The world was already worried about Pakistan’s madrassas and tribal areas being used as base camps for Taleban insurgents. But now they are panicked because it seems like the militants has started showing off their power in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the only muslim country with Nuclear weapons. The controversy revolves around a mosque known as Red Mosque and a madrassa run by the mosque,Jamia Hafsa, an Institute of Islamic studies. Recently the students of this madrassa attacked a house in Islamabad, kidnapped three women who lived in that house and demanded that Adultry cases must be filed against these women or else Jamia would arrange an Islamic court and punish the women itself.
Their Business is Jihad
The Guardian’s Declan Walsh visits Islamabad’s Red Mosque a hotbed of Islamic militancy at the heart of Pakistan’s capital.
Trouble brews at Islamabad’s jihad-preaching mosqueBut their arrest and the seizure of the officers and an alleged manager of a local brothel during a morality dispute is a sideshow to more sinister activity inside the giant complex with 11,000 students.
The hostage-taking by women students from Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad of the residents of a house that they allege is a brothel is not just another act of vigilantism and a breakdown of governance; it is also a manifestation of a nation divided against itself.
Below is a video showing Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, the head of madrassah and the mosque administration, telling about the Mosque, the Madrassa and the ideology that he and the madrassa students believe in.
The world was already worried about Pakistan’s madrassas and tribal areas being used as base camps for Taleban insurgents. But now they are panicked because it seems like the militants has started showing off their power in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the only muslim country with Nuclear weapons. The controversy revolves […]
When Lahore is celebrating Basant, there is a man, Shaukat who entered the city with the dead bodies of his five children, injured and exhausted wife, and his now only child a baby girl.
The Supereme Court of Pakistan ordered a ban over kite flying in Punjab to combat the side effects of Basant. Government of Punjab, removed the ban for two days to celebrate Basant in Lahore. Strict measures are taken to protect innocent lives and infrastructure, and to maintain law and order during Basant. But how could you expect the wild masses to abide the law when the wild government itself has teared it up into pieces.
This, the country of contrasts is full of conflicting stories. In another city, Peshawar, schools were threatened to be attacked by suicide bombers if they do not end up their co eduction school system.
A woman mourning over the dead body of her relative who died during the terrorist attack on Samjhota Express.
Women in Lahore wearing smiles and buying kites to celebrate Basant.
School girls in Islamabad running during the inter school competitions.
Principle of Girl’s school in Mardan, a city in Pakistani province NWFP. Wearing Burqa and telling media about the threat letters she has recieved from Taleban to follow the strict Islamic burqa guidelines.
When Lahore is celebrating Basant, there is a man, Shaukat who entered the city with the dead bodies of his five children, injured and exhausted wife, and his now only child a baby girl.
The Supereme Court of Pakistan ordered a ban over kite flying in Punjab to combat the side effects of Basant. […]
Barbers get threat in Pakistan, Suspected Islamic radicals have issued a warning to barbers in a Pakistani border town not to shave off or cut their customers’ beards, saying it offends Islam.
Pakistani newspaper, The Daily times has more on this issue.
Residents of Khar said that local barbers decided not to shave their customers following threats by militants that the practice was un-Islamic and violators would be punished.
Some 80 percent of customers visit barber shops to shave their beard and the militants’ threat will hurt the barbers economically.
The political administration has confirmed that the barbers were threatened, but it appears “helpless” in providing security to the barbers.
Security analysts, asking not to be named, said that militants would use Bajaur as a base to expand their “brand of Islam” to the northern districts of the NWFP after the southern districts “are increasingly influenced by the spread of Talibanisation”.
Meanwhile, US keeps pressurizing Pakistan to curb down on Taliban hideouts in Pakistan. A senior US Army General Karl W. Eikenberry testified before the House Armed Services Committee:
Al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership presence inside of Pakistan remains a very significant problem, He told the Committee.
A steady, direct attack against the command and control in Pakistan in sanctuary areas is essential for us to achieve success,
The Taliban resurgence has been supported by a strengthened command-and-control structure that moved across the border into Pakistan after U.S. forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001. Today, Eikenberry said, senior Taliban leaders from the ousted regime are collaborating with al-Qaeda leaders, as well as with other groups led by the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani clan of an ethnically Pashtun tribe.
Barbers get threat in Pakistan, Suspected Islamic radicals have issued a warning to barbers in a Pakistani border town not to shave off or cut their customers’ beards, saying it offends Islam.
Pakistani newspaper, The Daily times has more on this issue.
Residents of Khar said that local barbers decided not to shave their customers following […]
In recent years residents of Karachi have been facing a great deal of problems due to the increase in traffic, pollution, crime and lack of other basic amenities. Such a project would allow the crème de la crème to distinguish themselves from the millions of middle-class people in the city who have now, according to one socialite, turned it into a ‘shit-hole’.
Karachi police has obtained a toll free number for street crime unit. The number is 0800-91515 and it would start functioning soon. The plan is to connect with the CPLC and PTA’s existing systems. This would help the victims of street crime to quickly report the crime so that police can take action before the criminals reach safe heavens. It is particularly useful against robberies, motor cycle and car jacking, and mobile snatching.
Gnome Hacks, is a repository for all those little tricks that people have worked out that do something useful or cool with their GNOME Desktop.
Explaining social schizophrenia Dr Ayesha Siddiqa’s excellent analysis of social schizophrenia of the Bahawalpuri society. How the puritanical religion has affected the Bahwalpur. Ayesha Siddiqa is the author of forthcoming book Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy
Election of the president – a legal analysis It has been argued that how can an assembly which has […]
Few weeks ago a jirga in Karachi, called for city wide transport strike. The strike took a violent turn, one man was killed and several people got injured when angry Pakhtons and Afghans allegedly attempted to attack a neighborhood of Urdu speaking people.
English language media doesn’t cover much of Pakistan’s rural areas but if you read the Urdu newspapers you would notice that each day there is a jirga held in some part of the country. Most of the times these Jirgas act like a criminal court, sometimes ordering sever punishments to accused parties. These local Jirgas are also dealing with land and property disputes, domestic and family issues and all this happening not only in the tribal areas, where the Jirga system has a formal legal status, but also in rural Punjab, Sindh and the Pakhton neighborhoods of Karachi.
Jirga system is on a rise and unfortunately government of Pakistan is unable to stop people from organizing a Jirga. It is totally legal to organize jirga meeting. Authorities can not take any action against the jirga until someone files a complain either to local police or to the courts. Even then they will have to prove that the decision made by Jirga is illegal, criminal or violates any Pakistani law. Even Government of Pakistan calls for Jirga to solve trouble in Wazirstan and Bajor tribal agencies.
Chief minister of Pakistan’s North Western Frontier Province called grand jirga of NWFP parliamentarians in Islamabad on Tuesday. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao called this Jirga unconstitutional and undemocratic.
Few weeks ago a jirga in Karachi, called for city wide transport strike. The strike took a violent turn, one man was killed and several people […]
