Pakistan Views

Muttahida Qaumi Movement parliamentary leader Dr. Farooq Sattar has said that the prime minister in 2013 will be elected from his party.
Talking to private news channel on his arrival at the parliament house Farooq Sattar said the five-year performance of his party has been in front of everyone. “It is rehearsal of the next elections and the prime minister in 2013 will be from Muttahida,” he said.
“We would not thump desks in the house, neither create hurdles for the government,” Sattar further said. The popular vote of MQM has increased from previous six percent to nine percent, he added.

Central leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Javed Hashmi has said Makhdoom Amin Fahim was a senior politician and his desire to become the prime minister did not match his personality. Talking to news channel here, he said Pakistan Peoples Party had the right to nominate anybody for prime ministership and PML-N would support their move.
Hashmi further said he had no intention to become the PM, and it was the PPP that put forward proposal to make him the Speaker. He said there were big names for the post of president and he did not present himself as a candidate for the valued position. Answering a question he said PML-N would take oath under the 1973 constitution. Javed Hashmi said Khawaja Asif’s statement as regards Amin Fahim was taken out of context and a strong PPP was in the interest of the Federation. He opined that Asif Ali Zardari’s nomination, as the PM would benefit the PPP.

Four children were killed and four other persons injured when a roof of a house caved-in in Mardan. According to sources, a roof of a house located in Kanzkandi in Baghdada area had collapsed suddenly last night killing four kids and wounded four other persons.
The dead included Jabir, 10, Anas,5, Marhaba,4 and Rabia of two months. Head of the family, his wife and their two children sustained injuries whereas two kids remained unharmed. The injured admitted in nearby hospital.

Two women and two children were killed by artillery shells fired by US-led coalition forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, the army said on Thursday.
The army spokesman said the shells destroyed the victims’ house in the region of North Waziristan. “The coalition forces were firing at a group of militants when five shells landed in Pakistan, destroying a house and killing two women and two children,” chief army spokesman Athar Abbas told AFP. “We have lodged a very strong protest with the coalition forces across the border,” he said. Local officials said the house in the town of Lwara Mundi, a hotbed of militancy on the frontier where there have been frequent clashes between security forces and militants, belonged to a local tribesman. Nato-led forces in Afghanistan said on Wednesday they had killed two women and two children in southern Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan, but it was unclear if they were describing the same incident.

At least seven people were killed and 19 others were injured in a roadside accident in Khanewal. According to hospital sources, a bus carrying pilgrims en route to shrine Sakhi Sarwar in Dera Ghazi Khan from Faisalabad, ran into an tractor near Multan Road Adda Bridge killing seven people. The accident claimed the lives of Shahid, Kashif, Nahid Akhtar and four other unidentified persons. The dead bodies were transported to Taluka Hospital Shorkot, from there, five injured have been conveyed to Allied Hospital Faisalabad.

Two policemen were killed as they tried to defuse a roadside bomb in Swat, while two suspected militants died in a blast at their house, officials said. A police patrol spotted the roadside bomb planted near Charbagh village on the main road through the valley, local police officer Jan Bahadur said.
“A police bomb disposal unit was trying to defuse it when it exploded, killing two officials and wounding two others,” Bahadur told AFP. The police official added that two militants were killed overnight in an explosion in their house in Kabal district in the Swat region. “They were probably making a bomb when it exploded prematurely, killing the house owner and another man staying with him,” Bahadur said.

Protesters urge Musharraf to quit following the two suicide attacks killing 26 people here on Tuesday. While rescue workers were continuing search for bodies and survivors from FIA building debris protesters urge Musharraf to quit while the police officials on the occasion were seeing the protestors in utter despair as most of the killed in the deadly blast belong to a federal police agency FIA. It seemed as most of the police officials were feeling that the expression of resentment by the citizens was a sort of condolence with them on the sad deaths of their colleagues. The demonstrators were chanting only one slogan “Go Musharraf Go and Go Musharraf Go” while some of the protestors were using highly objectionable language and strong words against the president. Political workers of Pakistan People’s Party were carrying party flags and were leading the demonstrators.

At least 26 people were killed by two bombs that ripped through a federal police office and an advertising agency in Lahore on Tuesday, officials said.The first blast demolished part of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) office here, exposing the inside of the building and leaving piles of blackened rubble and burning cars.”Twenty two people were killed in the blast that took place in FIA premises. It seems that a bomb was planted somewhere in the building,” local agency chief Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed told AFP. Pools of blood and small pieces of human flesh lay scattered on the ground outside the eight-storey building, along with clothes and pairs of shoes that were abandoned by people as they ran away, an AFP reporter said. Police cordoned off the area while emergency workers carrying stretchers scrambled over the rubble. A car was set ablaze by the force of the blast and others were covered in downed electricity cables and rubble. The building was evacuated because of fears it could collapse, television channels reported. A second bomb went off killing four outside an advertising agency in a mainly highly restricted area of model Town Block-F near to Bilawal House and residence of Amir Mehmood here administrator, Mian Ejaz said. Police said the second attack was caused by a suicide car bomb. The car had two people inside and blew up after it was stopped at the gate of an advertising agency office.Police confirmed there was another blast but said they did not immediately have a death toll. The latest explosions came a week after two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a prestigious Naval War College in Lahore, killing at least five people and injuring 19, officials said.

Power has been restored in some areas of Karachi after a major power outage on Thursday when Wapda cut the supply because the city’s power company had not paid its bills, an official said. “At around 8 a.m. (0300 GMT) Wapda cut its 300 MW supplies to us and as a result the entire system tripped,” said Syed Sultan Hasan, spokesman for the Karachi Electric Supply Co, which supplies power to Karachi. The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), is Pakistan’s main state power utility. A spokesman for the Pakistan Electric Power Co., which manages Wapda’s power wing, said supplies were cut because dues had not been paid. “KESC owes 34.80 billion rupees ($554 million) to us and we have been writing to them every week to make at least some payments,” said the spokesman, Tahir Basharat Cheema.”But let alone making payments, they’re not even replying to our letters,” he said.
KESC’s Hasan said the company was in contact with Wapda to ensure restoration of supplies. “They have restored partial supplies, and after that we have also started restoring electricity,” he said. “But it will take time before the complete system is back on track.” Officials said while port and industrial operations were normal, a prolonged breakdown could cause major disruptions. Many factories and offices have their own generators.
THEFT
Pakistan has been suffering acute power shortages because of inadequate generating capacity and hefty losses and theft of electricity from power lines.
Many people cited power cuts, along with rising prices and food shortages, when complaining about the government in the run-up to elections last month. Opposition parties won the most seats in the vote while the former ruling party lost badly.
But Karachi has been worst hit because of chronic infrastructure and management problems. Power theft in the city takes place through illegal connections, and meters made to go slowly, often arranged through bribes.
Frequent and prolonged power cuts often lead to protests, with people burning tyres and blocking roads, and at times clashing with police.
The KESC was privatised in 2005, and a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s al-Jomaih group and Kuwait’s National Industries Holding are the majority stakeholders.
But that has not solved the problems. KESC officials complain about factories as well as government offices not paying their bills. They say it would take up to five years to overhaul the grid and meet the city’s growing power demands.

Five suspected militants accused of involvement in the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto were remanded in custody by a Pakistan Anti-Terrorist Court (ATC) on Thursday, court officials said. Security was tight around the court in Rawalpindi, where former premier Bhutto was martyred in a suicide attack on December 27, as dozens of police rushed the accused men inside, an AFP correspondent said. After proceedings lasting only a few minutes the judge sent Aitzaz Shah, Hasnain Gul, Abdul Rashid, Sher Zaman and Rafaqat — who goes by one name — to the city’s Adiala Jail on judicial remand, a court official said.
“They are facing charges of involvement in BB’s martyrdom and several other suicide attacks and bomb blasts in Rawalpindi,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
They will next appear before the judge on March 10, he said, adding that the provincial government will decide whether the proceedings will be held in the district court or inside the heavily secured jail premises. Police arrested Shah and Zaman from the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan in January and the other three from Rawalpindi in February.
Gul and Rafaqat confessed in February to helping and providing shelter to the suicide attacker, identified as Bilal, to avenge the army’s storming of a Lal mosque in Islamabad in July that killed more than 100 people. Police last week formally charged top Taliban and al Qaeda commander Baitullah Mehsud, who is holed up in the country’s tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, with masterminding her killing. He remains at large and has denied any involvement.