2010 February

A strange silence

Posted on February 21, 2010 //

In 2006 as the story goes the CJP saw it fit to take up the missing persons case in his august court. his was a brave and noble endeavor as in the last 4 years more than a 1000 people have gone missing from Pakistan, one of them was Aafia siddiqui..just one person, who’s tale came out in the limelight to much haw hai and brouhaha, even now the chants of watan ki beti etc etc ring on at opportune times.

Obviously this led to a conflict of interest with the Great leader and he summarily did what he did and we all know what happened after. A movement was created and was aided and facilitated by not just the black coats but the right wing parties of JI and PTI. For once the public wave of sympathy was totally behind them and all of us including me thought they were going to bring about real revolution in the annals of power.

However “The Great Leader” stomped and raved on them with his iron boots and did not budge an inch till the peoples govt came into power in the last elections. Having been democratically elected it was a bit hard for “Slicktop” to ignore the march of emotion coming in his direction, not to mention the various visits by “Ganja” to his quarters late in the night and hence the CJP was restored to much fanfare, fireworks and what not.

Since then we have seen a new tussle of sorts emerge over the NRO and other such matters of which the government tries and does manage reconciliation now and then. So the confusion continues without any end in sight, not to mention the fact that the right wing parties spoken of earlier now stand completely marginalized.

However this recent news of the Supreme court deciding not to examine evidence against our agencies in the missing persons case has kind of slipped past amongst the usual swiss cases NRO hangama. To me as a student of politics and the various forms it takes in our land this presents a unique opportunity for the right wing forces who were stopped outside the capital on the note of bald err sorry bold reconciliation.

The Supreme court order states that evidence and allegations of involvement of intelligence agencies in abducting people will be examined by an ‘appropriate forum at the relevant time.’ This calls for total mayhem by the political parties which supported the justice movement on the very basis of this case, as well as the watan ke tipu sultans who come on the air waves daily to proclaim their right and pious jihad against tyranny.

Why and when is this mayhem going to begin then? When will the righteous ones come out onto the battlefield and protest this decision. Yes, it is a unique opportunity, basically a backdoor into mainstream hearts nationwide for these individuals. Strange is it not that instead of cries of “Go Go Go” all we hear is silence?

Silence is sometimes interpreted as assent also, it would be better if the Khans and the Ahmeds stood up for a cause which hit a nerve that galvanized our nation. “At a relevant time” is not going to hold ground for too long.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Politics in pakistan // Tagged: imran khan is silent, Ji is silent, missing persons cause anyone? missing persons from pakistan, reconciliation reighns supreme, supreme court puts off judgement

Lights…

Posted on February 14, 2010 //

Lights lights, sparkly lights in the night

Some are green, some are white

Some are shining very bright

What a beautifull night it is

shining lights in the night it is

Filed Under: F.K's Life // Tagged: blogging, first poem, poetry, sophia kapadia

Discussion on unity, with Farah Pandith

Posted on February 11, 2010 //

On Tuesday me and some other members of the new media were invited to a discussion with Ms. Farah A. Pandith, U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities at Kurshid Mahal in Avari towers here in Karachi.

Karachi traffic being what it is due to V.I.P movement, the event started off at around 9 pm whereas me, the punctual moron that I am was awaiting everyone’s arrival from 815 pm, the actual designated time. In any case the discussion was quite robust and lasted for about 45 minutes.

The “change” which we had been hearing about by the Obama government in those white halls was to me pretty much in action in this discussion. As Farah an American Muslim herself was not just well spoken like so many other diplomats are, she seemed to actually give a hoot about unity. The inclusion of new media in the discussion was also a point well taken, as the Obama administration has mobilized social media in unprecedented ways right from the onset of their election campaign in the U.S and they believe in its power.

Is it important to have these discussions? Do they serve any purpose? Well if they translate into something actual on the ground yes, talk is just talk till then. However some issues were cleared up for sure in this discussion. Contrary to what I had knowledge of before, the U.S consulate does seem to be running an effective outreach program to the many madrassahs in Karachi, they are hell bent on inclusion rather than isolation and do seem to be genuine in their desire to work with the lower income strata as well in this city. In short they are more than willing to help.

However there is much work still to be done. It was heartening to see that we have begun the process of dialogue rather than throw insults and conspiracy theories at one another, but there are some miles to go to bridge the trust gap yet.

I did suggest in this discussion and continue to stress on the fact that we the people of Pakistan and the U.S need to sit down across one another and talk. There is too much hyperbole and conspiracy in our respective mainstream media’s for us to judge each other without any bias. We must break these barriers, because this alone will set us free and usher in a new age of cooperation. We and the American’s really cannot do without one another, so its best we join hands as nations and on a community level rather than just political alliances.

The bloggers familiar to me in attendance were: Dr Awab Alvi , Sana Saleem, Ammar Yasir, Naveen Naqvi, Huma yusuf, Sabeen & Kidvai Sahab. There were off course other people from new media, radio as well as op ed writers and journos present. The two facilitators from the Us Consulate were Ms Elizabeth O. Coltran (public affairs officer) and Mr Mushtque A.Rajpur (media advisor) I thank them all for a memorable event & discussion.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Day To Day, F.K's Life // Tagged: american muslim unity, americans reaching out, bloggers meet farah pandith, discussion on issues with farah pandith, obamas message of tolerance, unity a pipe dream? making change?

A look in the mirror

Posted on February 4, 2010 //

I have been one of the biggest critics of main stream media in Pakistan for a while now. It is because I feel that journalistic integrity in broadcasting in Pakistan is becoming extinct. Anchors are dong their best to drag anything and everything through the muck of sensationalism to achieve higher ratings. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, Fq’s Bang E Dara is one of them as he tries to focus on issues rather than ratings. Breakfast at Dawn with Naveen was another such show which has sadly now come to an end for her fans at least as Dawn has gone on austerity drive and relieved many of its long term employees from their positions including her.

However if we in the alternate media believe we are doing any better than MSM today we are clearly mistaken. Many that set out to be “alternate checks” to mainstream bias have now become part of the bias itself due to the traffic war. Case in point, an email was circulated recently to many in “New Media” with pictures of Meher Bukhari, Saima Mohsin, Shaukar Paracha and Asma shirazi in various poses at a party at the U.S Embassy. A clear violation of the very ethos that New media is founded on took place when blogs like Nowpublic , Current Affairs, Pakalert and many others wrote about these pictures and humiliated these journalists with tag lines like CIA hosts journalists and Drink and dance party with CIA etc etc.

Firstly let us be very clear on this, as co blogger Dr Awab pointed out the pictures all start with the letter n and the serials after, thus proving that they have been taken from someone’s face book account. Secondly how many of us blogger’s would refuse an invitation to a party by Ann Patterson to meet new media at the U.S Embassy? Must we indulge in smearing campaigns and defamation of the highest degree in order to get a few thousand clicks more?

This is not the only case of defamation, New media is slowly turning into even a more vile form of the main stream media because its access is unlimited and its policing minimal. For this purpose the FIA has an active cyber crimes unit but I do not think cyber defamation is something pursuable in Pakistani courts of law( I may be wrong here). My point is, that anyone can have an opinion and express it, but to call someone an immoral and CIA agent based on personal pictures from a private party is not only way below the belt but a clear indication of the mental level of that blog.

We the bloggers are very apt at tearing apart politicians and MSM for their mistakes, but I feel the time has come to take a cold hard look in the mirror and see for ourselves what we have become. We must speak up against this trend of sensationalism in new media or we instead of being a solution to the problem will only become a manifestation of it.

I request all those blogs carrying this story to stop themselves from becoming tabloid’s and to remove it immediately. Just because we have the power of expression on the internet does not mean we ruin people’s public images with it. Power comes with responsibility, so please be responsible.

In other words, express your opinion but do not label someone without proof. It may get you traffic but it will never get you anywhere in the long run.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Making a difference // Tagged: new media becoming corrupt, new media smear campaigns, propoganda tools in new media, this is not blogging

How not to be hacked

Posted on February 2, 2010 //

Being the Uber geek that I am I never imagined this could happen to me, but it did and although I am still fuming at the person who did it, whom I will get sooner or later in this life I thought it was necessary that I tell you all my experience so that you can prevent it from happening to you.

The experience I am talking about is being hacked. Yes I got back from a family outing on Saturday night to see my Iphone inbox full of emails from facebook and my yahoo email that “details” had been changed inside these two social profiles. The Time line was as follows

429 pm – My yahoo email was hacked

430 pm – Hacker user Fbook lookup to find the yahoo email in use with Fbook and thus started the password reset procedure which made Fbook email a password reset mail to it/them on the yahoo account.

431 Pm – Facebook account was hacked

432 pm – Passwords were changed on both profiles

433 pm – secret questions were changed on both profiles to limit recovery

434 pm – Attempts were made to de link other accounts/alternate accounts from my facebook, success was achieved with my hotmail but the hacker failed on my cyber net office account whose password is different from all other social profiles and accounts I have.

How did I found out about this? I only got to know because the hacker could not de link my cybernet account which kept on getting emails as to how specific actions were taking place within my social profiles it was linked to. That is how I have the time line as well, that is the account I used in Yahoo recovery to gain back access and then through Yahoo to gain back my face book account, thus getting control back within an hour of finding out what had transpired.

Imagine what would have happened if I did not have an external local Isp account as alternate email to my yahoo, which has all the contacts of everyone I know in it. I have had the yahoo mail account for over 10 years now. Imagine how many peoples info that person had access to on Fbook for those 6 hours from 430 to 1030 and you can begin to fathom what sort of nightmarish possibilities an event like this can have.

So what do we do? Can we de tangle ourselves and our lives from all this digitization that has taken place? In one word No, once the internet has something uploaded to it, it generally stays there in one form or the other. Yes we can close some social profiles down but then we can also close our front gate and never go out to socialize, we do not do that do we? So why should we give up on today’s essential tool’s because of the risks they pose? We can however learn to be more careful with them and more secure. So lets see what can be done?

A) Stop adding random people to Facebook even on limited profiles.

Some of us are guilty of this as we are either in an industry/media where we have to make friends with a lot of new people or have certain aspects of our lives that must be shared, for instance our blogs for whom we have pages and fans and then they add us and what not. Big no no, even on limited profile, not because they will hack into your account but because they can be vulnerable and be hacked which in turn would make your account a target as well. Yes I know by this definition everyone should remove me from their face book list, well if thats what it takes to be safe so be it. If you do not know me, remove me.

B) Stop using your primary email as your facebook login

I know this is hard to do, as it is convenient to just use one email but normally as it happened in my case, if said email account is hacked your social profile is as defined above easily accessed next. So its better to keep a different email log in for social networking and to not have that login visible in your profile (something easily achieved by privacy settings)

C) Make sure you know who is using your computer and they know what not to do.

Sometimes we let our kids use our laptops or pcs in our supervision, they may be playing farm ville on face book and click on an ad which can lead them to a phishing site which could get our account hacked pronto. This happens often and not not all phishing sites have porn on them so we would have them blocked by whatever filters we have put in our browsers, we have to make sure the person using the pc knows that they cannot click random ads.

D) Regular anti virus sweeps must be made

I know I am beginning to sound paranoid now, but it does not hurt to have a good anti virus software which you use to make weekly scans for baddies that might have gotten into your system in the form of malicious cookies, or trojans or malware of any kind. I recommend Avira which lets you have a good scanner for free. You could say but dood you were hacked, yeh I was but not through a resident file on my system!

E) Passwords

We must keep changing our passwords regularly, and we must have different passwords for accounts linked to one another so if one is hacked the hacker does not get access to all. This is of utmost importance! A good password is usually a mix of numbers and letters and not something obvious like your birth date or the birth date of your kids or their names or a combo of the above.

E) Report, Report Report abuse!!

Last but not the least, it is advisable to report any suspicious activity for instance a weird email by a friend with random stuff in it or some kind of message on a social profile coming from someone which does not make sense, first to the origin and then to the service. This simple action alone can help stop the spread of a lot of malware to different people.

I hope some of this info is helpful to all of you out there, ive been told I must be doing something right to be hacked, but frankly I just feel violated.

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Day To Day, F.K's Life, Geek Speak // Tagged: hacked, how i was accessed, how to be secure, shield yourself, tips for cyber security, yahoo and facebook account hacked

Jandullah, Jamaat and Al-Queda

Posted on February 1, 2010 //

By Ali K.Chishti

Recently, the Karachi Police had found an organization named, “Jandullah” for the terror attack cum bombing on the Moharram Ashura procession killing more than forty-five people in Karachi. The name Jandullah was previously linked to a similar organization based in Baluchistan who had carried out attacks in Iranian Baluchistan and another organization which had previously carried out attacks in Indonesia and was an off-shoot of Jamaat-e-Islami, Indonesian chapter.

However, the Karachi based Jandullah chapter is apparently a lot different from it’s Baluchi and Indonesian counterparts. The creation of the Karachi-based Jandullah (Army of God) was a prime example of al-Queda’s changing face in Pakistan. The group was founded originally by Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wings, Islami Jamiat e Talba’s Attar Rehman, a Karachi University student of Statistics who was arrested in June 2004 on the charge of masterminding, a series of terrorist attacks in Karachi, targeting security forces and government installations. The eldest son of a local businessman, he grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Karachi and worked actively for the radical Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan.

Rehman’s journey to terrorism began after he in 1991 when he went to Afghanistan to receive military training at a jihadist camp setup by Jamaat-e-Islami linked, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen close to Afghan border. Rehman who was an active member of mainstream Islami Party, Jamaat-i-Islami and founder of Jandullah told his interrogators that he formed Jundullah after the arrest of top al-Queda operatives n March, 2003 including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad – the master mind of 9/11 who was caught from Rawalpindi, Pakistan from the residence of a Jamaat-e-Islami’s serving deputy mayor.

Amir Mir a journalist par excellence; an authority on Jehadi nexus, whose books had been banned in Pakistan wrote, “Jundullah was just another name for Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which had stuck up a strong working relationship with al-Queda.” He also reveals that “the other organization suspected of close operational ties with al Queda is basically Harkatul Muhahedin al-Aalamai an off-shoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Jedahi Organization, Harkatul Mujadedin “.

It is however interesting to note that two of the al-Aalami militants including the al-Aalmai ameer, Mohammad Imran bombed the US consulate in Karachi; the bombing was similar to the bombing of Egyptian Embassy bombing in Islamabad which later, Osama Bin Laden’s deputy in his book “Knights under the Prophet’s Banner”. Ayman Zawahiri took full credit for the attack, noting that his first choice for the target was the U.S embassy there, but it was so strongly fortified that he judged it too hard to hit. Imran the Ameer of al-Aalami claimed in court to be a member of Harkatul Mujahedin and said that Al-Aalami was the product of the rangers and security denying the split between the Harkat. Obviously the creation of such splinter groups had two reasons alone

1) To create a smoke-screen to take the heat away from the parent organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Harkatul Mujahedin who are closely linked with certain rogue elements within in the state and members of Jamaat-e-Islami

2) To confuse the investigating agencies who were using the divide and rule to get rid of the powers of the jehadi factions gone rouge.

Jundullah was initially a well-knit cell comprising of some 20 militants, most of them in their twenties and thirties; educated from professional working classes. The group would take on doing the “unthinkable”; They planned to assassinate, army’s top commander in Karachi, General Ahsan Saleem Hayat who was later appointed by General Mushraff as his second in-command of the Pakistan Army.

In June, 2004, Rehman a former student leader of IJT and now a founder of Jundullah attacked the motorcade of the Corps Commander Karachi, General Ahsan Saleem Hayat who narrowly escaped but 11 people including eight soldiers, were killed in the attack right in the centre of the city.

Later, Rehman did not show any sign of remorse when he was presented before a high-security anti terrorism court in Karachi. “I have not done anything wrong” he shouted as he emerged from the courtroom.

Later Jundullah would also attack on army, rangers, police stations and a car bombing outside the US-Pakistan cultural centre in Karachi. Among others who were arrested for their association with Jundullah was Akmal Waheed, a cardiologist and his brother Arshad Waheed an orthopedic surgeon. Both men were active members of Jamaat-e-Islami and were associated with Jamat-i-Islami’s Medical Wing, Pakistan Islamic Medical association; they provided active medical treatment and shelter to top Al-Queda fugitives and had been linked for treating Osama Bin Laden’s kidney’s too.

On 07/03/2004 the Karachi police arrested the brothers after the cell phone numbers of the two doctors were found in Ata-ur Rehman mobile phone memory. Dr. Akmal Waheed and Dr. Arshad Waheed were suspected of assisting wanted militants to escape from the authorities and providing medical treatment to three fugitives: Abu Massab, Gul Hasan and Qassam-al-Sani, who were wounded in the Gen. Hayat Attempt, without informing the police. Their arrest was capped in secrecy for a while, which caused the family to believe they were kidnapped for ransom. The arrest of the Waheed brothers was made public only on 07/13/2004.

The police also found out that the Wahed brothers also treated Shahzad Bajwa, alias Abdullah, the depute of Ata-ur Rehman, after he sustained injuries, on 03/19/2004, during an attack on a mobile van of Pakistan Rangers, at Shan/Bismillah Taqi Hospital in Karachi.

The Waheed brothers were sentenced on 03/14/2005 to 7 years imprisonment.

The police claimed that “The car recovered from the accused (Akmal and Arshad Waheed) is the one which was hired by earlier arrested Jundallah’s Amir in Karachi, Ata-ur-Rehman, which later on, had remained in their use.” Ata-ur-Rehman, the chief of Jundallah, had confessed that Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed had close links to him and were extending help by all means, the police spokesman added.

Dr. Arshad & Akmal Waheed were, eventually, acquitted. on 07/11/2006, in an appeal court. Following his acquittal Dr. Arshad Waheed shifted his activity to South Waziristan and was running a clinic in Wana, FATA region. Dr. Arshad Waheed was allegedly killed in a US missile attack, on 03/16/2008, in Wana, South Waziristan.

Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan apparently a close aide and ideological father of Jundallah and Harkat slammed everyone for arresting the brothers privately but a slap on their faces came when Al Qaeda’s media wing Al Sahab Media Foundation released the third part of a series of videos entitled “The Protectors of the Sanctuary.” This was also the first time Al-Queda had use URDU in there language instead of Arabic which was significant…

The 40-minute compilation video commemorates Dr. Arshad Waheed Shaheed, the Wana based kidney specialist who had links with all Jamaat-e-Islami, Jundallah and al Qaeda and who was killed in a U.S. missile attack in March 2008.

It is pretty much apparent that Al-Queda has successfully established working relationship with various jehadi and sectarian organizations originally made up by establishment to counter the Indian’s in Kashmir through proxy and helped prolonged our ill-thought off policy of Strategic Depth. It is also important to note; why a large number of Jamaat-e-Islami has linked up and sheltered Al-Queda members? It is also an established fact now that the GHQ attack master-mind was also a Jamaat-e-Islami member apart from the fugitives form the attacks on the Sri-Lankan team took refuge at Mansura, JI’s headquarters in Lahore. A connection which is often ignored: at times deliberately.

The writer could be reached at akchishti@hotmail.com

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Karachi // Tagged: jundhullah, Karachi, revelations, terrorism