“The prime minister promised that the airline will pay interim compensation of Rs5 million in 30 days; unfortunately neither any government official nor the airline’s representatives have approached us even for condolence,” said Sardar Kinaf, who lost three family members in the crash, at a press conference here on Saturday.

Families of the crash victims also demanded that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) disclose the cause of the accident, since the black box of the plane has been decoded.

Shortly after the crash, officials concerned blamed bad weather; but a team of the CAA’s investigation board, headed by Mujahid Islam, is currently investigating it.

Islam was also a member of the investigation team, which prepared an investigation report of the Airblue crash. The report, however, was rejected by the Peshawar High Court.

Solidarity

Families of AirBlue crash victims were also present at the press conference, to express solidarity with Bhoja crash victims’ families.

Col (retd) Shamim Sheikh from the AirBlue Crash Affectees Group (ACAG) said that the Bhoja Air crash could have been avoided if orders of the Peshawar High Court in the AirBlue case were implemented in letter and spirit.

“We realise what will happen to Bhoja Air crash victims’ families; therefore, we will always be standing with them,” Sheikh said.

He demanded the enforcement of the Montreal Convention in Pakistan, signed in 1999, for ensuring fair compensation to families of air crash victims.

“The government should announce appropriate compensation for the Bhoja Air crash victims’ families, as was done in the case of AirBlue” said Coordinator ACAG Zulfiqar.

Authorities should nominate judicial officials in Karachi and Islamabad to expedite the issuing of succession certificates to victims’ families, he said, adding that Bhoja Air should be compelled to pay the first tier compensation of Rs5 million to all families immediately.

He also demanded that both AirBlue and Bhoja Air should be grounded till the finalisation of investigation reports of the two crashes.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2012.

He was talking to the young poets of Islamabad, who presented their poetry in a programme organised by the Islamabad Culture Forum (ICF). “I saw institutions being built in my youth, but I am saddened today when I look at the destruction of those institutions,” said Nasir.

Recalling the glimpse of his past, Nasir said that friends used to gather at each other’s residence to read poetry, but with the passage of time, poetry has been replaced by placards.

For the encouragement of young poets in Islamabad, Nasir said such programmes should continue in future and promised to attend them as often as possible.

Famous poet Haleem Qureshi, who was also the chief guest, made a speech focussing on the fact that “poetry fosters life”.

Appreciating the efforts of ICF, Qureshi expressed hope that the forum will organise more such programmes in future to promote new talent, which rarely get any exposure these days.

ICF Convener Ashfaq Saleem Mirza gave some background on the ICF, narrating how it started its 18 year journey in 1994. It was shut down for two years but was restarted a few months back “with renewed vigour”. “Our aim is to introduce new talent in every field, including poetry, music, and painting,” said Mirza.

Young poets of Islamabad including Mazhar Masud, Fakhira Noreen, Rashida Mahin Malik, Shahnaz Faryad Malik, Chaudhry Ishaq, Nawab Kaifi, Dr Ibrar Umar, Ali Akbar Natiq, and Dr Arshad Ali Mujahid, along with Haleem Qureshi read their poetry.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2012.

ISLAMABAD: The Bhoja Air legal team was unable to convince the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to direct the government to quash the First Information Report (FIR) against the airline’s chairman Farooq Omer Bhoja and the admin assistant, Fayyaz Ahmed.

Justice Riaz Ahmed Khan of IHC on Monday dismissed the petitions saying that they were not maintainable.

Soon after the crash of a Bhoja Air Boeing 737-200 near Islamabad last month, killing all 127 people on board, the interior ministry placed the names of Farooq Bhoja, Fayyaz Ahmed and others on the Exit Control List (ECL) and directed the concerned police station to register FIRs against the airline’s top management.

Subsequently, Bhoja Air Secretary Mehmood Ali petitioned the IHC for quashment of the FIR against his boss, while Ahmed moved the court himself.

Both the petitions were fixed for hearing before Justice Khan, who had to decide whether the petitions were maintainable or not before beginning the trial.

After preliminary hearings of the petitions last week, Justice Khan issued notices to the interior and defence secretaries, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director general, inspector general of the Islamabad police and the Koral Police SHO.

The replies from the respondents turned out to be the key factors which helped Khan decide the fate of the petitions, which he dismissed without hesitation.

Bhoja’s legal team had argued that since District and Sessions Judge Kosar Niazi had already granted interim pre-arrest bail to their clients, the court should consider the bail as interim relief and direct the authorities to quash the FIRs.

The counsel argued in the petitions that various aviation-related ordinances qualify as special laws as they govern all aspects of handling an air crash, including the subsequent inquiry and consequent action, while the registration of FIR has been done under a general law.

Mehmood said that the CAA director general had confirmed in a press conference that Bhoja Air was issued an Air Operations Certificate (AOC) after the completion of all regulatory requirements.

After meeting all operational, security and safety requirements, the airline successfully operated its first flight from Karachi to Lahore in March 2012, he added.

He further maintained that the interior ministry had placed Farooq Bhoja’s name on the Exit Control List despite the fact that Bhoja is a minority shareholder in the airline.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2012.

He had further contended in his petition that the prime minister’s cabinet, its advisers and ministers of state cannot continue to perform and exercise power as well since such actions would stand illegal under Article 91 of the constitution.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2012.

A petition filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday sought the court to order Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to stop serving as prime minister after his conviction in the contempt of court case.

It states that the premier defied the court’s orders by not writing a letter to the Swiss authorities asking them to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and thus he should be disqualified.

The petition maintains that according to Article 63(1) g of the constitution, the prime minister stands disqualified from being a member of the National Assembly and thus, his cabinet also stood dissolved.

The petition filed by Advocate G M Chaudhry will be heard by Justice Shaukat Siddiqui on May 2.

According to the petition, the cabinet, its advisers and ministers of the state cannot exercise power or continue to perform since Article 91 of the constitution would deem such actions to be unconstitutional. It added that all federal ministers, advisers and special assistants should be asked to quit their offices.

The petitioner, Advocate Chaudhry, cited all advisers and special assistants to the prime minister, the federal law secretary, attorney general and the chief election commissioner as respondents in the petition.

Meanwhile, the Sindh High Court on Monday adjourned the hearing of a petition filed by Advocate Syed Moulvi Iqbal Haider on the same issue till May 3.

Justice Faisal Arab and Nadeem Akhtar took up the petition which was filed on Saturday on the request of Haider. The hearing will now take place in an open court on Thursday.

Justice Maqbool Baqar earlier declined to hear the same petition, saying that there were too many cases to be heard in the day and not enough time.

The petition too, seeks to move the Speaker of National Assembly to ask the chief election commissioner to declare the seat of the prime minister vacant upon Gilani’s conviction of contempt of court.

The petition numbered CP-D 1600/2012 cited the NA speaker, the chief election commissioner and the federal law secretary as the main respondents.

The petition reiterated that the Supreme Court has left the decision of unseating the premier up to those who hold constitutional offices. It, thus, requested NA Speaker Fehmida Mirza to ask the chief election commissioner to declare the seat vacant.

The petition also requests the commissioner to convene a meeting to exclusively discuss the issue of Gilani’s disqualification after he was convicted and sentenced.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2012.

Farkhand Iqbal – who spearheaded the rescue operation – was booked after the authorities found that he had taken the black box and CVR of the crashed plane to his house and planned to present them to the investigation team during a press conference, sources in Islamabad Capital Administration (ICT) revealed.

“The CDA chairman has gone to China,” confirmed Ramzan Sajid, CDA’s spokesperson. Sources said the trip had been scheduled a month before in connection with a conference.

International civil aviation rules stipulate that the black box and CVR of crashed flights must be preserved in a dry container to secure the data from possible moisture.

Unaware of the finer points governing aviation rules, the CDA chairman took both the flight recorders of the crashed plane – which killed all the 127 people onboard on Friday – to his house without lawful authority, prompting authorities to take action against him.

“Told you so”

Exasperated at the government’s failure to launch an inquiry into the airworthiness of all public and private aircraft, Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan said if court orders during the Airblue case were followed the Bhoja Air crash could have been avoided.

At a hearing of several cases on Monday, Justice Khan expressed his dissatisfaction at the country’s domestic aviation sector and said: “Our orders were defied, but if they had been followed, dozens of innocent lives could have been saved.”

It appears that the chief justice was not actually hearing any cases related to either the Airblue or the Bhoja Air tragedies, but decided to take up the issue with the government’s lawyers on what was the first working day of the court in the wake of the latest crash.

Justice Khan reminded the government that in the aftermath of the Airblue crash, the PHC had ordered the defence ministry to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into the flying capacity of all planes in the domestic aviation sector within 90 days — an order that the government pleaded unconvincingly that it had complied with.

“Not even a single step has so far been taken. What is the government doing?” asked the chief justice. “Those orders were meant to prevent incidents like these [Bhoja Air crash].”

‘Temporarily suspended’

Following the directives issued by the defence ministry which seeks “to conduct shakedown checks of all passenger planes”, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) ‘temporarily’ suspended Bhoja Air’s operations by launching an inspection of all private air fleets.

Officials on Monday confirmed to The Express Tribune that Bhoja Air cannot operate its planes until it gets clearance from the Airworthiness Directorate of the CAA.

“The CAA will complete Bhoja planes’ shakedown inspections first. Bhoja Air will continue its operation after getting checks of all its fleet (three passenger planes) successfully,” CAA spokesperson Pervez George told The Express Tribune.

(with addtional reporting by Umer Farooq in peshawar)

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2012.

The PHC, where the Airblue management is currently facing a legal battle from families of the victims, had directed the federal government to have inspected fleets of all domestic airliners, including Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) by international experts.

Three months have passed and the inspection has yet to take place. In the meantime, an ill-fated plane of Bhoja Air, the private airline which recently resumed operation after the 2001 financial crisis, crashed on the outskirts of Islamabad on Friday, killing all 127 passengers and crew aboard.

The defence ministry has issued a notification of reinvestigation of the Airblue crash and ordered an inspection of the fleets of all domestic airlines. The ministry also informed the PHC that a letter has been written to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to nominate experts for the task.

According to Obaid Abbasi, a law officer of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), ICAO has forwarded the request of the Pakistani government to the UN secretary general for approval.

The defence ministry had submitted the investigation report on December 20, 2011 in the PHC. One of the reasons the court ordered that the investigation report be discarded was the negligent response of the authorities.

During the January 19 hearing, the PHC chief justice asked the president of the Safety Investigation Board of the CAA, Khawaja Majeed, in which container the Black Box of flight ED-202 was sealed. Majeed was ignorant of the methodology used for the preservation of the Black Box and could not give the court a satisfactory response.

As a result, the court rejected the report and passed an order available with The Express Tribune that said, “The investigation report submitted was found to be inconclusive and incomplete in many aspects because the interrogatories made from the officer and many aspects of the incident remained unsatisfied and unattended.”

The court ordered the federal government to constitute a competent and independent board of inquiry consisting of members and experts mentioned in the ICAO and Warsaw Convention.

The investigation report of Airblue, available with The Express Tribune, reveals that Khawja Majeed and his team had suggested some safety recommendations in the report to prevent such a disastrous crash in the future. Those suggestions included improved aircrew training, an implemented safety management system, prioritising the functionality of the new airport in Islamabad and a review of compensation regulations, among others.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2012.

The 13-kilometre, four-lane road will start from GT Road and will be constructed on the foothills of the Margalla Hills.

CDA sources said that 10 contractors had submitted their proposals for the project, with two companies — R M Gulistan and Rakhshani — submitting the lowest bids.

These companies offered to complete the road for Rs500 million against the CDA’s estimate of Rs750 million.

An official in CDA, when contacted, said the scrutiny committee is expected to submit its recommendation in favour of one of the two firms within the next week.

Regarding the land acquisition, the official said the concerned department is finalising its report which will also be submitted next week. He admitted that the authority will pay a heavy amount as compensation to landowners.

Iqbal said the road will address the traffic load on the western side of the city. “The road will provide a shorter route to vehicles coming from northern Pakistan, especially Peshawar.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2012. 

ISLAMABAD / KARACHI: Among those who were killed in the plane crash were newlywed couple Tanveer Jan and Sadaf – who had adjoining seats, 18-A and 18-B.

The couple wed a month ago and lived in the Gulshan-e-Hadeed area. They had been invited to Islamabad by Tanveer Jan’s uncle so they could travel and enjoy a late honeymoon. Those dreams are now over. Tanveer Jan’s brother Kabeer was among those trying desperately to get some news. He told The Express Tribune that they had not been able to get an answer from the authorities in Karachi or Islamabad or any information on available flights.  Kabeer said that their family were small-time landowners from Shikarpur and Tanveer Jan worked as a goods transporter.  There were similar emotional scenes at Islamabad airport as distraught relatives wept bitterly for the victims of the crash. I had come to receive my newly wed son and daughter-in-law. My son Sajjad Ali married only 20 days back. He was coming with his wife Sania Abbas today, I had come to receive the couple,” said one heartbroken old man.

Families torn apart

Shehzad lost two brothers in the plane crash – Mohammad Farooq and Mohammad Sohail. “They work with engines and had travelled to purchase parts from Rawalpindi. They go quite often,” he said. Shehzad said the response from the authorities was “ridiculous”. “The only time I got to see the list was from the media and there is no one at the counter who is telling us anything, there is a crowd here.”  “We don’t care,” Shehzad said, “We’ll pay to get on another flight. Just get us out, whether it is on Bhoja or Khoja.”  “My wife was on the plane, she was alone, going to see her parents,” said Arshad Hussain 27, tears rolling down his cheeks. He had married just a few months ago.”I have seen the name of my sister and her infant girl,” said Mohammad Usman. “Our lives have been devastated.”

‘He died a martyr’

Also on the flight was Usman Rasheed, a cleric in his mid-20s. Originally from Hazara, Rasheed had studied at Karachi’s Jamia Binoria for five years and become an aalim. “He had come to Karachi to meet his teachers. He left the seminary before Asr prayers,” recalled Jamia Binoria’s Mufti Naeemur Rehman. “A car from the seminary dropped him at the airport a few hours ago and now he has been martyred.”

Checking the passenger list

Waqas was looking for his friend’s uncles name on the passenger list- Waqas, along with his friends had come from Jhelum. He said he went to the site first and then came to the airport. “The situation over there is poorly managed. Roads are blocked. We couldn’t find out anything. We have now come here to confirm if our uncle was even on the flight. We don’t know of our plan from here. We are not getting any information”.  Family members and friends hopelessly searched for names in the lists put up at the Bhoja Air counter at the Benazir International Airport.

Bhoja Air steps in

Bhoja Air’s public relations officer Jasir Abro said “we want everyone to stop speculating. We’re trying to find out what happened, where, and how it happened. As soon as we find out more information about the crash the list will be made public.” However, Bhoja Air did not have a focal person to deal with the crisis, unlike Airblue, which did in the aftermath of the 2010 plane crash. When people working on the Bhoja Air desk were asked what their crisis management plan was, they said, “We have a crisis management plan, it’s on the books,” but couldn’t answer when asked to provide a protocol or standard operating procedures. Meanwhile, Bhoja Air announced that an aircraft will carry one member each of the families’ affected by the crash at 7am today. The Malir deputy commissioner also told reporters that a PIA airplane had been arranged to take family members to Rawalpindi free of charge.

WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM AGENCIES

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2012.

Accompanied by an ambulance and a van loaded with necessary items for the trip, the cyclists began their journey from the Pakistan Monument at Shakarparian Hills.

Titled “Pedal for Peace and Polio Eradication”, the campaign is a joint initiative of the National Highways and Motorway Police (NHMP), Global Polio Eradication Organization, Taleem Foundation and Pakistan Association of Free Flying.

The cyclists will stop at Kamra and then Nowshera on the first and second day before reaching Peshawar, where they will be received by Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Assembly Kiramatullah Khan.

During the campaign inauguration ceremony, Wajid Ali Khan Durrani, the inspector general of NHMP, emphasised on the need to create awareness about polio and to form strategies to root-out the disease.

“Polio is preventable and every child can be spared from its agony by just few a drops,” said Durani. To accomplish this goal, he said, the NHMP is administering polio drops to thousands of children at toll plazas along the motorways.

The IG said that over 170 polio cases were reported last year and for the past three years this (reported cases) number averages more than 100.

Durrani called for forming local communities to identify children in their area vulnerable to polio and inform doctors or concerned government officials so that these children can be inoculated for the disease.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2012.