National

ATTOCK: 

A mother-of-five from Tajik village was allegedly killed by a  fake pir during a botched exorcism. Waheed Nasim told the Rangoo police that Pir Raheem Dad had told them that his mother, Shamim, had been possessed by a jinn and offered to perform an exorcism to remove it. “He laid down my mother and burnt her. We asked him to stop but he did not listen,” Nasim said.

After the exorcism, Nasim took his mother to a hospital, where she died as a result of the burns. Attock District Police Officer Abdul Qadir Qamar has taken notice of the incident and ordered the police to take action against the culprit.

Meanwhile, Dad said Shamim was brought to him by her relatives for an exorcism. He claimed that she only suffered minor burns as part of the ritual, arguing that those injuries alone could not cause death. He said he would go to the Rangoo police to prove his innocence.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

The police on Tuesday found the dismembered body of a 40-year old man inside a sack in the Bani Gala area.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Bani Gala Police Sub Inspector (SI) Iftikhar Ahmad said the body was dismembered and was dumped at a deserted place in Moriyan village.

“Based on the decomposition of the body, the victim was probably killed a few days back,” he said, adding that the remains also bore torture marks that suggested the man had been beaten up before being killed.

He said the identity of the deceased and a motive for the crime could not be ascertained.

The police official said that some passersby saw a blood-stained sack and informed the police. He said two knives packed in a plastic bag were also recovered from the dump site.

The body has been shifted to Polyclinic for postmortem.

“The body was wrapped in several shopping bags and a piece of cloth, which were all tied up with a rope,” according to a source at Polyclinic Hospital, who added that the deceased had been killed around four days back.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

The implementation of the Islamabad Health Equity Model, a first-of-its-kind concept which envisages the delivery of equitable health services to the capital’s residents, is in jeopardy. The reason being cited for this is severely under-staffed Directorate of Health Services (DHS), a wing of the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

“Currently, there are only three public health specialists working at DHS who are looking after a number of health programmes such as EPI, pollen allergy, polio and other viral diseases and fumigation. They are already overburdened and they cannot implement the study’s findings,” said an official at CDA, who wished not to be named.

Islamabad Health Equity Model, a study conducted by DHS in collaboration with Health Service Academy and Pakistan Medical Research Council, was carried out in partnership with the World Health Organisation and Unicef. Launched in April, the study envisaged healthcare packages and a multi-sectoral health forum to provide health services without discrimination.

Talking to The Express Tribune, the official said that the Islamabad Health Equity Model needs to be implemented but the department cannot oversee it because of its limitations. “Since DHS was set up in 1984, it has not been expanded to meet challenges arising out of the changing dynamics of public health.” The official added that 1.9 million people reside in Islamabad and because of mass migration from across the country, it is clear that socio-economic conditions have become more inequitable. There are a large number of internally displaced people.

“We need to hire at least 15 health specialists to supervise all the health programmes and increase the number of vaccinators from 11 to 23.”

DHS is headed by a director who nobody takes seriously and when he calls a meeting most officials ignore him which is also a major setback, the official added.

DHS Director Dr Hasan Urooj, said he had forwarded a proposal to empower the DHS to the CDA chairman a couple of months back. “This will help to implement the Islamabad Equity Health Model effectively,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

Representatives of over 12 civil society organisations demanded a ‘pluralistic society where individual rights are guaranteed regardless of a person’s caste, creed, colour, sexual orientation or religious affiliation.

They were speaking at the launch of Coalition for the Rights of Minorities (CRM) on Tuesday, at the concluding ceremony of a five-day training titled “Fact Finding & Documentation”, organised by CRM and the Global Human Rights Defence (GHRD) – a Netherland-based international human rights non-government organisation.

Country Coordinator CRM Sameena Imtiaz said the coalition is a unified effort to raise the awareness of people about the rights of religious minorities and to ensure their protection as equal citizens of Pakistan.

Sameena said the coalition would engage all stakeholders for ensuring protection of minorities, including law enforcement agencies, bureaucracy and politicians. “We will try to establish connections with national and regional bodies and organisations that are working on similar issues to help build a culture of tolerance and peace not only in the country but also at the regional level,” she said.

CRM will make recommendations to policymakers for working towards changing the extremist mindset and for promoting tolerance, peaceful coexistence, interfaith peace and harmony in the society, she added.

The participants, while appreciating the creation of the coalition, hoped that CRM will serve as a united platform for civil society  organisations to help mainstream the religious minorities in all socio-political processes in Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

Federal Minister for Defence Production Rana Tanveer Hussain along with the ministry’s secretary lieutenant-general (retd) Shahid Iqbal visited Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) on Tuesday to observe production capabilities.

The minister was informed that POF was the primary defence production complex, manufacturing a wide variety of conventional arms and ammunition. In addition, POF also exports products to friendly countries and also undertakes commercial production for sales within the country, he was told.

POF is further undertaking public private partnership ventures to improve the financial viability and efficiency of the organisation. Hussain expressed satisfaction over the institution’s performance, saying that he was pleased to know that the primary mandate given to POF of meeting the requirements of armed forces was being met.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

The Ministry of Education and Training on Tuesday asked the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) to expand its jurisdiction to ensure better service delivery.

State Minister for Education Balighur Rehman in a meeting directed  FBISE Chairperson Shaheen Khan to make concrete efforts to change the board’s act.

With regards to the FBISE jurisdiction, Khan said they are repeatedly contacted by different schools to be taken under their wing but the act of parliament does not allow this. To this Rehman said, “There is no harm if the board expands its family if others are approaching it for registration and I will go for amendments (in the act) to open its educational sphere.”

The minister said they will make it easy for the schools and colleges from other provinces for affiliation with FBISE and abolish the no-objection certificates from provincial governments.

He urged Khan to improve the mechanism of exam formulation and make it more conceptual instead of just questions that could be answered by cramming texts.

Khan informed the minister that 0.1million students are enrolled in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) programme while 0.12 million in the Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) in 996 institutions of Pakistan. While over 23,000 students of HSSC and SSC are in 50 schools and colleges of different countries, she remarked.

FBISE is a self-reliant government institution which had a budget of Rs800 million in fiscal year 2011-12 and Rs870 million in 2012-13 without any grant from the state, Khan said.

In the meanwhile FBISE chief said she has requested all the military cantonment areas’ concerned managers to allocate space for the board’s offices.

The FBISE chief requested the minister to give the prerogative to formulate curriculum for schools and colleges, control of Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (body to give equivalence to foreign degrees and their attestation) and Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) to the board for better results and coordination as all the bodies are interrelated.

The minister said they will discuss the issue after visiting FBISE and looking over the various legalities involved.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

More than 700 Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) employees have locked hotels and motels across the country to protest non-payment of salaries and perks, which they have not received for 16 months.

Around 35 hotels and motels owned by PTDC in Hunza, Naran, Kaghan, Swat, Kalam, Chitral and Gilgit and other areas have been closed to the public. PTDC’s Employees Union President Majid Yaqub said that the corporation would only re-open the facilities once the outstanding salaries were paid. “Provident funds and employee increments have been suspended for the last seven years,” he claimed.

He added that 11 employees were terminated for raising their voice against PTDC Managing Director Mir Shahjahan Khetran and for highlighting their issues in the media. Yaqub alleged that Khetran had embezzled PTDC funds and appointed his nephew Mir Zaman Khetran as a signatory for cheques in a blatant act of nepotism.

Khetran had also appointed Saeed Abbas Ansari as general manager finance and Abdur Rasool Zahidi as the second signatory. Without Ansari and Zahidi’s approval, employees’ salaries cannot be paid, said Yaqub.

He said PTDC had decided to move the court against Khetran and would also raise the issue of nepotism with the incumbent managing director.

“Tourists pay hotel and motel rents in cash but there is no mechanism to record inflows due to which the money can easily be misappropriated,” said Yaqub. A senior PTDC official, requesting anonymity, confirmed the allegations levelled by Yaqub, adding that Khetran had recruited 1,100 employees, overburdening the corporation.

“Thousands of tourists will suffer due to the protests,” said the official. “PTDC is now experiencing losses.” When contacted, Khetran termed the allegations baseless and said some PTDC officials were running a smear campaign against him. He stated that he had only appointed 45 persons.

“The former prime minister had approved a grant of Rs5 million for payment of  salaries. We’ve paid 14 months of outstanding dues while the rest will be settled soon,” he claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

A host of grade-22 officers — almost all from the Secretariat group — were reshuffled on Tuesday as the new government went on the first revamp of the bureaucracy’s upper echelon.

Shahzad Arbab, will be taking charge as the new Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) chief secretary, while Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi will be replacing Arbab as the Economic Affairs secretary. Sethi’s replacement in the cabinet division will be Sami Saeed, who is currently posted as the member in charge at the Ombudsman’s Secretariat regional office in Lahore.

Attaullah Khan, who was on deputation with the K-P government, has been appointed Ombudsman’s Secretariat Secretary.

Meanwhile, Interior secretary Lieutenant (retd) Muhammad Abbas has been made officer on special duty (OSD), with Education, Training and Standards Secretary Major (retd) Qamar Zaman appointed as his replacement. Similarly, Ports and Shipping Secretary Khawar Jameel has been made OSD, with Religious Affairs Secretary Habibullah Khan Khattak announced as his replacement.

Narcotics Control Secretary Seerat Asghar Jaura will replace Taimur Azmat Osman as the National Food Security and Research secretary. Osman has been made OSD.

Information Secretary Shahid Rashid will be taking over as Establishment secretary, while Rukhsana Shah will take charge as the new Textile Secretary. She was previously the National Council of Social Welfare chairperson.

Federal Land Commission Senior Member Naveed Salimi has been appointed secretary of the Federal Public Service Commission.

Commerce Secretary Munir Qureshi will be taking charge as the new Overseas Pakistanis Secretary. His replacement will be Qasim Muhammad Niaz, a Pakistan Administrative Service officer who has also been promoted to grade 22 in the Secretariat group. Niaz is currently the economic adviser for the Pakistani Embassy in Brussels.

Grade 21 officer Abdul Khaliq Khan has been made OSD. He was serving in the Human Resource Development Division as an additional secretary.

In addition, Shahid Khan, a grade 21 PAS officer on deputation with the Government of Punjab, has been posted as the additional secretary for Religious Affairs.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

A local court on Tuesday ordered the government to pay 20 per cent special allowance to employees of departments affiliated with federal ministries with effect from March. 

Islamabad High Court’s judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui directed the finance ministry to disburse the special allowance without discrimination. Advocate Asad Hussain Ghalib representing petitioners from the Pakistan Council of Science and Technology, contended that even though his clients were employees of the science and technology ministry, they were not awarded the special allowance which was unfair.

The petitioners’ counsel maintained that employees who were granted special allowance including employees of the Wafaqi Mohtasib Secretariat, National Assembly, Senate secretariat, Prime Minister’s Secretariat and the President House were already getting an allowance with their basic pay. “All employees of attached departments are eligible to get special allowance and they should be treated equally,” he added.

The petitioners, who belong to various departments, had maintained in their respective petitions that former premier Raja Pervez Ashraf had approved 20 per cent special allowance for employees of federal ministries but not for them which was discriminatory.

Additional secretary finance and regulations, who was summoned earlier by the court, had said that the finance ministry had written to all departments for details and came to know that not all of them were getting special allowance.

However Justice Siddiqui observed that this was discriminatory and employees of attached departments should also be given special allowance.

Earlier Deputy Attorney General  Tariq Mahmood in his reply had informed the court that the allowance was for employees of federal ministries because the employees from affiliated departments were already getting allowances.

More than 20 petitions had been filed by employees of attached departments of federal ministries including the National Centre for Rural Development, National Achieves, Federal Flood Commission, Public Works Department, Capital Development Authority, Staff Welfare Organisation, Department of Library and Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, who had challenged a notification issued by the finance ministry during the previous government for approval of a special allowance for employees in federal ministries and the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

Low revenue collection, missed targets and irregularities worth Rs93.85 billion are just the ‘highlights’ of the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) performance for the fiscal year 2011-12.

The report states that the authority missed over 70 per cent of its targets for the development of the federal capital in 2011-12.

During the same period, the civic authority overspent its budget on non-development projects. During 2011-12, non-development expenditure rose by 137.24 per cent whereas development activities were not being given priority, the audit report noted.

The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) pointed out that “unrealistic and overambitious revenue collection estimates were shown in the CDA’s budget documents for 2011-12. During that year, the CDA collected Rs10.28 billion from self-financing and other sources against estimates of Rs17.31 billion — showing a shortfall of over Rs7 billion in overall estimated receipts.

“The figures indicate that the authority failed to exploit and derive benefits from the available resources,” the report stated.

The icing on the cake was that CDA officials did not even bother to provide records for 22 projects including LED streetlights and agro farms to the auditors despite repeated reminders, the report says.

During 2011-12, the federal government released Rs923.85 million to the authority under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) out of promised Rs2.08 billion. Out of amount released, the authority used Rs904.17 million.

The report lamented weak internal controls and the absence of proper monitoring for loss, non-recovery and irregularities of Rs93.85 billion.

Some 52 paragraphs of the audit report refer to Rs79.1 billion lost due to irregularities, non-compliance and non-production of records, while the remaining 26 paragraphs deal with losses incurred due to weak internal controls and poor performance in general.

Most of the large amounts in the irregularities heads are related to CDA Estate Wing.

The report pointed out that the biggest loss, Rs20.207 billion, was incurred due to irregular allotment of 3,978 residential plots in sectors G-10, G-11,I-8, I-10, I-11, D-12 and E-12 to CDA employees and officers working in the authority on deputation. The allotments were in violation of the Land Disposal Regulation 2005.

“Allotments were made in excess of the admissible five per cent quota reserved for CDA employees in each residential sector,” report observed.

In another audit para, the AGP pointed out loss of Rs6.223 billion caused by encroachments on CDA land by hotels and hospitals.

The audit found that CDA land measuring 10,067 square yards and 14,000 square yards was encroached by Marriott Hotel and Serena Hotel in Islamabad respectively. Similarly, land measuring 14,410 square yards is occupied by Shifa International Hospital. If calculated at current market rates, the land values in Rs6.223 billion.

In another case, the authority failed to collect Rs4.513 billion in lease extension fees from the owners of commercial plots in different sectors. Such owners were given plots on 33 year leases, and upon expiry of the lease period, the CDA did not extend the lease agreements or retake possession of the plots.

Similarly, illegal occupation of 352 kanals by the National Police Foundation caused a loss of Rs7.04 billion.

Irregular allotment of 6,400 plots to illegal occupants of CDA-acquired land in Kuri and Rehara villages resulted in loss of Rs18 billion.

The loss of Rs1.032 billion due to non-recovery of fines imposed on account of non-conforming use of residential houses, Rs2.43 billion due to falsified approvals of layout plans and the issuance of no objection certification to the National Police Foundation E-11 Housing Scheme, Rs330.88 million due to irregular use of CDA land by private housing colonies, Rs8.618 due to protracted delays, and the failure to develop Sector I-15, were also observed.

There are also references to the acceptance of sub-market rate bids during the auctioning of commercial and residential plots, the award of work tenders at higher rates, failure to impose fines on contractors for violations of terms and conditions of agreements, non-recovery of toll fees, wasteful expenditures, irregular plots auctions, double payments made to illegal occupants, illegal announcement of awards for CDA acquired land, and exaggerated assessments of built-up properties.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

ISLAMABAD: 

A Senate panel on Tuesday recommended to the government, with a majority vote, that it lower the sales tax rate to 16%. It also took the opportunity to remind Finance Minister Ishaq Dar of his stance, when he sat in the opposition benches, on reducing tax rates for broadening the tax base.

The Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, headed by MQM’s Nasreen Jalil, also criticised the government’s decision to give sweeping powers to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and enabling it to impose a tax on any sector, which it said remains a prerogative of the parliament.

On the second day of proceedings, the committee members fiercely opposed the move to burden existing taxpayers and consumers in the name of widening the tax base. They expressed fears that this would prove counterproductive and fuel inflation.

Senator Nuzhat Sadiq – the lone committee member from the treasury benches – independent Senator Hamayun Mandokhel and JUI-F’s Talha Mahmood, however, supported the increase in sales tax to 17% in the budget for 2013-14.

Opposition parties that enjoy a majority in the standing committee spoke against the tax increase.

Through the Finance Bill, the government has increased the sales tax from 16% to 17% in general, and to 19% for unregistered persons and entities, a move that is expected to bring in billions of rupees in revenues, but put an extra burden on existing taxpayers, thereby fuelling inflation.

“If the government is serious about broadening the tax base, it should begin with collecting taxes from the 3.9 million identified people (tax dodgers) that will serve both the purposes – bring in revenues and broaden the tax base,” PPP Senator Sughra Imam said.

The committee members viewed the levy of a 19% sales tax on unregistered persons with concern, saying it would cause immense problems as, with a few exceptions, almost no one is a registered taxpayer in the country. Senator Ilyas Bilour of the ANP commented that the government was punishing the people for the failures of the FBR.

“When Senator Ishaq Dar was in the opposition, he had called for slashing the sale tax to 15%, and this could be found in the Senate record,” noted Senator Haji Adeel of the ANP. Dar did not come to attend the panel meeting on Tuesday.

In a separate recommendation, the committee asked the FBR to lower the threshold for the mandatory registration of wholesalers and retailers, currently set at Rs5 million of annual turnover. FBR Chairman Ansar Javed gave an absurd statement, saying his primary aim was not to widen the tax base, but to catch big transactions.

The government is giving vast powers to the FBR through the Finance Bill, which will allow it to slap tax on any tax-evading sector. According to a proposal, the FBR can levy taxes based on a unit’s production capacity, the FBR chairman said.

He said the proposal was added to the budget after the FBR found that the sugar industry had kept 100,000 tons of production out of the books and evaded taxes worth billions of rupees.

The idea behind this was to tax the sugar mills on the basis of the steam consumption of boilers, which will provide a fair idea of production.

He said the capacity tax had been proposed to also be levied on the beverages sector, which he claimed was hiding 30% of its production out of the books.

The FBR has also kept discretionary powers to exempt any sector from the 0.1% withholding tax at the manufacturing stage, which detractors say may open new avenues of corruption for the FBR’s officials.

In the last budget, the FBR had levied a 0.5% withholding tax on all types of manufacturing. This year, it has proposed to reduce the rate.

Through the Finance Bill, the government is also introducing administrative changes in the FBR, which, the senators observed, was a violation of the constitution, as the Finance Bill was only meant for taxation proposals.

“The FBR wants to give legal cover to an ongoing but bitterly criticised practice of giving rewards to its officers,” they said. It is also proposing to establish a Directorate General of Law and a Directorate General of Research and Development, which the committee said did not fall in the category of taxation measures.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2013.

Like Business on Facebook to stay informed and join in the conversation.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Tuesday said that a new security policy will be formulated soon, Radio Pakistan reported.

Meetings will be held with the Chief of Army Staff and heads of security agencies in this regard, he said during an interview with a private TV news channel.

Chaudhry Nisar denounced the security lapses in Balochistan and said the militant attacks would be investigated, Radio Pakistan reported.

The Interior Minister further said that federal government is willing to provide every kind of support to the Sindh government.

Earlier, while presenting a preliminary probe report on terror attacks in Balochistan, Chaudhry Nisar had warned that in establishing peace in the province, the government would not care for anyone’s ‘displeasure’.

ISLAMABAD: The problem of missing persons is not set to go away any time soon as new data revealed by a government commission on Tuesday showed that cases had shown a net increase.

The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances unveiled in a press release on Tuesday that in January, 2011, there were 138 cases of missing persons pending in the courts. This figure had jumped to 1,172 by June, 2013.

The Commission, comprising the former senior Justice of Supreme Court Justice Javed Iqbal and Muhammad Sharif Virk, managed to dispose off 415 cases during the 30 month period, with eight cases being solved in May 2013 alone.

It said that it is currently investigating the pending 757 cases with the help of law enforcement agencies with periodical hearings in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Quetta.

ISLAMABAD: A petition filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday has sought the court’s direction to the federal government to stop US drone strikes which has contributed to the deaths of innocents in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Mado Jan filed the petition under Article 184(3) of constitution, listing the federation through secretaries Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Information and US diplomats as respondents.

The petitioner argued that according to a report from political authorities of North Waziristan Agency, 896 civilians in the district have been killed by drone attacks over the last five years till December 2012. The attacks also left at least 209 people with serious injured. Only 47 foreigners were killed and six injured.

Similarly, in South Waziristan Agency 70 drone strikes were carried out in the last five years till June 2012. Jan stated that 553 local civilians were killed and 126 injured in those attacks.

The petitioner mentioned that the National and Provincial Assemblies of Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan passed the resolutions but the respondents did not take the necessary steps to restrain drone attacks.

He complained that TV news channels and journalists have showed no interest in demanding permission to visit the site of a drone strike and show the real picture of drone devastation.

The petitioner contended that the drone strikes, with or without the consent of respondents, against its citizens was in violation of Article 245 of the Constitution of Pakistan. Under the constitution, he argued that the Armed Forces can be called either to defend Pakistan against external aggression or threat of war or to act in aid of civil power.

Jan added that Pakistan’s Armed Forces are fully prepared for national defence. He quoted Brig (retd) Masood’s statement that Pakistan has the capability to shoot down drones, but the government does not wish to spoil relations with the United States.

The killing of Pakistani citizens on a large scale is an offence of murder for which US President Barack Obama and others should be dealt with in accordance with the law, Jan stated.

The new government has made major changes in the bureaucracy, Express News reported on Tuesday.

In the second stage of new appointments and transfers, secretaries of different ministries were changed.

Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Training Qamar Zaman Chaudhry was made Defence Secretary, while Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi was appointed as the Secretary of Economic Affairs and Sami Saeed was allotted the slot of Cabinet Secretary.

Shahid Rasheed was made the Secretary of Establishment and Shahid Khan was appointed Secretary of Religious Affairs.

Munir Qureshi was made Secretary of Overseas Pakistani and Human Resource Development, Shehzad Arbab was allocated the position of Chief Secretary Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Qasim Niaz was assigned the job of Secretary Commerce.

Furthermore, Seerat Asghar Jora was made Secretary Food Security, Attaullah Toro was appointed Federal Ombudsman Secretary, Rukhsana Shah was allotted the position of Secretary Textile Division and Director General Immigration and Passports Zulfiqar Ahmed Cheema was appointed IG Motorway.

ISLAMABAD: Three bodies in gunny bags were recovered from Islamabad on Tuesday, Express News reported.

The bags were found from the Bani Gala area of the city.

Incidents like these are rare in the federal capital, where crime rate is comparatively lower than the rest of the country.

However, dumping bodies in gunny bags has been a trend in Karachi city, where target killing claims lives on daily basis.

LONDON: The Scotland Yard anti-terrorism unit raided two houses in London in connection with the murder of former Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) parliamentarian Dr Imran Farooq, Express News reported on Tuesday.

The houses were located close to the deceased parliamentarian’s own residence. The raid lasted for five hours and police took evidence into custody.

A Pakistani-British was also interrogated in relation to this case today.

Background

Dr Farooq was stabbed to death in Green Lane on Edgware Road on 16 September, 2010 – but leads in the case have been few and far between – or at least not publicised. The anti-terrorist unit of the Metropolitan Police had said that, a few months before his murder, Dr Farooq had been trying to create his own independent political “profile”.

The police force had hinted about the possibility that Dr Farooq might have been thinking of embarking on a new political career, and, therefore, it wanted to talk to everyone who were in contact with him from a political perspective.

It also noted that Dr Farooq had created a new Facebook profile in 2010 and had established many new contacts on the social forum.

In the third major heatwave in four years, Pakistan’s climbing temperatures have destroyed crops and claimed the lives of many. Temperatures on Friday dipped to under 38C (100F) and signaled the end of a nearly four-week long heatwave, however according to leading meteorologists, the country could expect longer, more intense events in the future, reported The Guardian.

One of the reasons put forward by expert Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry, a vice-president of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and former director of Pakistan’s Met Office, is climatic warming.

“If we look at the frequency and the trend of the extreme weather events impacting Pakistan then it is easy to find its link with climate change,” he said.

Chaudhry wrote Pakistan’s climate change police and authored a report on the number of heatwaves in Pakistan in 2013. According to his report, the number of heatwaves across the country had increased from 1980 to 2009, and that average temperature in the Indus Delta was “steadily rising”.

In 2010, the May temperature in Mohenjodaro in Sindh, reached 53.5C (128F), the fourth highest temperature ever recorded in the world and the highest ever in Asia.

With the monsoon season around the corner, experts fear a rise in diseases related to heat, dehydration, and contaminated water.

Iqbal Memon, president of the Pakistan Paediatric Association (PPA) said, “The rise in vector-borne diseases including diarrhoea, cholera, gastroenteritis, typhoid and hepatitis is due to environmental factors and the effects of climate change.”

The heatwaves also affect farming negatively, with cows giving less milk and lack of water for crop irrigation.

“The heat actually helped the cotton crop because it came when it was flowering and it quickly turned into fruit,” said Mustafa Talpur of Oxfam in Islamabad. “But it badly hit the sugarcane, rice and chilli crops. The lack of irrigation water has affected the yield, but the exact impact wont be known until the harvest is over.”

Rural areas have seen less of heat menace compared to urban cities, due to what is known as as the “heat island effect”. Loadshedding added to the misery of urban residents as many families were unable to pump water or run air conditioners to beat the heat.

Pakistan, like neighbouring Bangladesh, is highly vulnerable to natural disasters and has experienced massive flooding, heat waves and droughts in the past.

LAHORE: The Vice Chancellor of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS) Prof Dr Talat Naseer Pasha  has said that despite no proper mechanism of semen production in the country, and around 3.5 million poor quality semen doses, Pakistan has the best buffalo breed globally, producing  67% milk from them.

Talking to the APP on Monday, he said that the private sector was producing 3.5 million semen doses against the government’s 2.5 million doses.

He deplored that it was very alarming that the quality of bulls being used for semen collection was inferior as the private sector was conducting business without covering the aspect of animal genetics.

There is no mechanism  to check the quality of semen produced by the private sector, he added.

To a question, Pasha said that UVAS had facilities to check the quality of any semen, therefore it should be mandatory for the private sector to check their semen quality. He said that if UVAS provided quality semen to small farmers at their doorsteps, it would bring a revolutionary change in this fast growing livestock sector.

ISLAMABAD: 

A week has passed since the abduction of Prof Dr Allaudin, head of the Paediatrics Department at Islamabad Medical and Dental College (IMDC), but the police are still groping in the dark.

Dr Allaudin, a resident of Doctors Town in PWD Society, Lohi Bher, was kidnapped from the Media Town by unknown persons seven days back.

The kidnapped doctor hails from Mianwali and has three sons with his wife, who is an assistant professor in the IMDC Radiology Department.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Allaudin’s brother-in-law Dr Fuad Niazi said the police have registered an FIR, but they are as clueless as they were seven days ago. Meanwhile, the family has not received any ransom calls.

He said Allaudin had no enmity with anyone and had never received any threatening calls or letters.

“He was a good person and never indulged in illegal activities,” Niazi said.

Sharing details, Niazi said that on June 10, Allaudin parked his car outside Doctors Town, where he resides.

He told the housing colony’s guards to keep an eye on his car while he went to the nearby Shafi International Hospital, where he used to practise in the evening.

“After that, no one knows about his whereabouts. When we contacted the hospital administration, they said he did not come in on that day,” he said.

IMDC Project Director Professor Khurshed Ahmad told The Express Tribune that Dr Allaudin was relaxed and acting normal when he left office on June 10.

Investigation Officer Zafar Iqbal said the police have obtained mobile data of the kidnapped doctor and one person — a friend of the doctor’s — has been interrogated.

“He is affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami and has done social work. We are trying our level best, but so far we are clueless,” he said.

The Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) has expressed anxiety and urged the police to recover him immediately. PIMA President Dr Misbahul Aziz said the kidnapping and killing of doctors in Pakistan has become commonplace and needs to be addressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18th, 2013.