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Friday, March 31, 2023
Tyrian White case: IHC reserves verdict on case admissibility
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday reserved its verdict on the admissibility of a petition seeking the disqualification of PTI Chairman Imran Khan for concealing his alleged daughter, Tyrian White from his election papers.
Last year, petitioner Muhammad Sajid had filed a plea in the IHC claiming that although Imran made arrangements for Tyrian White’s upkeep in the United Kingdom, he did not disclose it in nomination papers and affidavits filed by him for contesting elections.
Submitting his response to the IHC, the former premier on Feb 1 had requested the court to dismiss the petition, saying that it was “not maintainable” on legal grounds as he was no longer a lawmaker.
Subsequently, the IHC had decided to constitute a larger bench to hear the petition. On Feb 9, it had emphasised that arguments on the plea’s admissibility were highly important.
The IHC was to initially decide on the petition’s maintainability on March 21 but had adjourned the hearing till today, directing Imran’s counsel to conclude his arguments on its maintainability.
A three-member larger bench — consisting of IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir — presided over the hearing today.
Advocate Hamid Ali Shah was present as the petitioner’s counsel while Advocate Salman Akram Raja and Advocate Abuzar Salman were present as Imran’s representatives.
Advocates Saad Hasan and Zegham Anees were present as the Election Commission of Pakistan’s lawyers.
The hearing
At the outset of the hearing, Justice Farooq said: “Till now, according to the record, Imran Khan has neither denied nor accepted anything. Till now, the court is hearing this petition regarding its admissibility.”
Addressing Shah, the petitioner’s counsel, Justice Farooq said: “You tell us about the basic points; is Tyrian under the guardianship of Imran Khan or not? Is Imran Khan a public office holder now or not?
“If there is something new in response to the points [raised by Imran’s lawyer] Salman Akram Raja, tell us that. Till now, neither Imran Khan’s admission nor rebuttal is on record.”
To this, Advocate Shah said: “Imran Khan did not disclose his daughter’s name in the affidavit given to the election commission.”
He said that according to the Holders of Public Exchequer (Accountability) Act 2015, Imran cannot remain as party head.
The lawyer argued: “Imran Khan did not respond to the facts mentioned in the petition, which makes them accepted [by default].”
Here, the IHC chief justice observed that the court was hearing the case based on the petition’s admissibility.
Advocate Shah then proceeded to read out the affidavit submitted by Imran. He said: “Imran Khan mentioned Bushra Bibi, Kassem Khan and Suleman Khan in the affidavit. He said that the two sons live with their mother and are not under his financial guardianship.
Tyrian has not yet been married [so] she comes under [Imran’s] guardianship according to Islamic law, he argued.
Advocate Shah said that the petitioner is a Pakistani citizen like other citizens. “Even if the petition is against a party head, it is admissible,” he added.
The counsel asserted: “If someone submits a false affidavit, he is disqualified under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution, according to [previous] court verdicts.”
At this point during the hearing, the court raised the question: “If the court determines that this affidavit was false, what will happen then?”
To this, the petitioner’s counsel responded that person would then be “disqualified from becoming a member of an assembly and remaining the party head”.
Upon the completion of Advocate Shah’s arguments, Justice Farooq said to the ECP lawyer: “We had asked you to submit documents.”
“What is the election commission’s stance on this?” the court asked the ECP lawyer, who then replied that “in the past, such petitions were dismissed on the basis of lack of evidence”.
Here, the IHC chief justice reiterated that the court had heard the petition “only to the extent of it being maintainable” and it would only be taken forward if found to be maintainable otherwise be dismissed.
Justice Farooq said: “Why not fine the election commission heavily for this behaviour?” The ECP lawyer said: “We only wanted to inform [the court] that we have dismissed cases based on lack of evidence.”
The IHC chief justice said that first the court would “decide whether this case is maintainable or not” and reserved its verdict on the matter of the plea’s admissibility.
The petition
Sajid, the petitioner, had alleged that the PTI chairman did not marry Sita White because her “racist father categorically told the respondent (Imran) that if he married Sita, they would not get a penny of his money”.
“Only thereafter, he met Jemima, another rich lady, and in a very short time married her.”
The petition, titled “Imran versus Imran — the untold story”, recalled the circumstances in which the custody of Tyrian Jade was given to Jemima.
It stated that Ana-Lusia White, in her will of Feb 27, 2004, had nominated Jemima Khan as guardian of her daughter Tyrian Jade Khan-White. Sita White died that year on May 13.
The petition went on to state: “Jemima Goldsmith had been the spouse of Imran Khan (1995-2004).
“The concealed facts stood confirmed by a judgement of paternity rendered by a superior court in California in favour of Sita White where it was held that the respondent (Imran Khan) was the father of Tyrian Jade.”
Imran Khan initially joined the proceedings through his attorney, but defaulted after he was asked to undergo a blood test, it added.
However, he later submitted a declaration to a court of guardianship when Caroline White, Sita’s sister, asked the court that she be appointed Tyrian’s guardian, the petition alleged.
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5 questions posed to the TikTok CEO by US lawmakers that left us scratching our heads
US House Energy and Commerce Committee members battered TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew about potential Chinese influence over the popular video-sharing platform, displaying fears that the app was somehow being used by China’s Communist Party as a spying tool.
The questions posed by the boomers who dominated the committee have been shared widely across the internet, clearly showing how the lawmakers were out of their depth trying to put the chief executive of one of the world’s most popular social media platforms on the spot.
Some of the questions seemed to be the brainchild of WhatsApp University’s course on absurd conspiracy theories while others were outright racist.
Here, we look at five of the most ludicrous questions.
1. Mr Chew, does TikTok access the home wifi network?
A visibly confused Chew responded that he did not understand the question posed by representative Richard Hudson.
When the question was repeated, Chew, after a long pause, said that it does [access the wifi] like many other apps in the industry.
2. What is your salary?
In a bid to prove the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party, ByteDance and TikTok, several personal questions were asked of the CEO. Besides his salary, he was also asked if he owns shares in ByteDance or Douyin. Chew refused to answer all questions, and rightfully so. Being a representative of a company does not mean that an individual is compelled to disclose their personal assets.
3. Why do you need to know where the eyes are if you’re not seeing if they’re dilated?
One of the representatives asked if the application uses the phone’s camera to determine a pupil’s dilation.
Chew responded that the eyes are only detected when a user uses a filter and that is required only because the eye position needs to be detected for the filter to apply.
He also added that the app does not collect data, which is stored locally and deleted. The politician responded: “I find that hard to believe”.
Perhaps, the congressman’s children can now explain to him what a filter is and how they are part of all social media apps around the world.
4. Are you a Chinese company?
This question, even though it was addressed by Chew in his opening speech when he said that the company was headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles, was asked five more times in different ways.
Despite his answer remaining the same every time, the committee’s members seemed unable to accept the fact.
5. That would include you, Mr Chew?
And finally, when talking about a Chinese law which mandates citizens to help intelligence agencies and maintain secrecy, Representative Dan Crenshaw asked Chew a hypothetical question.
“If you’re ever called by by the Chinese government, would you give them TikTok data?”
“I’m a Singaporean,” Chew responded.
Racism, much?
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Massive water shortage likely months after unprecedented floods
ISLAMABAD: In the coming Kharif season, beginning on April 1, the country is heading towards a ‘massive water shortage’, somewhere between 27 per cent and 35 per cent, only months after unprecedented floods submerged large swathes of lands across Sindh and southern Punjab, Irsa sources told Dawn.
In view of the higher shortage, the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) would be compelled to follow a controversial three-tier water management mechanism for distribution of shares to provinces and lead to rifts among the key coalition partners — PML-N in Punjab and PPP in Sindh.
Informed sources said that two major stakeholders — Sindh and Punjab — were poles apart on water conveyance losses — the quantum of available water that remains unaccounted for and lost to theft, leakage, evaporation or absorbed by soil or canals and could not reach farm lands.
Punjab believes that system losses or conveyance losses were around 7pc and 8pc, given the huge water quantities absorbed by the farmlands in super floods in Rabi season that has just ended, whereas Sindh insists system losses ranged between 35pc and 40pc, particularly in its territories between Chashma and Kotri barrages.
Irsa to finalise estimates of water availability during Kharif season tomorrow
A meeting of Irsa’s technical committee held on March 24 could not finalise the estimates of overall water availability for Kharif 2023 mainly because of a wide gap between the federating units on the issue of system losses. The water availability estimates are firmed up on the basis of carryover storage in reservoirs, anticipated rain patterns and resultant river flows and estimated conveyance losses.
The Irsa has now called its advisory committee to meet on Thursday (March 30) to examine water availability estimates made by Irsa’s technical committee and other stakeholders particularly Punjab, Sindh and Wapda. The advisory committee to be presided over by Irsa chairman would be physically attended by all the four provincial members, provincial irrigation secretaries and technical experts of Wapda, provinces and Met Office.
Informed sources said the Sindh government would demand water distribution under para-2 of the 1991 water apportionment accord but the Irsa would to continue with three-tier formula for water distribution among the provinces to absorb water shortages in the ongoing Kharif season. Kharif cropping season starts from April-June and lasts until October-December in different parts of the country. Rice, sugarcane, cotton, maize and mash are some of the key crops of the season.
Under the 1991 water accord, the apportionment of water was made under para 2 of the agreement that fixed provincial shares. However, due to water shortages, this para is not currently in application for more than a decade, as Irsa with the involvement of federal and provincial governments put in place in 2002 a cascading water distribution share mechanism among provinces in the light of shortages. The three-tier formula is now a combination of para 2, para 14(a) and historical uses of 1977-82.
Para 14(b) required that “10 daily uses would be adjusted pro-rata to correspond to the indicated seasonal allocations of the different canal systems and would form the basis for sharing shortages and surpluses on all Pakistan basis”. Under the three-tier formula, however, the less populated provinces namely Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are exempt from application of shortage that is then shared by Sindh and Punjab. Sindh, however, faces the larger shortage because of the three-tier formula.
Sindh has been arguing that while putting in place the three-tier formula, Irsa had surpassed its mandate envisaged under the accord and started distribution contrary to the accord and devised its own formulas despite Sindh’s objection through a meeting of the provincial committee of ministers.
With majority vote, Irsa has continued to hold that as the water distribution issue (under para 14, para 2 or historic uses) was already under active consideration of the Council of Common interests (CCI), no further discussion on the issue could take place until a final decision was reached by the CCI which had been sitting on the matter for many years.
Most members of Irsa argue that the matter was outside Irsa’s mandate as the CCI had constituted a committee to gather comments from all stakeholders, which had held considerable interactions though its final report was still awaited.
It was explained that three-tier formula for water distribution was systematic and dealt with different flow conditions on a sliding scale and it was beyond the mandate of Irsa advisory committee to change 10-daily system uses as set in the para-14/b of the accord.
Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2023
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Legal experts weigh in on judges’ call for revisiting CJP’s powers
Legal experts and lawyers on Monday weighed in after Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail of the Supreme Court called for revisiting the power of the “one-man show” enjoyed by the chief justice.
The two judges made the remarks in a detailed dissenting note — released on Monday hours after the SC took up the PTI’s plea challenging the postponement of elections in Punjab — on the top court’s March 1 verdict regarding holding elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The top court, in a 3-2 verdict, had directed the electoral watchdog to consult with President Arif Alvi for polls in Punjab and Governor Ghulam Ali for elections in KP, so that elections could be held within the stipulated timeframe of 90 days.
In the dissenting note, the two judges said that the reconstitution of the bench hearing the suo motu notice case regarding the delay in the provincial elections was “simply an administrative act”.
“Therefore, we are of the opinion that the dismissal of the present suo motu proceedings and the connected constitution petitions is the order of the court by a majority of 4 to 3 of the seven-member bench,” the two judges said.
Speaking on Samaa TV programme ‘Nadeem Malik Live’, Supreme Court advocate Salman Akram Raja said that the five-member bench hearing the PTI’s plea challenging the electoral body’s orders to put off Punjab Assembly elections would decide whether the 3-2 or 4-3 ruling was applicable to the March 1 order.
“It will be clear in a day or two. This is no big matter,” he said.
Raja argued that according to the Constitution, smaller benches also represented the apex court’s stance. “There is no rule which says a full court will sit […] we consider the bench to be the Supreme Court. Now, a bench is hearing the matter and it will decide what the previous verdict was. We will have to accept that decision.”
He said “all issues” raised in the dissenting note were important. “They are all good things and they should be carried out in the future,” he said.
Raja said the demand for having certain rules for invoking the top court’s suo motu jurisdiction was also valid. “We should formulate rules immediately. However, we cannot just reject the past by saying that ‘it was a one-man show’ or ‘chief justices made the benches’,” he added.
Raja said that the reason why such rules had not yet been formulated was due to a lack of consensus among the top court judges.
Legal expert Salahuddin Ahmed, while speaking on Geo News, said that bar councils and associations had long demanded that the CJP’s powers be structured and regularised.
“You can’t leave it completely to his discretion and as today’s judgement [shows], very harsh language has been used and judicial imperialism has been mentioned.”
Ahmed said the issue of reforms was one that had been raised many times in the past, adding that many judges in their retirement speeches had voiced complaints about the so-called selective composition of benches in political or sensitive matters.
“When seven to eight or a dozen judges are saying this, then the chief justice is responsible for not allowing the people to get the impression that you are running the institution through certain judges.”
Ahmed said he would not touch upon the merit of who was right between the 3-2 or 4-3 verdicts, adding that he himself thought that elections should take place within 90 days.
He questioned why the chief justice was hesitating to form a full bench so that all judges could sit together and “speak with a collective authority so matters are actually solved instead of becoming more complicated”.
Echoing Raja, he said the current five-member bench would have to decide whether the 3-2 or the 4-3 verdict was applicable.
Ahmed said the sanctity of the SC was being affected by the recent turn of events. “The matter is simple. When you include the same three to four judges in important constitutional and political cases, then naturally people will have reservations,” he added.
He said it was “natural” for doubts and suspicions to arise when the above happened repeatedly.
Barrister Taimur Malik said that while all apex court judges were honourable, “for now, the CJP is the first among equals when it comes to exercising suo motu powers or constituting benches”.
Lawyer Abdul Moiz Jaferii said the development would prove to be the “final push” the SC needed. He said that the CJP should either not interfere or do so with the “full might” of the SC.
“Anything less will lead to a fracturing of the court’s power, its majesty already having been denuded,” he said.
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Scathing note torpedoes CJP’s order in election suo motu
• Justice Shah notes judges can’t be removed from bench sans their consent
• Cites Panama Papers verdict as precedent, says removal of judges won’t affect outcome
• Deplores ‘one-man show’ at apex court, seeks limits to CJP’s ‘unbridled powers’
ISLAMABAD: Two judges of the apex court on Monday cast doubt on the judgement handed down in the March 1 suo motu regarding elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, saying that the proceedings stood dismissed by a majority of 4-3, and contended that the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) does not have the power to restructure benches without the consent of the respective judges.
The 28-page ‘order of the court’ came in stark contrast to the order issued earlier, wherein the top court ruled in a 3-2 verdict that elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab should be held within 90 days.
The ruling sparked a debate on whether the decision is considered a verdict by a majority of three to two or by four to three, with the government insisting on the latter.
The recent order, authored by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail, seems to address this controversy by stating that once “the cause list [is] issued and the bench is assembled for hearing cases, the chief justice cannot reconstitute the bench…”
“We are of the considered view that our decision concurring with the decision of our learned brothers (Yahya Afridi and Athar Minallah, JJ.) in dismissing the present suo motu proceedings and the connected constitution petitions is the Order of the Court with a majority of 4 to 3, binding upon all the concerned.”
‘Disagreement’ not grounds for redoing bench
In order to corroborate this, Justice Shah referred to the administrative powers enjoyed by the CJP in reconstituting a bench. Once the bench is constituted, a cause list is issued and the bench starts hearing the cases, the matter regarding the constitution of the bench goes outside the pale of administrative powers of the CJP and rests on the judicial side, the ruling said, adding that any member of the bench may, however, recuse from the bench. The bench may also be reconstituted if it is against the rules and requires a three-member bench instead of two, the ruling added.
“In the absence of a recusal… any amount of disagreement amongst the members of the bench… cannot form a valid ground for reconstitution of the bench,” it said, adding that reconstitution of a bench while hearing a case, in the absence of any recusal would amount to stifling the independent view of the judge.
“After having made a final decision on the matter at an early stage of the proceedings of a case, the non-sitting of a judge in the later proceedings does not amount to his recusal from hearing the case nor does it constitute his exclusion from the bench,” it argued.
According to the order, the decision of the CJP to remove the two judges from the bench through its reconstitution “has no effect on the judicial decision” passed in the case since the reconstitution was simply an administrative act to facilitate the further hearing by the remaining five members of the bench.
It added that the administrative exercise could not nullify or brush aside the judicial decisions given by the two judges in this case, which have to be counted when the matter is finally concluded.
Panama precedent and ‘one-man show’
“Failure to count the decision of our learned brothers (Yahya Afridi and Athar Minallah, JJ.) would amount to excluding them from the bench without their consent, which is not permissible under the law and not within the powers of the chief justice.”
“We are also fortified in our opinion by the precedent of the well-known Panama case. In the said case, the first order of the court was passed by a 3-2 and in the subsequent hearings conducted in pursuance of the majority judgement the two judges, who had made and announced their final decision, did not sit on the bench but they were not considered to have been excluded from the bench and were made a party to the final judgement…and they also sat on the bench that heard the review petitions.”
The order also questioned the discretion of the CJP in regulating the constitution of the benches and highlighted the need of revisiting the power of “one-man show” enjoyed by the office of CJP to ensure public trust and confidence in the judiciary.
This court cannot be dependent on the solitary decision of one man but must be regulated through a rule-based system approved by all judges, said the judgement.
Referring to CJP’s power, the judgement said the power of doing a “one-man show” was not only anachronistic, outdated and obsolete but also antithetical to good governance and incompatible with modern democratic norms.
The one-man show makes the system more susceptible to the abuse of power, it said, adding that in contrast, a collegial system with checks and balances helps prevent the abuse and promotes transparency and accountability.
“Ironically, the Supreme Court has time and again held how public functionaries ought to structure their discretion but has miserably failed to set the same standard for itself leaving CJP with unfettered powers in the matter of regulating the jurisdiction under Article 184(3) constituting benches and assigning cases.”
“It is this unbridled power enjoyed by CJP that has brought severe criticism and lowered the honour and prestige of the apex court,” the judgement regretted.
Political thicket
By initiating suo motu proceedings regarding polls, the Supreme Court had ushered into a “political thicket,” which commenced last year with the dissolution of the National Assembly and reached the dissolution of the provincial assemblies this year.
“We must not forget that democracy is never bereft of the divide. The very essence of the political system is to rectify such disagreements but to take this key characteristic outside the realm of our political system and transfer it to the judiciary, threatens the very core of democratic choice – raison d’etre’ of democracy,” the judgement said.
We must also remain cognisant that there will always be crucial events in the life of a nation, where the political system may disappoint but this cannot lead to the conclusion that the judiciary will provide a better recourse, the judgement suggested.
Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2023
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Khalilzad does not speak for Biden administration: US State Dept official
State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel has clarified that former US envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad did not represent the country's foreign policy and did not speak for the administration of President Joe Biden.
Patel's statement came in response to a question asked during a press briefing on Monday (March 27) about Khalilzad's recent statement regarding the political situation in Pakistan.
Earlier this month, Khalilzad — who had served as the special envoy for Afghan reconciliation under both the Trump and Biden administrations — had said that Pakistan was “underperforming and falling far behind” India.
“Pakistan faces a triple crisis: political, economic, and security. Despite great potential, it is underperforming and falling far behind its archrival, India. It is time for serious soul-searching, bold thinking, and strategising,” he had remarked.
The former US ambassador had also criticised Pakistan for jailing its political leaders — particularly hinting at the recent police attempts to arrest PTI Chairman Imran Khan — and had proposed “two steps” to deal with the country’s challenges the first being to set a date for general elections in early June to “avert a meltdown”.
Commenting on the matter in the press briefing today, Patel said that Khalilzad was a private citizen.
"Any social media activity or comments or tweets that you might reference, those are done in his private capacity, does not represent US foreign policy, and he does not speak for this administration," he stated.
In response to another question regarding the political "chaos" in Pakistan, the spokesperson responded that any implication of violence, harassment or intimidation had no place in politics.
"As we do with our partners all around the world, we encourage all sides in Pakistan to respect the rule of law and allow the people of Pakistan to democratically determine their own country’s leadership pursuant to their own Constitution and laws," he added.
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Policy debate: How the Sindh govt is rendering thousands homeless in the name of development
Around this time two years ago, Ester Rose looked on helplessly as a jackhammer excavator demolished her home. It was Palm Sunday — the day before Easter, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar.
When the jackhammer was done, hardly 30 per cent of her home, where she had lived for decades, remained — a single room that had only three walls and was completely open from one side. Around her, many of the homes in Kausar Niazi Colony along the Gujjar Nullah shared a similar fate.
Ester was told her home had to be demolished because it was constructed on land marked for a nullah [a watercourse] — in legal parlance, the home was built on encroached land, said the authorities. What she wasn’t told was where she was now supposed to find shelter for herself and her children.
In fact, no one had thought of that, it later transpired. Only after demolishing 6,600 homes and evicting 66,500 people, did the Government of Sindh (GoS) realise it needed a rehabilitation and resettlement policy.
Anti-encroachment drive and the pause
In 2020, Karachi received 484 millimetres (mm) of rain — the highest rainfall recorded in the last 90 years. The rain left the city in a shambles and inoperable for the next few weeks, with the clogged nullahs — the stormwater drains supposed to transport the water from one end of the city all the way to the sea — cited as the primary reason for the urban flooding.
Weeks later, the provincial government reached out to the World Bank (WB), which in turn agreed to put up $100 million for what came to be known as the Solid Waste Emergency and Efficiency Project (SWEEP). The goal was to improve solid waste management in the city, which also meant cleaning the debris from the storm water drains as well as clearing any illegal structures in their path.
At the same time, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, on Aug 12, 2020, ordered the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to assist the provincial government in cleaning the nullahs. Thus began the story of horror and agony for the residents of Gujjar Nullah and Orangi Nullah.
Soon after, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s senior director for land (anti-encroachment) issued a letter, titled “cancellation of leases of plots coming in alignment of Gujjar Nullah and Orangi Nullah and other nullahs in Karachi city.” What is ironic is that the order itself was illegal, but it was ultimately used to cancel all leases, even the ones issued decades ago. The letter also did not take into account the actual width of the nullah, and the authorities ended up demolishing homes that didn’t necessarily impede the flow of water.
Within nine days of the letter being issued, the Central district’s deputy commissioner issued a notice, informing the residents that the demolitions would start the next day at 7am. What each of these officials, as well as others involved in the ‘anti-encroachment operations’ failed to appreciate was that while the apex court had ordered the nullahs to be cleared of encroachments, it had also ordered the provincial government to rehabilitate the people who would be impacted by these operations.
Begum Rasheeda and her family of 10 live in a single-room makeshift tent alongside the nullah.
“The Government of Sindh shall provide all the necessary assistance and support to the NDMA for rehabilitation of the people, the Government of Sindh shall ensure provision of all necessary facilities which is required for rehabilitation of a civilised society,” reads the court order, in case you were wondering.
With no rehabilitation policy in place, the affectees — many of whom held leases for the land they occupied — knocked on the apex court’s doors once again. Again, the supreme court ordered the government to rehabilitate them. But it was already too late, with the World Bank suspending the funding for the project, ostensibly to avoid being embroiled in a controversy where thousands of people were being rendered homeless.
Policy discussions
It was at this point that the Sindh government rushed to make a rehabilitation policy, immediately constituting a committee chaired by the Karachi Commissioner.
The committee met for the first time on April 7, 2021, when the commissioner made two sub-committees. One was headed by Amber Alibhai, general secretary of non-governmental organisation Shehri-CBE, while the other was headed by then KMC Municipal Commissioner Afzal Zaidi.
“When the anti-encroachment drives of 2020 took place, the government realised that there should be a policy,” said Zaidi, adding that the policy was being drafted to serve as a roadmap for the future, whenever there was displacement due to a development project.
Two years on, after multiple consultation sessions, the policy draft is still being debated upon. Meanwhile, anti-encroachment operations are in full swing and departments are preparing and sending out more notices to more people who will have to be evicted to make way for ‘development projects’.
As for the other sub-committee, it lost its chairperson within a few months. “I resigned as the chairperson of the sub-committee on Nov 10, 2021, because the commissioner’s office was not engaging us in a meaningful way,” Alibhai told Dawn.com.
The fault in our laws
When the state wants to acquire private land, it looks to the archaic Land Acquisition Act (LAA), 1894, enacted by the British some 119 years ago. The law’s primary purpose was to facilitate the government’s acquisition of privately held land for public purposes and for private companies — by paying a small compensation fee.
Unfortunately, even after all these years, the law still prevails in Pakistan. The policy draft, currently in circulation, acknowledges the faults in the law, but does little to address them.
“The Land Acquisition Act, 1894, remains a remnant of the colonial times that should have been timely amended to cater to our evolving socio-economic circumstances,” the policy draft states. “Therefore, such an overhaul becomes necessary in the light of the shortcomings of the current scheme of land acquisition with respect to compensation and matters incidental thereto.”
Alibhai explained that the law essentially opened up several avenues for the government to take over any land by paying peanuts. “Under the current law, public purpose can be anything such as an educational institution, a housing scheme, a healthcare facility or slum clearance. It allows the government to acquire any land for a private company without being questioned,” she said.
Land acquisition for the Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA) project is one such case where the law was allegedly misused to take land from a local community — under the guise of development — to benefit a select few.
According to lawyer Abdul Rafay, “the definition of public purpose in LAA is vague, because of which the government can acquire a private person’s land for a private company, without being questioned.” Rafay is part of the Alternative Law Collective, a research, litigation and advocacy group comprising lawyers and academics.
Per the procedure laid out by the law, the government is required to listen to and take into consideration the objections of the people inhabiting the land. In most cases, however, Clause 17 of the LAA [special power in cases of urgency] is invoked, enabling the government to take over any land without listening to any objections of the local people.
The policy draft, being considered in Sindh at the moment, does not really address any of the issues arising out of the application of the LAA. It only makes fleeting references of avoiding, minimising and exploring alternative options — where feasible. It also introduces no standard, criteria or mechanisms for accessing the feasibility in practice, particularly when it comes to the question of taking land for public purposes and under the urgency clause of the LAA.
“The LAA, 1894, needs to be repealed and until that happens, the resettlement policy will hold no value,” Rafay added.
Ambiguities and absence of legal cover
Another point of contention with the policy draft is its vague wording. “The policy [draft] takes reference from multiple laws but does not define which sections or clauses of the aforesaid laws would be used,” said Alibhai, adding that this ambiguity could be used for mala fide purposes.
Children look out from a partially demolished home in Kausar Niazi Colony. — Photo by author
What is perhaps the biggest point of contention is that the policy has no legal cover, with the provincial government justifying that “the policy does not need explicit legal cover through legislation since it clarifies principles enshrined in other laws …”
According to environmental lawyer, Advocate Zubair Abro, if the policy has no legal cover, resettlement and rehabilitation will not be a right of the people. It needs to be made a right or the displaced will be left at the mercy of the government. “If there is no legal cover, we cannot challenge it in writ petition because it is just a policy, and cannot approach any court for enforcement because it is unenforceable,” said Abro.
Citing the example of Thar Coal, he said that despite having a resettlement policy framework, only a few affectees have had recourse to the entitlements, while the majority have been left unprotected. “Thar Coal Block 2 was developed in 2016 but to date, we have seen little to no compensation,” said Leela Ram, an affectee of Thar Coal. The compensations have been denied, restricted, delayed, incomplete and given favourably.
If the policy is turned into a law, there will also be a mechanism under which each government official and department will be given a responsibility. Those who do not fulfil their responsibility or discriminate can be held accountable.
The Sindh government, however, denies there is any mala fide intention to any of this. “If we wait for amendments to the law, it’s going to take time,” said Faisal Ahmed Uqaili, Secretary to Government of Sindh, Planning and Development Department. “The laws that are relevant to this policy should be amended but the deliberations to those amendments will come from the implementation of this policy on the ground … the policy will be the first stepping stone,” he added.
Unequal treatment
According to experts, the current policy draft is also discriminatory towards the affectees.
It states: “While resettlement is the preferred approach from a sustainable development perspective, cash compensation based on entitlements, can also be provided if preferred by eligible persons and/or required by government due to the contextual reasons (non-availability of resettlement sites and/or land and/or resources for developing new resettlement sites that are or can easily be connected to sources of livelihood and provided requisite services). The decision to provide resettlement or cash compensation may be done on a case-by-case basis.”
While giving the affectee the right to choose the compensation they desire is vital, giving the government discretionary power to make that decision without defining ‘guidelines’ would lead to discrimination, say experts. It would be an injustice to those who get the less desirable remedy.
“The entitlement matrix is incomplete and flawed … it fails to take the current scenario on the ground into context,” said Syed Zainuddin, director of Alternative Law Collective. He said that the on-ground issues are complex. Generations have been born and lived in places, which the government wants to acquire, in the last several decades. The people have their own customs, history, traditions, way of life and livelihood practices.
Zainuddin added that the Sindh government had never shown any interest in getting the people the required documentation. “Today, when they have interest in the land, they’re asking them to prove their ownership based on legal documentation?” he questioned rhetorically.
Based on those papers, the government is making distinctions between which affectee deserves what type of compensation, he said. The title-holder and the non-title holder both are losing their economic and social status — in equal measure. “How will they do justice when they only rehabilitate one of them? The value of any rehabilitation and resettlement policy is restitution of the people. This policy is failing to achieve that,” he stressed.
Generational customs and communal spaces
The entitlement matrix too does not take into account the customary practices of the areas. “Each region has a distinct socio-economic reality in which people have lived for centuries. They had their own set of rules and regulations,” said Rafay.
For instance, the agricultural land owners, who have title deeds, will be given land for land. It, however, fails to incorporate the landless farmers, who are in the majority and will be affected the most.
In rural Sindh, the ‘makata’ practice is followed in which the wadera (landowner) gives the landless farmer the land for the season or the year. The tenant lives on the land and cultivates it. The profit from the yields is then shared by both the land owner and the tenant.
Rafay explained that the matrix states the tenant will be given ‘cash compensation of a value proportional to the remaining tenancy period or three months’. “This is gross injustice,” he said. “What will he do after three months?”
What the policy draft fails to appreciate is that the pre-displacement status includes not just tangible private assets, but also communal resources and aspects of cultural life and livelihood practices.
“Where displacement and/or social and economic impacts are unavoidable, to provide adequate compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation assistance and support to affected people and communities can at least maintain their pre-displacement socio-economic status or improve their overall well-being due to new opportunities made available to them,” reads the draft.
“In Thar, there was a dedicated piece of land which was called ‘gaon-char’, on which the entire community’s livestock would graze,” said Noor Bajeer, CEO of Civil Society Support Programme. “If you take that away, you’re taking away an essential resource of the community.”
“Similarly, there are many other communal resources that need to be taken into account when rehabilitating and resettling the people … the current policy is failing to do so.”
Haste makes waste
While many point to the contradictions in the draft, some like architect Arif Hasan believe it is simply hogwash. “It seems to me that the policy is being made so that the government can keep taking loans from the World Bank,” he told Dawn.com.
Hasan explained that all policies have a background paper, which is very detailed and made after consultations from all provinces, districts and communities. It takes years to conduct those consultations and reach a consensus with the community.
According to Uqaili, the Sindh government has undertaken all efforts to consult as many stakeholders as possible. He explained that the policy draft has been uploaded on the respective websites of three different government departments. It has also been translated and advertised in regional languages, as well as Urdu, and the recommendations received are being compiled.
Moreover, said Uqaili, there have been multiple consultation sessions. “The civil society is even holding some consultation sessions to make their recommendations stronger,” he said, adding that once the policy was implemented, it could always be amended to fill the gaps.
Again, not everyone is convinced. “Each community that lives in the area has its own customs, cultures and history. Without taking all of this this into account, how can the government make a policy?” questioned Abira Ashfaq, a lawyer and activist affiliated with Karachi Bachao Tehreek (KBT), which describes itself as an “evolving and growing movement of demolition affected people and their allies in Karachi.
Bajeer agrees with Ashfaq, “the policy is being made in consultation with academics … the real beneficiaries of the policy are unaware of it,” he said. “The policy needs to be delayed, it cannot be hurried to fulfil the formalities of the donor agencies and banks. The policy is for all of Sindh and will rehabilitate people who are affected by all forms of displacement, be it climate change, anti-encroachment or development projects. It needs more deliberation.”
Again, Uqaili disputed this notion. “The policy is not for flood affectees … the government has different projects and provisions for them. It is also not for the displacement of affectees displaced before the effective date of policy implementation,” he said.
Homeless and helpless
Even as the policy debate continues, authorities have continued to demolish more homes, without any consideration for alternative arrangements. According to Karachi Urban Lab (KUL) — a research centre focusing on urbanisation and urban planning in the Global South — major infrastructure projects and anti-encroachment drives between Jan 2019 and Jan 2023 have resulted in the displacement of at least 14,900 families.
This means that almost 119,000 people have been impacted across Karachi in the last three years alone, said Muhammad Toheed, associate director at the KUL. The figure is based on a modest estimate of average eight persons per household, despite the fact that most of the anti-encroachment operations were carried out in high-density areas, where the family size often varies between eight and 10 persons.
Map shows eviction hotspots in Karachi from Jan 2019 to Jan 2023. — Courtesy Karachi Urban Lab
Map shows eviction hotspots in Karachi between 2109-202. — Courtesy Karachi Urban Lab
At the time of the demolition exercise, the KMC announced that each household impacted by the drive would be given four instalments of Rs90,000 each. The money was to be used by the families to pay rent for the next two years.
“More than 600 families have not received any compensation … others have only received a part of the payments,” lamented Ashfaq.
According to Zaidi, who was in-charge of the operation, the list of affectees has been updated from time to time as new information surfaced. “The NED (university) conducted an aerial survey, which was problematic, but the deputy commissioners later conducted a door-to-door survey. The lists have been updated from time to time,” Zaidi told Dawn.com.
“The cheques are ready … the affectees just have to show their CNIC and they would be handed the cheque,” he added.
This methodology too doesn’t consider the ground realities for the families living in the affected areas. “We have received only two cheques in the past two years … it was nowhere near enough,” said 40-year-old Shazia Zafar, a housewife.
She explained that their house was a two-storey structure, co-inhabited by three families. They were only compensated for one family.
“The rent prices have inflated after the demolition drive, the landlords are demanding Rs16,000 per month for a single-room house and that too without gas and water supply,” she said. Unable to afford the rent, the family of nine has resorted to living in their old home, which now has shaky walls and an exposed roof.
No funds to spare
In the 2022-23 budget, the Sindh government allocated Rs9.42bn for the “resettlement of affectees of Gujjar, Mehmoodabad and Orangi Nullahs”. More recently, however, the chief minister has expressed concern that it won’t be possible for the provincial government to “provide such a huge amount under present economic conditions”.
Meanwhile, the situation on the ground has only worsened. The monsoon rains of 2022 brought more misery for the people, who are still living near the site of demolitions. “I have lived in this house all my life … the water from the rain never came inside,” exclaimed 65-year-old Elizibeth Younus. “This year, rainwater accumulated inside my house and destroyed everything. All this demolition made the walls of my house weak,” she lamented.
A makeshift kitchen in a half-demolished house in Kausar Niazi, Gujjar Nullah. — All photos by author
During the anti-encroachment drives, the fences along the nullah were also removed. The exposed nullahs are unsafe and have caused many accidents — in some cases, children have fallen into the waterway and drowned.
“My son had gone with his cousin to buy milk. On the way, he fell into the nullah … I don’t know if he was pushed or he fell. I just know he is never coming back,” said Uzma Faisal, a resident of Kausar Niazi Colony, who lost her only son, seven-year-old Milakya. “The government, with their demolitions and excavations, deepened the nullahs but built no fence along them [to prevent people from falling in].”
Despite the conditions, residents are coming back to the area two years after the demolitions. “It was very difficult and costly for my grandsons to commute from Lyari to their workplace,” said Seein Sardar, who had migrated to Lyari, along with his son and two grandsons, after their home was demolished in 2021.
“We will pay Rs16,000 in rent. It would be cheaper than the around Rs20,000 my grandsons are currently spending on transport,” he explained.
Rose’s family of seven, meanwhile, lives in one room — the only one with a roof. The kitchen is under the open sky, while the bathroom is a small enclosure surrounded by curtains at one end.
“Going to the washroom is difficult. I am always worried that the curtain will fly off,” said Rose, as she prepared a meal in the small kitchen.
For Rose and thousands like her, home is where family is — even is that’s a single room or a tent. They don’t expect much from the government — especially one that has snatched the roof from over their heads — or a policy that doesn’t apply to them anyways.
“In fact, even if the policy is implemented, it will only institutionalise land grabbing, leaving the people living on those lands vulnerable to displacement,” said Alibhai.
Header image: A general view of the Gujjar Nullah which now stands exposed after its walls were broken as part of the anti-encroachment drive. — Gif by author
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PTI leaders decry Rana Sanullah’s comments as ‘direct threat to Imran’
PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry and other party leaders lambasted Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Sunday for saying PTI chief Imran Khan was “not a mere political rival” of the PML-N but an “enemy” and that the hostilities between the two political parties had reached a point where only one of the two could survive.
In an interview with PNN News a day earlier, Sanaullah said: “In my opinion, Imran Khan does not believe in democracy and democratic traditions. He does not believe in having a peaceful political environment in this country. He has turned politics into enmity.
“He considers us his enemies while we [previously] used to think of him as our political rival, but with time it has come to a point where [we also think] that he is our enemy,” the minister said.
“Democratic traditions, timely elections, and rights and wrongs are a part of democracy and politics but not during an enmity,” the interior minister added. “He (Imran) says that we want to murder him so if [he says] we want to murder him, then he also wants to murder us.
“Either he or us will get murdered. He has now taken the country’s politics to a point where only one of the two can remain.”
Sanaullah said that if his party’s entire existence was in jeopardy, then they would go to any length, explaining that in those circumstances it would become irrelevant to think “what can or cannot be done, if something is democratic or not, if something is principled or not.”
When the interviewer pointed out that such remarks could result in anarchy, Sanaullah said: “Anarchy already prevails. What else is there to anarchy.”
When asked if there was a way out and whether Imran’s arrest could ease the hostilities, the interior minister said the matter had escalated to a point of no return. “Either their politics will end or ours will.”
After video clips of the interview circulated online, Fawad told Dawn.com that Sanaullah’s remarks merely confirmed “an already known fact that he and his party were not democratic”.
“Are you running a gang or are you doing politics?” the PTI leader asked rhetorically in a separate press conference, adding that the Supreme Court was “absolutely right” in calling the PML-N the “Sicilian mafia”.
Ex-human rights minister Shireen Mazari urged the judiciary to take note of the interior minister’s “direct threat” to the PTI chairman.
“If anyone had any doubts about Rana Sana’s murderous intent towards Imran Khan, this is a direct threat given by cabal of crooks’ interior minister. The judiciary should take note,” she tweeted.
Another PTI leader, Murad Saeed, expressed the concern that the interior minister was “openly talking about eliminating Imran”.
Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa finance minister Taimur Jhagra asked if the PML-N, the Pakistan Democratic Movement, the PPP, the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and the Awami National Party would condemn Sanaullah’s statement.
PTI’s Shafqat Mahmood said that the government didn’t care whether its actions were democratic or not as it intended to “crush Imran Khan”.
“Dream on Rana Sanaullah and be ready to be politically wiped out in the next elections,” he said.
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IMF chief warns risks to financial stability have increased
International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva warned on Sunday that risks to financial stability had increased and stressed “the need for vigilance” following the recent turmoil in the banking sector.
Speaking at a forum in Beijing, the IMF managing director said she expected 2023 “to be another challenging year”, with global growth slowing to below 3.0 per cent due the war in Ukraine, monetary tightening and “scarring” from the pandemic.
“Uncertainties are exceptionally high,” with the outlook for the global economy likely to remain weak over the medium term, she told the China Development Forum.
“It is also clear that risks to financial stability have increased,” she added.
“At a time of higher debt levels, the rapid transition from a prolonged period of low interest rates to much higher rates — necessary to fight inflation — inevitably generates stresses and vulnerabilities, as evidenced by recent developments in the banking sector in some advanced economies.”
Her comments came after the financial sector was shaken by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the enforced takeover of Swiss bank Credit Suisse by rival UBS, leading to fears of contagion.
Bank shares tumbled on Friday as fears about the health of the financial sector resurfaced, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz forced to give reassurances about Deutsche Bank after the long-troubled lender became a focus of investor concerns.
Georgieva said policymakers had acted decisively in response to financial stability risks.
“These actions have eased market stress to some extent, but uncertainty is high which underscores the need for vigilance,” she said.
The IMF chief, however, pointed to China’s rebound as a bright spot for the world economy.
The IMF forecasts China’s economy to grow 5.2pc this year, driven by a rebound in private consumption as the country reopens after its pandemic isolation.
“The robust rebound means China is set to account for around one third of global growth in 2023 — giving a welcome lift to the world economy,” she said.
“A 1.0 percentage point increase in GDP growth in China leads to 0.3 percentage point increase in growth in other Asian economies, on average — a welcome boost.”
Georgieva urged China’s policymakers to seek to raise productivity and rebalance the economy away from investment and towards more durable consumption-driven growth.
“Market-oriented reforms to level the playing field between the private sector and state-owned enterprises, together with investments in education, would significantly lift the economy’s productive capacity,” she said.
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This will be perhaps the toughest Ramazan that most of our young citizenry has experienced in their entire lives: food prices skyrocketing due to increased demand, energy prices at unbearable levels, and new taxes carving out a large slice from household incomes.
In addition, analysts are already warning that we can expect inflationary pressures to get progressively worse over the remainder of the month.
Only the privileged few may still be able to enjoy the little luxuries of this month of fasts and feasts — elaborate iftar buffets, or even breaking bread with friends and extended family. For the vast majority, it will be spent worrying about how to put two square meals on the table as they deal with the worst economic crisis this country has seen in recent memory.
Consider the news: short-term inflation had surged to an eye-watering 46.7pc year-over-year in the week that ended on March 22, with onion, wheat, gas, petrol and diesel, tea, rice and egg prices almost double or more of what they were last year. Even compared to just a week earlier, prices were up by 2pc, led by a 72pc increase in tomato prices, a 42pc increase in wheat prices, around 11pc increase in the prices of potatoes and bananas, and a more than 7pc increase in the price of tea. The numbers show that Pakistanis are losing their purchasing power almost by the day — in other words, they can afford to purchase less food than they could just a day before.
If one wants a measure of how desperately destitute the most vulnerable segments of our society have become, one need only go over recent reports of stampedes and general chaos at the various distribution points where government officials have been handing out bags of wheat. There are reports of people passing away from exhaustion as they waited for a handout: an elderly man in Toba Tek Singh, and a woman in Muzaffargarh.
Meanwhile, retailers have continued with their hoarding and cruel profiteering. Price gouging seems to have become as integral a part of Pakistan’s Ramazan traditions as sehri and iftar. Despite the administration issuing official price lists for various items, shop owners set their own rates based on their whims and desires. Reason with them, and they have excuses aplenty about the official rates being ‘unrealistic’ and ‘unfair’.
In Sindh, the provincial administration has mobilised 100 officers to check profiteering in Karachi and given them magisterial powers to enforce official rates. It remains to be seen whether the measure will improve or worsen the situation. Such efforts usually target the end retailer instead of the actual decision-makers manipulating the markets from behind the scenes. Unless the real culprits are brought to book, it is unlikely anything will change.
Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2023
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SBP withdraws all cash margin requirements on imports
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has removed all cash margin requirements on imports it had previously imposed under six circulars from 2017 to 2022, fulfilling another condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reach a staff-level agreement.
In a Banking Policy and Regulations Department circular dated March 24, the SBP said it was withdrawing the “existing Cash Margin Requirement (CMR) on import of items with effect from March 31, 2023”.
The announcement comes as the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves increased by $280 million to $4.6 billion during the week ending on March 17 on the back of inflows from China.
Cash-strapped Pakistan is in a race against time to implement measures to reach an agreement with the IMF on the completion of the ninth review of a $7bn loan programme, which began in 2019.
The much-awaited agreement with the lender, which has been delayed since late last year over a policy framework, would not only lead to a disbursement of $1.2bn but also unlock inflows from friendly countries.
Cash margins are the amount of money an importer has to deposit with their bank for initiating an import transaction, such as opening a letter of credit (LC), which could be up to the total value of the import.
Pakistan has a severe balance of payments problem, with its forex reserves reaching critical levels in the past few months. In such a situation, the central bank had stepped in to impose different types of curbs on imports as an attempt to preserve its dollars.
Cash margins are seen as a tool to discourage imports as the amount to be deposited beforehand with the bank increases the opportunity cost for importers.
In its latest circular, the SBP declared its past circulars — one each from 2017, 2018, 2021 and three from 2022 — to “stand withdrawn with effect from March 31”.
Past CMR
In 2017, the SBP had imposed 100pc cash margins on 404 items while in 2018, it had imposed the same on 131 items.
Then in 2021, it raised the total number of items with 100pc CMR to 525.
On April 7, 2022, the SBP had imposed a 100pc cash margin on another 177 items to reduce imports, which drastically hit the external account of the economy amid a ballooning import bill.
According to the April circular, banks had been mandated to obtain a 100pc cash margin on all items imported immediately.
In May 2022, three of the five telecom operators had even reached out to the SBP for the reversal of the 100pc CMR for the import of “almost all” telecom-related equipment that the companies usually source from abroad.
The representatives of Jazz, Telenor and Ufone had said the requirement was “extremely detrimental” to the industry.
Later, in August 2022, the government had relaxed the cash margins on imports from 100pc to 25pc and in some cases to zero. The standing cash margins were to remain in place till the end of the year.
However, on Dec 30, 2022, the SBP had extended the “timeline for maintaining CMR” till March 31, 2023.
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THERE appears to be a general consensus in Pakistan, across the political divide, that Gilgit-Baltistan be integrated as a provisional province. The GB committee set up by prime minister Nawaz Sharif recommended in March 2017 that GB be accorded a status akin to a province of Pakistan.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan, in its judgement of January 2019, ordered the conferral of constitutional status and rights on GB residents at par with other citizens of Pakistan. The government of prime minister Imran Khan announced in November 2020 its decision to grant provisional provincial status to GB.
Yet, the people of GB have not been conferred this status of being de jure citizens of Pakistan. They have repeatedly expressed, through resolutions of the GB Assembly, their desire to formally join Pakistan as a province. Pending integration, they have also demanded internal autonomy.
One might argue that the reason for this procrastination has been because of possible implications for Pakistan’s stance on the Kashmir dispute. Since the Kashmir dispute has not been settled either in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Independence Act of 1947 or the provisions of the UN Security Council resolutions, GB’s constitutional status remains in limbo.
The people of GB are disappointed that successive Pakistan governments have focused more on governance and development-related issues, rather than finding ways to recognise the people of GB as full-fledged citizens of Pakistan.
Was it wise to deny the people of GB their desire all these years?
We must seriously ask ourselves whether denying the people of GB their wish to join Pakistan has been a wise course of action all these years. A strong legal, political and strategic argument can be made that further delay on this issue won’t serve our national interests.
Firstly, several territories within GB did not fall under the suzerainty of the maharaja of Kashmir and the people of these territories had already decided to join Pakistan. Gilgit, for instance, formally acceded to Pakistan in November 1947. The government of Pakistan even appointed a political agent there. Likewise, for some other territories, original accession papers were handed over to the then president of Pakistan by the wife of Major Brown, who was commanding the Gilgit Scouts. This was reported in this paper in 2002.
Secondly, integrating GB into Pakistan would have no implications for the country’s legal position on the Kashmir dispute because the integration would be provisional and conditional to the final settlement of the Kashmir dispute. It is akin to the provision inserted in the Pakistan-China Border Agreement of 1963, which provided for the finalisation of the border subject to the settlement of the Kashmir dispute. This proviso would keep open the option of AJK and even the Kashmir Valley to join Pakistan if they so determine, and when circumstances permit.
However, facts on the ground suggest that the prospects of implementing the UNSC resolutions remain dim because India is not ready to hold the plebiscite, nor is the world willing to pressure it to implement the UNSC resolutions. India has also stonewalled bilateral efforts to resolve the Kashmir dispute. The Modi government has lately embarked on the project of changing the Muslim majority status of held Kashmir through demographic and electoral engineering. A wait-and-see approach is not advisable in the face of these fast-evolving ground realities.
Integrating GB would also effectively blunt the Indian argument that GB’s link with Pakistan is ambiguous because it finds no mention in the Constitution.
Thirdly, procrastination might constitute a strategic blunder in the context of the evolving regional geopolitics. GB is the only geographical link we have with China. There is a convergence of interests between India and a major power that is currently in competition with China, and this nexus would not mind disrupting China’s link with Pakistan through GB. A case in point is CPEC.
GB is central to CPEC. We need GB as an integral part of Pakistan to give full constitutional protection to CPEC investments in GB as well as to attract international investments into GB, which require sovereign guarantees. Given the recent rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by China, economic and commercial activity in this region is likely to grow. One should be ready when these opportunities arise.
All said and done, the moot point is the will of the people of GB, who have been living side by side with Pakistanis for seven decades without getting their constitutional rights as citizens of Pakistan. In geopolitics as in national affairs, time is of the essence. Let there be no doubt that further procrastination on integration might be our cost to bear.
The writer is a former foreign secretary and author of Diplomatic Footprints.
Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2023
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Covid positivity jumps as 168 cases surface in a day
• Highest level seen since Sept 2022
• Officials urge citizens not to panic; ask them to avoid crowds, wear masks in public
ISLAMABAD: The national positivity rate of Covid-19 has exceeded three per cent in the past 24 hours with around 168 new cases, the highest number since Sept 2022, according to the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) data.
The positivity rate in two major cities, Karachi and Islamabad, has surpassed 5 and 6 per cent, respectively.
While the officials acknowledged the rise in cases, they said the trend was not a cause for concern.
NCOC member Dr Shahzad Ali Khan told Dawn that cases had increased due of recent mutations in the virus. “People should not panic as the mortality rate of the new strain was very low,” he added.
According to NCOC data, the national positivity rate was 3.02pc, while rates in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi were 6.11pc, 5.51pc, 3.99pc and 2.61pc, respectively. One death has also been reported in the past 24 hours.
Dr Khan, who is also Vice Chancellor of the Health Services Academy, said the cases will continue to increase and decrease as transmissibility fluctuates with the arrival of new strains of the virus.
He said people up to middle age, with good health shouldn’t worry about the virus because even if they were infected, they will not face major complications and symptoms.
“However those over 65 years of age and those suffering from blood pressure, diabetes, kidney related issues and cancer, should be careful,” warned Dr Khan.
He said even during last year cases increased before summer but the situation remained under control.
“Although the number of cases has increased, the number of deaths is minimal,” the NCOC member said, adding that the virus belongs to a family of influenza so it remained less active in summer.
He still advised caution saying that the NCOC has already advised people to wear masks in health facilities and other public places. The fresh guidelines were issued by the NCOC for up to April 30, keeping in view the Covid-19 trend in the country.
“People should avoid crowded places because currently, the virus is only spreading from human to human, contrary to the situation in 2020 when it was also spreading through utensils, dresses, currency notes, etc,” he said while talking to Dawn.
Last week, Minister for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Abdul Qadir Patel also said the virus situation “was under control” and asked people to avoid paying heed to rumours.
“The government had strengthened the role of Border and Health Services to deal with any sub-variant of Covid-19,” the minister said.He added that surveillance systems have been set up at all entry points and all arriving passengers are being subjected to rapid tests and screening at all airports.
Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2023
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AT times like this, when faith in everything sane and normal and conventional is upturned by events, one is forced to disbelieve prose and escape into the reassurance of poetry.
T.S. Eliot was a British poet whose prose read like poetry and whose poetry read like prose. Whoever has read both can never forget either. His play Murder in the Cathedral (1935) is a morality play, an allegory in which the central figure is the Catholic martyr Thomas Becket.
In 1162 AD, Becket was selected by King Henry II to become the Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry and Becket had been close friends, and when King Henry appointed Becket, he hoped that his former friend would behave as a loyal servant of the Crown. However, to Henry’s chagrin, Becket regards his spiritual office as archbishop as outweighing the king’s temporal authority, and the two fall out. (Any similarity between a former prime minister and his benefactor COAS is purely coincidental.)
Eliot uses the device of four tempters to distract Becket. The first recalls the sybaritic pleasures he shared during his carefree ‘bromance’ with Henry. The second reminds him of the political power — ‘the punier power’ — he exercised as Lord Chancellor before becoming archbishop. The third tries to persuade Becket to ‘stoop to political manoeuvring’ with the nobles against the king. The fourth tempter offers Becket martyrdom. The last he regards as the most insidious temptation of all — “the greatest treason: / To do the right deed for the wrong reason”.
Imran Khan’s ingenuity in avoiding arrest reminds one of Macavity.
Anyone who has been watching the immorality play being performed outside Zaman Park in Lahore and in the judicial courts in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Lahore must have noticed the parallel between Becket’s inexorable steps to martyrdom and the PTI leader Imran Khan’s dangerous courtship with it.
The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb once described the internecine struggles for the throne at Delhi as a choice between ‘takht ya takhta’ — the throne or the stone slab. He had a point. Modern politics in Pakistan has the same scorpion sting to it.
The efforts made by functionaries of the courts to enforce judicial writ and by various tentacles of the federal government and Punjab governments have been thwarted too often and too effectively. Was their heart at variance with their lathis?
Mr Khan’s ingenuity in avoiding apprehension reminds one of T.S. Eliot’s poems — the humorous ‘Macavity: The Mystery Cat’.
Its lines read: “There’s no one like Macavity./ He’s broken every human law, he breaks the laws of gravity./ His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare/ And when you reach the scene of the crime/ Macavity’s not there.”
Our successors will have good reason to wonder why our current leaders find it so difficult to reconcile to economic realities — and to each other — at this fragile time of national insolvency. The British are now — three years after quitting membership of the European Union — voicing regrets over the ill-conceived referendum that has left Great Britain an offshore island off mainland Europe. Within the EU, Britain had a role to play. Outside, it has only itself to play with.
Will we too in Pakistan be tempted to hold a referendum (under the false banner of democratic self-expression) on whether our provinces wish to remain together? Or will we, like other countries which suffer similar levels of incompetent governance, muddle through, depending on God’s mercy and the shrinking generosity of our friends?
Regardless of what the PDM government and its myopic Mr Magoo finance minister may have us believe, the IMF is not our saviour of the first and last resort. Those with a memory will recall that in 1971, we looked towards the United States as just that, with disastrous results and a festering disappointment the pain of which is still felt today.
The holy month of Ramazan is upon is. To the pious, it is a month of self-abnegation. To the poor, it is yet another of 365 days of unassuaged hunger. To die of exhaustion in a queue waiting for subsidised atta, as too many have already done, is to suffer ‘martyrdom’ entirely for the wrong reason.
At times like this, one needs to turn again to poetry for solace. Our politicians have no time either for poetry or for prose. They prefer to spout slogans that are inedible.
Two centuries ago, in 1813, the British romantic Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote as if anticipating our todays: “Power, like a desolating pestilence,/ pollutes whate’er it touches.” Our politicians may have survived Covid-19. They still suffer from that desolating pestilence.
And to those who wield lathis, Shelley addressed these words: “and obedience, bane of all genius, freedom, truth,/ makes slaves of men”.
WITH the din of politics drowning out everything else in Pakistan, the troubling reality that is emerging is that the country is facing an ever-present terrorist threat, primarily in the shape of the TTP. Though mercifully the violence perpetrated by the group has not reached the bloody levels of a decade ago, the situation is far from normal.
Take the twin attacks in KP on Tuesday, in which at least five security personnel, including a senior ISI officer, lost their lives. In one incident, Brig Mustafa Kamal Barki, who was attached to the intelligence agency, was martyred along with his driver in South Waziristan, close to the Afghan border, when he was ambushed by terrorists.
In the other episode, at least three troops were martyred in an encounter in Dera Ismail Khan. While no group has yet claimed responsibility for either attack, the TTP is active in both areas; splinter groups may also have been responsible.
The fact that militants can hit cities — as they have done in Peshawar and Karachi over the past few months — as well as target troops in the field in remote areas, indicates their reach and operational capabilities. It is these capabilities that need to be neutralised by the security forces before the TTP, or similar malign actors, gain the confidence to stage even more brazen attacks.
According to ISPR, over 140 militants have been killed over the past few months, while over 1,000 fighters have been arrested and thousands of operations conducted during the same period. While it does seem that counterterrorism efforts are having an impact, to ensure better security across the country, no safe havens can be left for the terrorists, especially in remote areas along the Pak-Afghan border.
The security forces need to particularly concentrate on these areas off the beaten path, along with conducting intelligence-based operations in the cities, and cracking down on the terrorists’ finances.
Sustained diplomatic efforts must also continue in order to convince the Afghan Taliban to not let their soil be used to host anti-Pakistan terrorists. The Afghan rulers tend to be evasive about TTP activities in their country, but the message from Pakistan needs to be unambiguous: there can be no safe havens in Afghanistan for terrorists. Internally, political dissonance is not helping the counterterrorism effort.
If anything, our feuding political forces present a picture of weakness and discord to elements that wish to bring harm to the country. Where the fight against terrorism is concerned, the politicians — treasury and opposition — and the establishment need to be on the same page and pursue a single-point agenda: to uproot the infrastructure of militancy from the country and address the underlying reasons that fuel it. Politicking on this existential issue will only bring more harm to the country.
Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2023
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• Interior minister asks SC to hear reference filed against sitting judge
• Allies, opposition call on ruling party to convene MPC, invite Imran
• Parliamentarians protest against former CJP Saqib Nisar during joint sitting
ISLAMABAD: The government on Wednesday pleaded with Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial to “review” the March 1 ruling regarding holding of elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, warning that split polls would further deepen political crisis and create chaos in the country.
The request was made by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah during a policy statement delivered at a hurriedly-called and low-attended joint sitting of parliament, hours before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) formally announced the postponement of the April 30 elections in Punjab.
While pleading his case, the minister gave a couple of references from the history when previously elections were delayed for more than constitutionally-mandated 90 days, besides asking the judiciary to improve its public image in the wake of recently released controversial audio leaks purportedly containing some serving and retired judges talking to various persons on corruption cases and some administrative matters.
The interior minister recalled that the 1988 elections were delayed by five to six months due to floods in the country whereas again in 2008, the general elections were put on hold following the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
On March 1, the five-judge bench of the Supreme Court had declared through a majority decision that elections to the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies should be held within the stipulated period of 90 days. It had, however, allowed the ECP to propose a poll date deviating from the 90-day deadline by the “barest minimum”, in case of any practical difficulty.
Taking advantage of the one-sided proceedings in the absence of a meaningful opposition, the minister lashed out at Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan for allegedly making an attempt to create a “political and administrative” chaos in the country.
While referring to recent clashes between the PTI supporters and police in Lahore and Islamabad, the minister accused the cricketer-turned-politician of wanting “bloodshed” in the country to advance his political agenda.
After the minister’s nearly an hour long speech, the lawmakers belonging to the ruling coalition parties as well as the opposition expressed their serious concerns over the prevailing political and economic crises in the country and asked the government to respond positively to Imran Khan who had reportedly shown his willingness to sit with his rivals for the sake of “greater national consensus”.
A number of lawmakers from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) were seen carrying placards inscribed with slogans against former chief justice Saqib Nisar with his pictures. The members also raised slogans “shame, shame” while standing on their seats when the interior minister mentioned the name of the former chief justice in his speech.
After delivering the speech, the interior minister along with other ministers left the house for an emergency meeting of the federal cabinet.
The minister refuted the impression that the present coalition government was “avoiding” polls, terming this notion “principally wrong”.
Stating that the government was placing the matter before the parliament for guidance, Rana Sanaullah said the government had no intention to disobey the Supreme Court, informing the house that the PML-N had already sought applications along with Rs100,000 fee from aspiring candidates and that the party had already received 1,100 applications.
“We can’t think of rejecting your order […] but is it only the responsibility only of parliament and political parties that elections are free and fair? If we are giving our opinion that such an election will bring instability and anarchy. Is this opinion not even worth your consideration and reflection?” he asserted.
The minister said the government only wanted polls to be held in accordance with the Constitution under a caretaker setup for political and economic stability instead of “creating a new crisis”, arguing that whichever political party would come into power in Punjab, would “reduce the level playing field” for other parties in the general elections to be held for the National Assembly.
“Will Punjab not dictate the federal government then? Will that government or party — whether us or someone else — not gain an edge, and won’t the basic constitutional requirement of a free and fair caretaker setup not be violated?” he asserted.
Sanaullah also talked about the CJP’s reported remarks earlier in the day wherein he had warned that the apex court would intervene if there was any ill intention in holding “transparent elections” and that the audio leaks were a part of the campaign against judiciary.
He alleged that those making hue and cry over the audio leaks today had previously released videos and audios of former National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal for blackmailing him.
Referring to the reference filed against a sitting Supreme Court judge by the lawyers’ bodies after release of an alleged audio tape, the minister asked the CJP to hear and decide the case within days, recalling that the court had previously taken up a reference against another sitting judge Qazi Faiz Isa and his family. At that time, he said, the judges had stated that the truth should come before the public, then why this time it should not happen. He said if the allegations against the judges which had come to the surface after the audio leaks proved to be wrong then the accusers should be punished.
The interior minister then turned his guns towards Imran Khan accusing him of trying to create a “political, administrative and judicial crisis” in the country. Calling Mr Khan a Fitna (mischief), the minister alleged that the PTI had attacked the law enforcing agencies personnel at Zaman Park in Lahore and outside the Federal Judicial Academy in Islamabad resulting in injuries to a number of security personnel.
He informed the house that the police had already arrested 316 persons for arson and riots and these people would be tried under terrorism laws.
Taking the floor, Senator Tahir Bizenjo of the National Party (NP) asked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take initiative and invite Imran Khan for talks after the latter has expressed his willingness to sit with the parties.
Ghaus Bux Mahar of the opposition Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) asked Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to play his role in bringing the politicians to the negotiating table to discuss the future elections. Mr Mahar also criticised Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif over his absence from the joint sitting.
An independent MNA from Gwadar Aslam Bhootani while expressing his concerns over the ongoing campaign against state institutions, including army and judiciary, asked the government to withdraw a “curative petition” that had been filed by the previous PTI government against the decision of the Supreme Court in the reference against Justice Qazi Faiz Isa. He said that the government should take back the petition as a “goodwill gesture” as Justice Isa was set to become the next chief justice of the country.
The speaker then adjourned the joint sitting till March 27.
Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2023
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