Opinion Powering Pakistan

Terror is Swat’s export to other parts of Pakistan,suggests Interior Minister Rehman Malik. Daily Times quoted him as saying on May 25: “Terror elements from FATA and Swat are behind the recent wave of target killings in Karachi…”. The News confirmed: “People in the Swat Valley have a new-found confidence in the military and are convinced it would smoke out the remnants of Taliban involved in target killings at a time when security forces neutralised a couple of militant groups and were hunting down others.”

Media hit list

IN its first ever reaction to the slur on its employee,Hamid Mir,Pakistan’s premier media house,the Jang Group ran a news item in the May 24 edition of their English daily,The News: “According to highly informed sources,the government has decided to defame a select group of senior Jang Group journalists in the coming weeks. According to the sources,Hamid Mir’s alleged conversation with an unidentified Taliban leader was ‘just the first in the series’… it was planned that original words of a marked journalist would be taken from his various telephone conversations and then patched together to create a phoney conversation to discredit the journalist… An attempt shall also be made to paint some as being ‘Nawaz Sharif lackeys’ and that their criticism of the PPP-led coalition was actually sponsored by the Sharif camp… The hit list comprises (so far): Hamid Mir,Shaheen Sehbai,Ansar Abbassi,Mohammad Malick,Kamran Khan and Dr Shahid Masood.

The government’s rebuttal was published in the same paper on May 26: “The allegation… is false and baseless,and has been made with a malicious intent to attack the regime,” said Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira. “From day one,the people’s government has demonstrated its absolute commitment to media freedom by encouraging democratic dissent,and not taking action against even the most biased and unethical instances of reporting and commentary made by a section of the media against the government.”

Proclaimed offender

Despite last week’s presidential pardon in two cases,Rehman Malik continues to wade through troubled waters,The News reported on May 24: “Malik… can be arrested in a third case registered with an FIA police station… ‘The accused A. Rehman Malik was declared an absconder and proclaimed offender and is available here but neither a supplementary challan has been presented nor the court has been informed of any action taken against him. Therefore,you are directed to inform the court about the present status and what action so far has been taken against the accused,’ stated the notice. The interior minister has been a proclaimed offender since 1999 as he had not appeared before the court… This case against him was instituted by one Dr Saleem Moeeni,a Pakistani employed in Saudi civil aviation. Malik,being additional DG FIA,had him arrested and deported from Saudi Arabia on allegedly false allegations of sabotage,terrorism,and anti-state activities,and had,according to Dr Saleem’s version in the FIR,demanded Rs 5 million for his release.”

Gentleman’s game?

TAKING off from Pakistan’s latest cricket crisis,Dawn in its May 26 editorial took a pointed and strong line against incumbent PCB chief,Ijaz Butt. “Pakistan cricket will forever thrash about without a clue in the absence of an able helmsman. It is clear to followers of cricket that Butt has to go… If Butt is going to be discarded,the new chairman should be elected to the post,not appointed (by the president,as in Butt’s case)… But we just can’t blame the board,even though that’s the easy option. Our players are a fractious lot that cause most of the confusion within PCB… It is time the ‘stars’ in the team were made answerable to the law of the land.”