The two leaders met on the sidelines of the reception, which Nawaz said was “for the good of the country and the people”. They vowed to carry on with their much talked-about ‘policy of reconciliation’ in the greater interests of the country.

“I have already assumed Nawaz Sharif is the prime minister. He will get full support from the Presidency,” said President Zardari, to which Nawaz replied: “Zardari Sahab was a constitutionally elected President. Why would I ask him to resign?”

Nawaz had thus far been ‘avoiding’ meeting President Zardari one-on-one since the recently concluded general elections which the former’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party won convincingly.

In February, he had ‘politely’ turned down President Zardari’s request for a private meeting at Raiwind.

Earlier, President Zardari received the PML-N leader in his conventional open-arms style with a smile on his face. However, when asked if his party would support Sharif’s looming instatement as the premier, the president said “it would be decided by Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the President of PPPP, as President Zardari had already detached himself from all political activities after assuming the Presidency.

Speaking to journalists, Nawaz said he regarded the country’s interest as being more important than self-interest. “We would perhaps not have sat together if we had considered our self-interest greater than Pakistan’s.”

“The country is facing massive problems for which everyone is required to work in harmony. No single party can single-handedly pull the country out of its present turmoil,” said President Zardari. He reiterated that all political forces should work together to rid Pakistan of its troubles.

The two leaders renewed their resolve to carry on with their ‘policy of reconciliation’ which remained practically suspended during most of the last five years.

Nawaz said he intends to continue upholding the principles of the Charter of Democracy he signed with the late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

It is yet to be seen as to what course the ‘reconciliation policy’ takes with PPP now on the opposition benches of the National Assembly and PML-N forming a government at the centre.

Commenting on his meeting with Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani this past Saturday, Sharif said all state institutions must be on the same page to effectively tackle the problems.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2013.

Briefing the media on the crisis, Dr Zulfiqar Ahmed Cheema, the director general of immigration and passports, said on Monday that all passports have been printed and shipped to respective countries.

“The immigration and passport department has procured 1.5 million laminates, and now the staff is working on a war footing to clear the backlog of passports in the country by June 15,” Cheema said.

“The backlog of ‘urgent passports’ will be cleared by the end of May and we are confident that by June 15 all passports, including regular, will be cleared,” he added. “The staff is now churning out 20,000 passports a day.”

So far, 400,000 passports are in the backlog, half of them urgent ones. A department official said that by mid-April the backlog had reached 800,000. At the time, the passport department was left with only 90,000 laminates.  The number of pending travel documents was reduced only after the department managed to procure 300,000 laminates in damages from the original supplier.

Subsequently, with the crisis reaching unmanageable proportions, a special permission was secured from the prime minister to procure another 1.5 million laminates through the US based supplier OpSec.

One of the reasons for the clearing up of the process has been the removal of a stay order by the Islamabad High Court on a tender for the new contract with OpSec.

The court had earlier stayed the contract process after one of the bidders, a French company Reliance International, challenged that OpSec was given the tender in violation of rules and without laboratory tests.

“In fact all legal procedures were met. Reliance’s rates were at least 1.6 million dollars higher than the price OpSec offered,” said a senior officer from the Machine Readable Passports (MRP) Project. The price for the total contract awarded to OpSec was 3.4 million dollars. The supplier has provided lamination paper twice before in two different contracts, the official added.

Speaking about the department’s priority list, Cheema said that preparation of passports for Hajj pilgrims would be completed in the first week of June. He said the fresh applications were also being entertained and the process was expected to be back to normal once the backlog was cleared.

Furthermore, reaching out to waiting citizens, the director general warned against giving money to any agents. “We are taking strict action against all touts and agents,” said Cheema, reassuring citizens that their passport woes would soon be over.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: After receiving a formal invitation to join the government in the Centre, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl has tasked its central leader Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri to negotiate the terms of a coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

The four-member committee formed under Haideri will hold talks with PML-N’s second-tier leadership to discuss further modalities of the alliance between the two parties. The other three members of the committee are Akram Khan Durrani, Maulana Gul Naseeb Jan and Malik Sikander Khan.

“The committee will discuss the details of the partnership with PML-N and will report back to the JUI-F cabinet committee, which will take the final decision,” said Jan Muhammad Khan Achakzai, the spokesperson for JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

The decision to form the committee was taken during the meeting of JUI-F’s executive committee on Sunday. Earlier, PML-N leaders Senator Raja Zafarul Haq and newly elected MNA Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry visited the JUI-F chief’s residence on Saturday to formally invite the party to join the government.

Sources said the JUI-F leadership insisted on receiving a share in the Balochistan government and at least one important portfolio in the federal government, along with reserving the chairmanship of the Kashmir Committee for Fazl. The PML-N delegation said they would convey the demands to their top leadership which would take the decision.

The two parties have decided to hold further negotiations since PML-N was uncomfortable with the idea of taking JUI-F along elsewhere, apart from the Centre.

“The second-tier leadership from both sides has been tasked with resolving any deadlocks and finding ways to form an alliance that is acceptable to both sides,” said a JUI-F official. He said portfolios and other benefits will be discussed further along in the negotiations. The talks will initially focus on the legislative agendas of the two parties.

“We are a political party not an NGO and yes we would go for ministries as they are important in politics,” said the JUI-F official. He maintained, however, that ministries were not the party’s top priority. “The legislative agenda is vital.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2013.

This was the confession of Rab Nawaz — a man accused of killing his wife — given to the police. Nawaz, a resident of Sector G-7, was arrested from a hideout in the outskirts of the city last week.

Nawaz was Shaheena’s* second husband. They had married less than a year ago. The woman’s teenage son from her first marriage was also living with them in the house. He was the one who discovered his mother’s body lying in a pool of blood when he returned from work.

Nawaz was sent to jail by a court after he confessed to the murder. Before the police, the accused said he felt betrayed and started suspecting that his wife was a woman of ‘questionable character’ after he saw her in a car with a stranger.

When he asked her who the man was, his wife could not provide a satisfactory answer to him. But the police added that there was no witness to what his wife would have told Nawaz. The interrogators relied completely on the confessional of the accused.

But why did Nawaz kill her while he could simply leave her?

Police quoted the killer as saying he wanted to “avenge the breach of his trust”. He told the police that he loved her and had married her knowing that she was divorced and had a son. However, he felt “broken” and was enraged whenever he saw her with another man soon after their marriage. Nawaz said he had decided that he would kill her and had been looking for an opportunity ever since seeing her with a stranger in the car.

He told the police that his wife never listened to his pleas “to mend her ways”. He got the opportunity when she was home and her son was out.

Police said her son told the police that he found her mother dead when he returned home after work. He instantly knew that his stepfather was responsible. The two used to quarrel and fight over his mother’s “ways of living” very often, he also told the police.

He said that on the day the incident occurred, he left home at around 1:30pm, leaving his stepfather alone with his mother.

This was not the first incident of ‘honour-killing’ in the city, but it was certainly among the most gruesome. It also has lessons for certain people who think of their women as a source of “honour” rather than independent human beings and decide to unilaterally ‘punish’ them based on perceptions of ‘misconduct’.

Honour, is in fact earned by respecting life, not taking it.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2013.

Maulana Fazl met with a PML-N delegation at his residence on Saturday where the two sides discussed the JUI-F’s possible role in the Balochistan government and its share in the federal government. While the PML-N was willing to settle on the latter, it was noncommittal on the demands made by Maulana Fazl to be a part of the coalition government in Balochistan, sources told The Express Tribune.

“The decision to join or not to join the government in the Centre will be taken by the party’s executive committee which is still discussing the matter,” the JUI-F chief told reporters after the meeting. He said the PML-N leadership would be informed about the committee’s decision.

The PML-N delegation comprised Senator Raja Zafarul Haq and MNA-elect Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry. Senator Haq told journalists that both sides were willing to work together as an alliance and only modalities remained to be decided.

JUI-F’s central committee has advised Maulana Fazl to demand being a part of the coalition government of headed by PML-N in Balochistan. Some members have advised him against joining the central government if Nawaz Sharif refuses to accommodate his party in the provincial government, sources said.

Maulana Fazl is said to have demanded the chief minister slot for his party in Balochistan. Senator Haq said JUI-F’s demands would be conveyed to his party’s leadership who would then take the final decision, sources added. “If we agree on an alliance with the PML-N in the Centre then we would definitely like it to widen to other areas but these are just ideas which we are still discussing,” he added.

Asked why he was keen on joining a coalition headed by the PML-N in the Centre, Maulana Fazl said his party has always worked for the interests of the people. “What is the secret of being an ‘evergreen’ politician? Because I’m a serious politician and my party does serious politics, not jokes,” the JUI-F chief said.

Asked why the PML-N was willing to make the JUI-F part of the coalition, Senator Haq said, “The country is facing multiple problems and we want all parties to join us in finding solutions to them.” Any alliance with Fazl was the result of this policy of PML-N, he added.

Separately, Fazl said that his party would not interfere in the formation of the government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, but warned that if the winning parties did not form a government, then the JUI-F would do so.

He was speaking at a reception arranged by the party in Peshawar for the winning independent candidates of the province.  “We are aware of our constitutional obligation and if any party fails to form the government we will not let the deadlock occur,” he added.

PML-N leader Sardar Mehtab Khan, who was also present at the reception, said all parties had to put aside their differences to work to steer Pakistan out of its current crises. “It is not a matter of only one party, rather all leaders will have to join hands to steer this country out of the current quagmire faced by the country and province,” Khan said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2013.

The bureau had summoned Ashraf to present himself before investigators in the RPPs corruption case. Ashraf, who was minister for water and power then, is accused of receiving kickbacks in the RPP deals.

In a written reply to NAB summons, the former premier stated that he was unable to appear before the accountability watchdog due to illness. However, he did not specify the nature of the illness.

“I’m not aware if he provided any medical certificate with his reply,” said an official of NAB, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official added the former prime minister would not get away as the bureau would summon him again soon.

The recent summons by NAB were directly related to a 50 MW Naudero II power project case where investigators claim that the ex-minister for water and power was holding key evidence, besides concealing information which was vital to frame charges against him and other accused in the cases.

So far, NAB has recovered Rs5 billion of the total amount in question from those companies which were paid in advance by the then government.

Earlier, the NAB investigators also questioned former finance minister Shaukat Tareen who was accused of authorising the release of money to the companies. Tareen told the probe team he had authorised the payments only after the prime minister’s approval.

The NAB officials said they were planning to file references against half of the accused in the RPPs cases before May 27, the deadline set by the Supreme Court for NAB to complete investigations.

NAB chief offers cooperation

The NAB will present an immediate and long-term action plan to the incoming government for its anti-corruption drive. “The NAB is determined to follow the new government’s declared intent of zero tolerance on corruption and full promotion of meritocracy for good governance,” said the NAB spokesperson. He dispelled speculations related to the NAB chairman’s appointment.

Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari had been appointed naval chief by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and as NAB chief his conduct has been entirely aboveboard in difficult circumstances, the spokesperson added.

Furthermore, he pointed out that the chairman was holding a four year statutory appointment and could not be removed, except in the manner specified for Supreme Court judges.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2013.

On the request of NAB, the names of all the suspects in the RPP case have been put on the Exit Control List (ECL). Ashraf, who had not been previously barred from leaving the country due to his status as prime minister, has now been put on the list, said an official from NAB.

Immigration officials at all ports of exit from the country have been directed to stop Ashraf and the co-accused from leaving the country.

“Investigations in RPPs were already under way as per directions of the Supreme Court. The Naudero-II project is the first case where the former prime minister has been summoned, the rest of the cases will follow,” revealed a NAB officer.

The bureau has been given one month by the SC to complete investigations and submit report by May 27 this year. Despite earlier rumours that the accountability bureau had stopped investigations in the RPP scandal, NAB sources said investigations against 30 accused in 12 RPP cases were still under way.

NAB Chairman Admiral (retd) Fasih Bukhari earlier informed the media that NAB investigators were busy collecting evidence against the accused in 12 RPP cases. Last month, the chairman had informed journalists that references against the accused would be filed after concrete evidence was found.

In a related development, a NAB team questioned former finance minister Shaukat Tarin, one of the accused in the RPP scandal, who maintained that he cleared the payment for Naudero-II RPP only after approval from the prime minister and the then minister for water and power Raja Pervez Ashraf.

Tarin said he had refused to approve the 50MW power project in Naudero without the approval of former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the sponsor.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2013.

“I have never seen this many people at polling stations before. The number of youth coming out to vote for the first time is unprecedented,” he said.

It was also a day of firsts for upper class citizens of the capital, who came out in droves to cast their votes. Many arrived at polling stations and stood in long queues well before 8am, the officer said.

The record turnout has had a significant impact on the political power structure in Islamabad, where citizens favoured the “forces of change”.

“The majority of youth have voted for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI),” said an assistant presiding officer at a polling station in NA-49’s Rawal Town. PTI’s Ilyas Meherban gave the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry a run for his money in the constituency.

Considering he was not even counted among the top three candidates during campaigning, Meherban put in a good showing.

With 57,160 votes to his name, he surpassed Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) candidate Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, who secured 44,646 votes, and Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI) Zubair Farooq, who were dubbed as favourites.

“My vote is for Imran Khan,” said a woman who cast her vote at the Rawal Town polling station. She admitted that she was not aware of who Meherban was.

According to estimates from urban polling stations, Meherban, who was in a weak position pre-polls, gained a lead of 4,000 votes over PML-N’s Chaudhry. However, Chaudhry recorded a thumping win in the rural areas, securing 95,701 votes.

In Islamabad’s NA-48, PTI’s Javed Hashmi caused a serious upset by triumphing over PML-N’s Anjum Aqeel Khan, with the margin of victory being over 20,000 votes. Hashmi prevailed despite coming up against JI’s Mian Muhammad Aslam, hot favourite to win the seat, and a massive biradari vote bank. Aslam managed only 25,010 votes and came third, while PPP’s Faisal Sakhi Butt took fourth position with 9,177 votes.

Ultimately, voters expressed through their ballots that it is the people who hold the real power.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2013.

Last week, a year-long hiatus came to an end as target killers struck right in the heart of the city. Two gunmen shot-and-killed public prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali in Sector G-9, before escaping from the scene in a car, as opposed to the motorbikes commonly used in such incidents. Keep in mind that the car — a beat-up old taxi — could not go off road into jungles to exit the city unseen.

It had to use the barricaded roads and pass through checkpoints. Why wasn’t it stopped? Because even in the past, checkpoints have not helped apprehend any terrorists, anywhere in the city.

The security cordon created by the police in and around the city was as delusional then as it is now. Terrorists acted at will then, just as freely as they acted now. The incident underscored the fact that if you are under any sort of threat, you are on your own. Never bank on the police or the ‘security’ provided by the government.

Prosecutor Ali, the government attorney, was under threat from certain terrorist groups for over four years. A year ago, he was provided a security guard who was accompanying him at the time of the incident. The guard was injured in the attack. While Ali took all sorts of precautionary measures at his workplace and his house, he forgot to replicate the same during his travel. Perhaps he bought into the ‘security delusion’.

After receiving threats four years ago, Ali, who had been the government lawyer in the Benazir Bhutto murder, Mumbai attack and Hajj scam cases, had replaced his office doors with metal ones specially designed on security lines. Every visitor had to be approved by him before being allowed in.

However, Ali was driving his car himself which is ‘against protocol’. “This made him an easy target,” said a police official. The security guard was in the passenger seat and also became an easy target. His route to his office and the timing was predictable. He never changed it. But then Ali was not trained to avoid terrorists. In the end, he too was on his own.

For the police, it was business as usual once again. Following the incident, a joint investigation team was formed, similar to every other high profile incident in the past. Nothing came out of it. No suspect was ever apprehended by a JIT, be it the attack on former Religious Affairs minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi, who was injured in a targeted attack in 2009, or Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti. In similar targeted killing attempts, an army officer was killed in Sector G-11 in 2009 and two other military officers narrowly escaped attacks on their lives in similar fashion. No clue was ever found, no breakthrough was ever made in the subsequent investigations.

Before that, the police, with all its barricades and checkpoints, failed to prevent the incident. It failed to stop the terrorists from leaving the city after completing the attacks. The police’s favourite ‘counter-terrorism’ plan for over five years, road barricades are as superficial as the high walls around the city, but the cops are pointlessly persisting with it.

The deadliest terrorist attack in the city’s history took place in the presence of checkpoints. Be it 2008 Marriot Hotel bombing, the 2009 twin suicide blasts at International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI), or attacks on the police and other law enforcement agencies from 2007 to 2010, the police’s strategy never worked.

It is high time the police revise its counter-terrorism strategy and improve upon the performance of its investigation wing, which — putting it gently — leaves much to be desired.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2013.

Nawaz Sharif is all set to form a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government in the Centre for the third time, after his party emerged as the clear leader according to the unofficial results of the 2013 elections.

Millions turned out to cast their votes on Saturday, largely rejecting the former ruling coalition led by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Many idols fell as Pakistanis voted for new faces in the National Assembly from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), which has emerged as the second largest political force, surpassing the PPP and others.

Although, results are yet to be officially announced, Nawaz was quick to declare victory as he addressed his supporters outside his Model Town residence in Lahore. “We are thankful to Allah for giving the PML-N another chance to serve Pakistan,” he said in his brief address.

“Now, pray that we (the PML-N) get am absolute majority in assembly,” he said. The PML-N chief, however, indicated that if needed he would be willing to form a coalition with other smaller parties.

Nawaz also announced that he would forgive “all those who abused” him and his brother and former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif.

Nawaz served as prime minister from 1990 to 1993, before he was sacked by then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan. His second term lasted from1997 to 1999, when he was deposed by the Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf.

The province of the Punjab holds the key to the making or breaking of governments, owing to its 148 general seats in the National Assembly that were, this time,  dominated by the N-League. Nawaz Sharif’s party reclaimed almost all those seats won by the PPP in the 2008 elections.

According to  PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif won his NA-120 constituency, and Shahbaz Sharif won NA-129.

PTI chairman Imran Khan lost NA-122 to Sardar Ayaz Sadiq after a close competition. However, PTI’s Shafqat Mehmood and Hamid Khan advocate won NA-126 and NA-125 respectively. This makes the PTI Punjab’s second largest party.

The PPP did not fare as well, with many of its major leaders losing by large margins in some cases.

Saturday’s polls were historic not only for being the first democratic transition in the country’s history, but also in terms of the turnover, especially given the security situation in the country.

The polls’ interim results disproved all negative assessments about Imran Khan’s PTI, which performed beyond the expectations of many. Imran won his native seat from Mianwali, after defeating his arch rival, veteran politician Obaidullah Khan Shadikhel, by a margin of about 60,000 votes.

The PTI appears to be filling the gap created by the PPP and its allies, whose last five year stint was mired with allegations of corruption, mismanagement, economic downturn and lawlessness.

The PPP maintained a good record in its traditional stronghold – Sindh. Senior politicians Syed Naveed Qamar and Syed Khursheed Shah retained their respective seats with handsome leads. According to unofficial results, however, former ministers Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Mian Manzoor Wattoo and two-time winner from Sargodha Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi lost the elections.

With Qureshi and Afzal Gondals’ defeat in Sargodha, the PPP has lost its chances of winning any seat from the five seats of Sargodha district. Unconfirmed results suggested that the PML-N dominated the district, as well as Faisalabad district’s 10 contested seats.

However, not everyone in the PML-N was a winner. Some big names in the party, particularly ones from the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, failed to bag majority votes. Muhammad Shakeel Awan from NA-55 lost to Awami Muslim League (AML) leader and veteran politician Sheikh Rashid Ahmed; Hanif Abbasi was in tough competition with Imran Khan for NA-56, while the PML-N also lost one of its two previous seats in Islamabad, which was claimed this time by PTI’s Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, who defeated N-League’s Anjum Aqeel Khan by a big margin.

The fractured PML-Quaid, which boasted 54 seats in the previous assembly, was able to retain only a handful of seats. PPP ally, the embattled Awami National Party (ANP), which ruled Khyber-Pakhtounkhwa (K-P), was almost completely wiped out. All its central leaders, including its chief Asfandyar Wali, failed to retain their seats.

A significant number of assembly seats were won by independent candidates, who, according to unofficial results, numbered over 20. Political pundits predict that most of them would swing towards the majority party in the National Assembly – the PML-N.

Unofficial results

According to the unofficial results, in Sindh the PPP has won nine National Assembly seats; MQM has won seven; PML-F one, and JI has failed to win any.

In Balochistan, the National Party and PkMAP won two seats each, and the PML-N and BNP-Mengal won a seat each.

In Peshawar, PTI is leading in all four NA seats.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2013.