooker clubs torched, woman killed in Swat (more)
Blasts destroy video shops in Dera (more)
Every major terror threat involves Pakistan: CIA (more)
Ex-MQM activist shot dead; labourer killed in crossfire
An ex-activist of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was shot dead in Sachal police limits, and the police described the murder as target killing.

Syed Tahir Ali alias Nadeem SP was present near Safoora Chowrangi, when two armed men riding a motorcycle came there and after confirming Tahir’s name they shot him dead and fled away.

The deceased was a former activist of MQM and was residing in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. After separating from the party, he started working with an estate agency in the area. A case has been registered in this regard.

Meanwhile, Hassan Shah (25), a labourer, was shot dead in Moachko police limits. According to the residents of Gulshan-i-Ghazi, two neighbours were disputing over “Kunda” connection when suddenly both the parties took out their arms and opened indiscriminate firing and Hassan Shah was caught in the crossfire.

After the incident the armed persons fled from the spot, while the injured was rushed to the hospital but he succumbed to his injuries. Shah was passing through the street and carrying milk for his children. However, the area police were searching for the culprits.

man commits suicide: A mentally deranged man committed suicide in the Pak Colony police limits on Friday, besides decomposed body was fished out from the sea.

Saeed Umer, 60, after exchanging hot words with his wife locked himself in a room of his residence and shot himself to death with a pistol.

Family members broke open the door and found the deceased in a pool of blood.

They took the body to the Civil Hospital for legal formalities. According to the police, the deceased leaves behind five children and was mentally deranged.

Meanwhile, the decomposed body of an unidentified 25-year-old man was found floating in the sea near Keamari Gate No. 15. Some port labourers saw the body and informed the police, which shifted the body to the Civil Hospital for autopsy.

MQM, ST vow to foil ‘conspiracies’

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Sunni Tehrik (ST) have vowed to jointly try to foil conspiracies being hatched to disturb peace of Karachi. “The MQM and ST are being pitted against each other by some anti-social elements and the MQM has pledged that both the parties will foil all such conspiracies in order to maintain peace in the city,” said a press release issued on Friday. Meanwhile, Speaker National Assembly Fehmida Mirza thanked MQM chief Altaf Hussain for donating Rs0.5 million in the relief fund for the affected people of Bajaur.

Mirza condemns targeted killings

Sindh Home Minister, Zulfiqar Mirza while taking a serious notice of the recent targeted killings in Karachi has issued strict orders to arrest the killers as early as possible. According to his orders the accused against whom FIRs have been registered should be immediately arrested. Mirza further directed the police to take action against those who have used influential people for the release of the killers. He issued these instructions while presiding over a meeting at his office on Friday. He also directed City Police Officer to provide him with weekly crime reports. Mirza stated that it has been noticed that some police officials remain biased regarding targeted killings. However, from now onwards any police official found practicing such an act would be penalised. The minister further said that the police officers should inform him about those using the influential to encourage such heinous crimes, he added.

9 Nadra staffers sent to jail

Civil Judge and Judicial Magistrate (South) Asif Ahmed on Friday remanded nine staff members of NADRA to judicial custody till November 16 in a case pertaining to the issuance of fake national identity cards, passports and driving licences. FIA teams raided Nadra offices in Awami Markaz, Lyari, Defence and Kemari and arrested nine staffers. The accused include Arshad Hafiz (data entry operator), Ashraf Gujjar, Asif Raza, Sarfaraz Solangi, Shahid Ahmed, Johnson Saleem, Raffat Iqbal (supervisor), Pareen Shah (peon) and security guard Shahzad Ahmed. The FIA team recovered 1,890 blank CNICs and forged documents from their possession. According to investigators, Saleem Memon and Ghulam Hussain, who were arrested from Lyari, had been running this business for the last eight years. The suspects admitted that they had been issuing CNICs to foreigners, particularly Bengali and Afghan nationals, against an amount ranging from Rs4,000 to Rs10,000.

Suspected militants loot Rs4m from bank

Suspected militants have allegedly robbed a bank that was situated in Mauripur police limits. A police constable and a security guard were killed in the process, while Rs4 million were looted in an operation that was allegedly completed within a span of 10 minutes.

According to accounts given by eye-witnesses, six armed men loaded with TT pistols and Kalashnikovs broke into the Muslim Commercial Bank branch situated near Gate-3, New Truck Stand, Mauripur. Two of their accomplices waited in the car while the operation was being carried out.

Two men entered the premises of the bank first to announce their arrival. Interestingly, the criminals stunned the bank staff and customers into submission by displaying hand grenades. The robbers threatened to blow up the bank with hand grenades if anyone present inside the bank made a move against them. When police constable Mukhtiar Hussain Mallah and security guard Shah Alam tried to defy the two men who had made their entries first, the other four who were behind them shot the challengers dead. The deceased constable received four bullets wounds, while the security guard received a single bullet.

After killing the security guard and the police constable, the robbers went towards the storm room and robbed cash worth Rs4 to Rs5 million and escaped from the scene. The robbers also took with them the repeater gun of the security guard and the SMG of the police constable.

The robbery has given rise to many concerns and questions regarding the identity of the group involved behind the crime, especially because the nature of the offence and the manner in which it was carried out was of a professional nature.

Investigators probing the incident have claimed that it is highly probable that members of a militant group present in the city carried out the operation to generate funds for their organization. Investigators said that activists of various militant outfits who had previously been taken into custody by law enforcement agencies (LEAs) had revealed that they were sent from Wana by Baitullah Mehsud to generate funds.

These funds were to be used in turn to fund the war in Swat and Waziristan. In the recent past, it is alleged that several activists entered Karachi with the intention of committing bank robberies. Investigators believe that a militant outfit is also involved in this case.

Investigators revealed that according to disclosures made by those held, professional bank robberies such as this were highly planned. Complete information about the bank and various movements in and around the bank were noted and passed on to their leaders, who in turn directed to them the plan of the robbery.

Investigators said that while it was premature to pinpoint details about which group is involved in this robbery, such operations were also conducted last year in gold markets and banks by such groups. In those cases, investigators tracked down activists of Jundullah and Lashker-i-Jhangvi as the perpetrators of the crime. Investigators claim that they are checking their records and matching photographs with video footage they had received from the bank.

Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Karachi Waseem Ahmed said that a team of senior officers has been constituted in this regard. Bank officials have provided the police and the investigation team with video footage. Pictures will be extracted from video footage and released to the media on Saturday. Regarding the involvement of a militant group in the incident, Ahmed said that there is not much evidence to confirm the speculation, but there remains a high probability that it is true. Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza has approved a reward of Rs1 million as reward money for the arrest of criminals involved in the bank robbery.

A case has been lodged on the complaint of bank manger Riaz Ahmed.

The slain police constable Mallah was the resident of Grex Colony, Mauripur. He had been posted at Mauripur police station about eight months ago. The deceased was recruited in Police Department in 1994. Mallah left behind a wife and four children. Inspector General Police Sindh, Sultan Salahuddin Babar Khattak, paid glowing tributes to Mallah and announced posthumous promotion to next grade.

The slain security guard Shah Alam was recruited in Maritime Security a year and a half ago, and had been posted at the bank about four months ago. The deceased was the resident of Ittehad Town. He left behind a widow and five children.

Garment factory owner killed

An owner of a garment factory was gunned down at her relative’s residence in Quaidabad police limits on Friday.

Nighat, 32, wife of Mushtaq was shot by two armed men who barged into residence number 1524 belonging to Sadiq Shah situated in Adamjee Nagar Society. Later, they managed to flee leaving her injured.

Nighat’s relative after the incident immediately informed the police and took the injured to Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre in a critical condition. Unfortunately, she died on the way to the hospital.

According to the police the deceased was a mother of two children. Last night she went to her relative’s house where armed men were already waiting for her. As soon as she entered the house, they shot her. The police claimed that the deceased’s husband was in London and this murder could be a case of Karo Kari.

ACCIDENT: Two people including a young boy were killed in a road traffic accident in Gulberg police limits.

Reyan, 12, son of Younus, his relative Asar, Rehan and driver Wahid Bukhsh, 30, were injured when the driver of their car ( AJK-845) lost control and collided with an electric pole near F.B. Area.

The passing vehicles took all the injured to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital in critical condition, however, Reyan and Bukhsh died on the way to the hospital.

MISHAP: Samreen, 20, sustained burn wounds, when her clothes caught fire due to the bursting of kerosene oil stove at her residence situated in Ghos Pak Road in Korangi police area, while she was making tea.

Her family members took her to Civil Hospital in a critical condition, where during treatment she died.

Karachi a pollution hotspot: UN report

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14: A United Nations environment report named 13 megacities, including Karachi, as being ‘atmospheric brown clouds’ (ABC) ‘hotspots’. The other 12 are: Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran. Soot levels in these cities comprise 10 per cent of the total mass of all man-made particles.

The UNEP report says a three-kilometre-thick “brown cloud” of man-made pollution, which stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China to the western Pacific Ocean, is making Asian cities darker, speeding up the melting of Himalayan glaciers and impacting human health.

The brown cloud, resulting from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass, has resulted in the formation of particles such as black carbon and soot which absorb sunlight and heat the air, experts write in the study released on Thursday in Beijing.

The clouds also “mask” the actual warming impact of climate change by anywhere between 20 and 80 per cent because they include sulphates and other chemicals which reflect sunlight and cool the surface.

The artificial lowering of temperature by the brown cloud is leading to sharp shifts in weather patterns, causing significant drying in northern China while increasing the risk of flooding in the Asian nation’s south.

Monsoon precipitation over India and Southeast Asia has dropped up to 7 per cent since the 1950s, with the summer monsoon both weakening and shrinking.

The solar heating of the atmosphere by the brown cloud is “suggested to be as important as greenhouse gas warming in accounting for the anomalously large warming trend observed in the elevated regions” such as the Himalayan-Tibetan region, the study says, leading to the retreat of glaciers.

Further, the clouds contain toxic aerosols, carcinogens and other harmful particles, which could result in more people suffering from respiratory disease and cardiovascular problems.

While the effects of the clouds on food production and farmers’ livelihood could be immense, more research must be done to determine their precise role, it acknowledges, adding that the possible impact could include elevated levels of ground-level ozone, which could result in massive crop losses of up to 40 per cent in Asia.

Importance of Urdu highlighted

Urdu is a symbol of unity for the country because it is the lingua franca in all the provinces, said Vice Chancellor, Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology (FUUAST) Dr Muhammad Qaisar.

He was speaking on the sixth Foundation Day of the university on Friday. He was addressing the bureaucracy, which is against the implementation of Urdu as the national language. “Language experts from UNESCO studying the functioning of the Urdu College as a successful experiment had advised the authorities to also employ Urdu for higher education. Even though most of the official terminology has been translated in Urdu still the implementation of Urdu as the official language is being resisted by some vested interests,” Qaisar explained.

Director Bureau of Composition, Compilation and Translation, FUUAST, warned about the impacts of globalisation on the native culture, language and education and advised the academics and the intellectuals to unite and stop this cultural massacre. Deputy Chair FUUAST Senate Aftab Ahmed Khan said that Urdu is the fifth largest language of the world and had the capability to be adopted as the language of instruction on all the levels of education. He added that the hesitancy in its implementation was surprising and painful.

Shakaib Qureshi acquitted in Murtaza Bhutto case

Shakaib Qureshi, ex-Superintendent of Police (SP) was acquitted in the Mir Murtaza Bhutto case on Friday due to lack of evidence.

District and Sessions Judge, East, Abdur Rehman Bhatti, after listening to the arguments reserved the judgement in the last hearing on an acquittal application moved by a co-accused, Shakaib Qureshi.

Qureshi filed an acquittal application under Section 265-K. The prosecution said that four challans were presented in the court, all different from each other. In all these challans no evidences were submitted by the police, and as the case was pending in the court for last 12 years, Shakaib not being found guilty, was released.

The court listening to the arguments ordered his release. Mir Murtaza Bhutto was killed along with his close aide, Ashique Hussain Jatoi, and six other workers and supporters of the PPP-Shaheed Bhutto group in a shoot-out with police near his Clifton residence on September 20, 1996.

Several police officials including Shakaib Qureshi, Shoaib Suddle, Wajid Durrani, Masood Sharif, Shahid Hayat, Rahi Mohammed Tahir, Shabbir Ahmed Qaimkhani, and Agha Mohammed Jameel were nominated as accused in the case.

President Asif Ali Zardari was earlier acquitted in the case.

Mumtaz Bhutto condemns Qadirpur gas field sell-off

Chairman, Sindh National Front (SNF), Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, condemned the decision of privatisation of Qadirpur Gas Field, Pakistan Steel Mills and other valuable assets of Sindh. Mumtaz Bhutto said that they would raise their voices against the decision at every platform. He also endorsed the strike call for November 22, and asked the public to join them on the national issue. Mumtaz Bhutto criticising the government said that they were involved in lavish expenditures, while they have put heavy load on the masses. He said that the Pakistan Steel Mills, Qadirpur Gas Field and other valuable assets were the people’s property and the government should not sell it for their personal gain.

8 peasants recovered from illegal captivity

UMERKOT, Nov 14: On the directives of the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, police recovered eight peasants from illegal confinement at a farm in the vicinity of Sahban Jo Kot village near here on Friday.

Ms Kaku Meghwar had filed a petition in the Sindh High Court which directed SHO Umerkot to get the family members of petitioner recovered.

They police raided the alleged private prison of landlord Hanif Abro and got eight peasants, including four women recovered.

They said that they had been working at the farm land of Hanif Abro, but mostly they were denied their share of crops and kept in wrongful confinement.

Imran hits out at JUI for maligning journalist

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has snubbed JUI leaders for calling Ansar Abbasi, Editor Investigation The News, as a part of Jewish lobby. Imran is the only politician who raised his voice against the blame of Maulana Abdul Wassay and Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri of JUI upon Ansar Abbasi and the Jang Group.

Imran Khan while talking to this correspondent said that the JUI leaders should be ashamed of their uttering. “Instead of answering to the questions raised by the journalist, the JUI leaders stated that the journalist was working for Jewish lobby, which was shameful,” said Imran, adding: “In any democratic country these questions would have been raised in the Parliament and these people would have been asked by the parliamentary committees to answer the questions raised by the newspaper.

“Those people who do politics in the name of Islam should be ashamed of being hand and glove with the dictator while being in the opposition,” said the PTI chairman, adding: “JUI has been getting benefits from the dictator and strengthening the dictatorship which was utterly shameful.”

He said the JUI should have answered the questions raised by Ansar Abbasi in the same way as the journalist had elaborated his story point wise, but the people doing politics in the name of Islam were trying to hide themselves behind the conviction of calling the other person as Jew or working for Jewish lobby.

“These people are doing politics in the name of Islam and such type of backtracking from the principles of Islam by taking financial benefits from a dictator underhand and remaining in the opposition would take youth far away from Islam,” held Imran, adding: “If the JUI leaders are innocent they should take Ansar Abbasi and the Jang Group to the court and issue a rebuttal answering the questions raised by the journalist.”

Imran said he himself was blamed for working for Jewish lobby when he married an English girl, and it was convenient to call others Jew when one has no justification of his wrongdoings. He said that it was sad on the part of JUI leaders that they have been getting financial benefits from Musharraf and termed themselves his opponent.

“In this country there have been criminals and murderers posted at prime positions and the NRO has given amnesty to all the looters and plunderers, and there was no one to ask from the previous opposition leader that why did he get financial benefits from the dictator while he was doing politics in the name of Islam,” he said.

It is pertinent to mention here that Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his party has not issued any rebuttal of the Ansar Abbasi’s story on allotment of land to JUI people during the Musharraf regime.

Foreign journalists hurt in failed kidnapping bid

PESHAWAR: A Japanese journalist and his Afghan co-worker sustained bullet injuries in a botched kidnapping attempt in Hayatabad on Friday, a day after an Iranian diplomat was abducted from the city.

An unknown driver, said to be accompanying the two journalists, was also injured in the attack, sources said. Motoki Yotsukura, a senior correspondent of Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, was on his way back from Shahkas area of Khyber Agency, along with an Afghan journalist, Sami Yusufzai, when he was ambushed by unidentified gunmen.

The gunmen opened fire on the car when they failed to stop, injuring both the Japanese and Afghan media persons. Yotsukura sustained bullet injuries on his leg, while Sami suffered a bullet on his arm. Their driver is said to have received four bullets.

A police official said the firing was carried out in the tribal area of Khyber Agency, which borders Phase-I, VI and VII of the Hayatabad Township. All the injured were taken to the Hayatabad Medical Complex, where they were provided medical treatment.

9 Arabs among 13 killed in drone attack

MIRAMSHAH, Nov 14: Nine foreigners and four local tribesmen were killed and seven people injured in a missile attack on a residential compound in Shagai village of North Waziristan on Friday.

The attack is believed to have been carried out by a US drone.

Local authorities said that the plane fired three missiles on the house of one Amir Khan. The village in Gariam area is about 40km from here.

Amir Khan’s father was killed last year in a clash with Nato forces in Afghanistan.

This was the second missile attack in a week in the area adjacent to South Waziristan.

Thirteen suspected militants were killed in the last attack on Nov 7.