War and peace: LHC asked to tell govt to talk to Taliban

Allowing Taliban to open office would aid peace dialogue, says petitioner.

LAHORE:

A member of the Lahore High Court Bar Association has filed a petition asking the LHC to direct the federal government to hold talks with the Taliban and let them open an office.

The petitioner, Advocate Kashif Mehmood Solomani, named the federation of Pakistan, the Interior Ministry, the Defence Ministry and the Finance Ministry as respondents. He submitted that military action against the Taliban was damaging to peace efforts and the respondents should be directed to negotiate peace with the militant group.

He said that since becoming a major US ally in the ‘war against terror’ following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Pakistan had suffered a loss of $100 billion (Rs10.63 trillion) to the economy. Economic growth, tax collection and foreign investment had declined.

Western governments had advised their citizens against travelling to Pakistan, affecting foreign investment further. Pakistan continued to pay a heavy price in economic and security terms, as a large proportion of its human and material resources were being consumed by the war, he said.



Pakistan had also lost 49,000 people in the fighting since 9/11, he said. More than 24,000 civilians and troops had been killed in attacks between 2001 and 2008.

The armed forces had lost 15,681 men fighting the Taliban militants in the Tribal Areas since 2008. Some 5,152 civilians had been killed and 5,678 injured in bomb blasts and suicide attacks since 2008.

Solomani said that talks with the Taliban were an “efficacious, adequate and alternative remedy” to fighting, but this option was being ignored. Military action had borne no fruit so it was time to try dialogue. He said that the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan had denied involvement in three recent bomb attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which raised the question of who was behind the attacks.

The petitioner said that allowing the Taliban to open an office would facilitate the dialogue process. He noted that the United Nations charter stated that no sanctions could be imposed on Pakistan for holding talks with the militants.

Solomani asked the court to direct the respondents to pursue talks with the Taliban to the best of their abilities in order to bring peace to the country.

PTI requests LHC to stop formation of DCCs

The Lahore High Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Punjab government to file a reply on a petition moved by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf challenging the formation of district coordination committees.

Justice Ijazul Ahsan directed the government to file a reply within a week.

Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed, leader of opposition in the provincial Assembly, and PTI’s MPAs said in the petition that the Punjab government was carrying out the delimitation for the local government elections of its own volition. This was pre-poll rigging, they said. They submitted that they had requested the election commission to take notice but it had not.

The petitioners alleged that the government had released billions of rupees for these DCCs. This could be used to influence voters in the local elections, they said.

They requested the court to take notice of the matter and annul the formation of DCCs.

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