Suicide squads being formed to kill Shias

[Ray]

Tuesday, December 06, 2005 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version

Suicide squads being formed to kill Shias in NAs


By Shahzad Malik

ISLAMABAD: Intelligence agencies have uncovered a plot by two banned militant groups to kill Shia members of the legislative council of the Northern Areas, sources said on Monday.

Sources said that leaders of banned outfits Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) had directed their operatives to form suicide squads to kill Shia members of the legislative council.

Intelligence agencies outlined details of the plan in a report submitted to the Interior Ministry, that contained information gleaned from three members of the banned groups.

The report said that the SSP and LJ had asked their members in the Northern Areas to recruit women and children to the suicide squads.

Clerics belonging to these organisations had also contacted people in the earthquake-hit areas to convince them to send their children to seminaries in Punjab. In return, they offered to pay for the children’s education, boarding and lodging, the report said. Maulana Ghulam Kibriya of Rahim Yar Khan was assigned to arrange for these children’s admissions to seminaries in southern Punjab, said the report.

The banned organisations were also found distributing periodicals – Paigham-e-Haq (The Message of Truth) and Zarb-e-Momin – in the quake-affected areas, sources said. “The report says that members of foreign rescue teams, including US nationals, frequently seen in the markets of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, are also potential targets for militants,” the sources said. The Interior Ministry has ordered the Northern Areas’ chief secretary, the Islamabad chief commissioner and the Punjab home secretary to take measures to prevent acts of terror.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...-12-2005_pg1_6

It has been propogated that there is no Shia Sunni divide in Pakistan. This was the most vociferous stand taken by certain members.

However, the schism has reached such a sad state that apart from a clamour to declare the Shias as non Moslems, now they are actually aiming to kill the Shias.

[Ray]

And Pakistan does give great importance to Shias and the Northern Area.

Protests in NA over joint session issue: Speaker reserves ruling



By Raja Asghar


ISLAMABAD, Dec 5: Opposition parties voiced strong protests as the National Assembly began its fourth parliamentary year on Monday amid what they saw as a violation of the constitution by President Pervez Musharraf by not calling and addressing a joint sitting of parliament before this session.

The government rejected the allegation of constitutional violation levelled by all major opposition parties before speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain reserved his ruling on the question whether it is mandatory for the president to convene and address a joint sitting of the National Assembly and the Senate at the commencement of the parliamentary year.

The opposition raised the issue at the start of the 30th session of the present lower house but the speaker allowed opposition members to carry a heated debate even into the question hour through points of order in a move that he said was aimed to avoid a protest walkout.

“I am determined not to let a walkout take place and that is why I am allowing points of order during the question hour,” the speaker said although he did resort to having mikes of opposition members switched off or expunging derogatory remarks about the president, who was repeatedly accused from opposition benches of showing a lack of moral courage by avoiding to face the elected representatives of the people.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi was the sole defender of the president who, he said, was not bound to address a joint sitting and could not perform this “most solemn and formal act under the constitution” in the face of feared “uncivilised” behaviour that he could face in the form of noisy protests that marked presidential addresses in recent years.

Both the opposition and the government relied on the constitution’s article 56 but centred their arguments on two different clauses.

The opposition based its arguments on clause (3) which says: “At the commencement of the first session after each general election to the National Assembly and at the commencement of the first session of each year the president shall address both houses assembled together and inform the Majlis-i-Shoora (parliament) of the causes of its summons.”

But Mr Niazi said the use of the word “may” instead of “shall” in the earlier clause (3) left the question open to the president’s discretion. It says: “The president may address either house or both houses assembled together and may for that purpose require the attendance of the members.”

The only time President Musharraf addressed the joint sitting was in January 2004 when he faced noisy protests from opposition parties in the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) while the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) only staged a walkout. No such joint sitting was called this year.

Syed Naveed Qamar of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, who started the debate on the issue, asked the government to explain whether there was no need of the article 56 of the constitution or “there was no president” in the country.

MMA’s Liaquat Baloch said if the president had no moral courage to face parliament then “he has no right to occupy this office”.

Khwaja Mohammad Asif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said the president faced “the problem of legitimacy” even six years after being in power and this problem would not go away until “he is elected in accordance with the constitution”.

PPP’s Mujeeb Pirzada saw another violation of the constitution in what he called President Musharraf’s insistence to build the controversial Kalabagh Dam in the face of opposition from three of the four provinces of the country rather than settling the issue in the inter-provincial Council of Common of Interests.

Petroleum and Natural Resources Minister Amanullah Khan Jadoon, while replying to an opposition call-attention notice, assured the house that the government would give a better pricing formula for petroleum products after a decision by the Supreme Court on petitions pending before it.

Before the house was adjourned until 10am on Tuesday, opposition members used points of orders to voice several grievances ranging from non-payment of growers’ arrears by sugar mills in Sindh to non-supply of natural gas to Karak district of the NWFP, law and order problems in Karachi and detention of some activists of the Balochistan National Party after their acquittal by an anti-terrorism court in Quetta.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/06/top1.htm