Karachi violence claims 7 more lives

Karachi—At least seven more people fell victim to target killing, while fourteen vehicles and two motorcycles torched in various parts of Karachi on Thursday. After a little calm, riots broke out again after the killing of an ANP activist.

Two persons were shot dead within one hour in Orangi Town. According to police some unidentified persons shot dead one 28-year-old Shahid while dead body of an unidentified man was recovered from Orangi Town No 12. Police said that the man was killed after abduction. Another man was shot dead by unidentified persons in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. In another incident of violence some unidentified persons tortured a man traveling in a car and also set the vehicles on fire.

According to details a man, Samad s/o Noor Bashr, 40, was gunned down on Banaras Bridge. Another man, Sadaqat, 40 was shot to death in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. Body of a woman was found from Hawks Bay’s Musharraf Colony. A firing incident injured Badshah Khan in Korangi-3 and Ayaz Khan in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. Meantime, three people were injured when some gunmen opened fire at a hotel located in Metrovile area. Police recovered dead bodies of two youth form North Nazimabad. Police said that both of youths were shot dead, adding that further information is being collected about the ill-fated youths who were mercilessly killed by unknown miscreants. According to police sources, two unidentified dead bodies, stuffed in gunny bags, including a women and a youth were found from Musharraf Colony in Hawkesbay and Orangi Town No: 12 respectively.

Some unidentified armed miscreants running amok in city areas resorted to aerial firing, causing tension that blanketed the entire city. The recent incident occurred in Lasbela area of the metropolis, where intense firing spawned panic around the area. Earlier, the funeral prayers for the eternal peace of Zainul Abidin, a worker of Awami National Party (ANP) was offered at Football Ground, Patel Para. He was buried in Khamosh Colony Cemetery amid sobs and sighs of grief. On the occasion, the angry people took intense firing. Numerous areas of the city were basking under massive tension on mourning call by the ANP with shops and other commercial activities at a standstill.

At least 14 vehicles including a truck were set on fire in various areas including Sakhi Hasan, Qayyumabad, Quaidabad, Lasbela, Teen Hati, Nishtar Road and Patel Para. Traffic was thin in many areas including Banaras, Orangi Town, Qasba Colony, Quaidabad, Sultanabad, Hijrat Colony, Metrovile, Ittehad Town, Sohrab Goth and Shah Faisal Colony. Meanwhile, commuters and citizens faced problems owing to the unavailability of petrol and CNG stations which are closed down in most areas. The string of firing incidents continued overnight and continued in the city.

Earlier, seven people were killed in the post murder violence since Wednesday night while several vehicles were also set on fire by miscreants in different areas. Zainul Abidin, an ANP worker of Patel Para area, died and his two companions injured, when armed men opened fire on them near Matric Board Office in Nazimabad area. ANP was observing mourning day today over the killing of their office bearer.

Thin traffic was observed on the roads while few CNG stations and petrol pumps were functional in the city. Taking advantage of the situation, private transport owners were demanding exorbitant fares from the commuters who could not find public transport after the Transport Ittehad announced closure.

A shop was torched in Khamosh Colony in Gulbahar area. Meantime, a truck was set on fire near Daud Chowrangi in Landhi. Incidents of lawlessness took place in many areas of the city. Miscreants burnt tyres on roads and torched vehicles and shops in some areas of Karachi. Gulshan Iqbal Police arrested 15 people, which it said were involved in violence. Four persons were also arrested from Orangi red handed while firing.

Violence erupted in various areas of Karachi after a worker of Awami National Party (ANP) Sindh chapter was murdered on Wednesday. At least seven people were killed in the post murder violence while miscreants in different areas set several vehicles on fire. Soon, various localities of the city echoed with aerial firing and armed miscreants set on fire many cars and motorcycles in different areas while the businesses were forced to close in Saddar, Empress Market, MA Jinnah Road and other adjoining areas.

The Karachi police in their drive against criminals arrested 23 accused from various areas of the city during the past 24 hours. A statement on Thursday said that 14 pistols, a dagger and four mobile phones besides a cash of Rs 42,550 also recovered from the possession of the accused. The police have registered cases against the accused and started investigation.

In another late night on Wednesday targeted operation, the Rangers raided parts of Lyari and arrested a serial killer and four others. The law enforcers also recovered six Klashnikovs and five RPG rockets beside heavy cartridges from their possession. As per available details, the Rangers arrested one Bilal in the targeted and search operation. Bilal is allegedly involved in several target killings in different areas of Karachi. In another raid in Usmanabad, the personnel arrested Abdul Hakim, Ali and two others. All the arrested suspects were shifted to an undisclosed location for questioning. The affiliation of suspects with any political, ethnic and banned groups had not been disclosed.

Meanwhile, Zia Abbas, Secretary Information NPP said the prevailing law and order situation in Karachi is part of international conspiracy aimed to destabilize Pakistan’s economy said. He said security forces would have to expose the killers of MQM and ANP activists. He also said the current law and order situation in city served the interest of America and India, who are now trying to destabilize Sindh after Balochistan. Abbas said to relate US’s security condition with Pakistan’s domestic matters is an unprecedented dramatic conspiracy. He appealed to all stakeholders to play their role in resolution of Karachi issues.

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Swedish Defence Minister quits over arms deal scandal

 Stockholm—Swedish Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors resigned Thursday after weeks of controversy over revelations Sweden planned to help Saudi Arabia build an arms factory, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said.

“I have today, upon request from Sten Tolgfors, decided to relieve him (of his duties),” the head of Sweden’s centre-right government told a news conference, hailing the departing minister for his five years on the job. Reinfeldt stressed that Tolgfors had begun hinting months ago he wanted to leave soon, but acknowledged that media focus on the ongoing scandal had hastened his exit.

“The probe and the questions around this issue will continue... and that is of course a good thing,” Reinfeldt said, adding that Tolgfors would maintain his seat in parliament while Infrastructure Minister Catharina Elmsaeter-Svaerd would temporarily take over the defence portfolio.

Earlier this month public broadcaster Swedish Radio said the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) had secret plans since 2007 to help Saudi Arabia build a plant for the production of anti-tank weapons. The radio said part of the so-called Project Simoom involved the creation of a shell company called SSTI to handle dealings with Saudi Arabia, in order to avoid any direct links to FOI and the government.

FOI director general Jan-Olof Lind said last week he had reported “a suspected crime” following an internal review, and Swedish prosecutor Agneta Hilding Qvarnstroem opened a preliminary investigation into the affair. Sweden has in the past sold weapons to Saudi Arabia, but classified government documents state that Project Simoom “pushes the boundaries of what is possible for a Swedish authority,” the radio said when it broke the story on March 6.

The story has dominated Swedish headlines since then, with numerous politicians and public figures critical of Sweden’s plans to provide weapons help to a country they describe as a “dictatorship,” and calls for Tolgfors to resign.

Under pressure to come clean, Tolgfors admitted on March 9 he knew of FOI’s plans to help Riyadh build the factory and of the shell company, but has stressed that no Swedish laws had been broken — something he also reiterated Thursday.

“When it comes to the past weeks’ debate on Saudi Arabia, I have nothing more to add,” Tolgfors told the news conference.

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Agent Vinod’s fantasy of India and Pakistan

It is impossible to tell whether the depiction of the ISI demanded a ban on Agent Vinod. The question to ask is: would India have allowed the screening of a Pakistani film in which RAW had been shown divided between the hawks and doves?

Bollywood kitsch has the remarkable quality of expressing the subconscious thoughts of Indian viewers, their secret fantasies and fears, and their perpetually changing perceptions about India-Pakistan relations. You realise this as you watch the spy-thriller Agent Vinod, tapping your feet to its music, following its protagonists around the globe as they try to wrest from a shadowy terror group a miniature nuclear device, admiring as well as recoiling from their chutzpah, and ultimately being left breathlessly bewildered at the bizarre twists in the story. You can’t help but ask the question: did the Pakistani establishment err in banning Agent Vinod? (Those who haven’t seen the film, stop reading here. This piece discloses the plot.)

Decidedly Agent Vinod borrows from the dominant global narrative to portray the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as torn between the hardliners and those sane, as much willing to sponsor jihadi groups as it is prepared to cooperate with India’s premier external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and though a few officers are shown playing footsie with the underworld and conspiring to rain destruction on Delhi, their chief is sagacious enough to comprehend the horrific consequences of a nuclear exchange. Against Bollywood’s shrill jingoistic standard, Agent Vinod is an improvement on the depiction of the Pakistani state.

In an astonishing leap of imagination, in sharp contrast to the dominant global narrative, Agent Vinod projects the terror group Lashkar as the victim of machinations of the powerful whose mission is to profit from wars. The masters of mayhem are global tycoons belonging to the quaintly named group Zeus. Likely as you are to read the Zeus group as synonymous with the west, the story shows its principal provocateur to be Sir Metla, a British businessman of Indian origin. No doubt, the character of Sir Metla draws inspiration from the growing number of non-resident Indian billionaires whom the Indian media regularly fetes. But Agent Vinod asks the audience to fear them, for they are capable of betraying their country.

Other strands of Agent Vinod too subtly attempt to forge new perceptions about Pakistan and its people, albeit partonisingly, and in a tone quite didactic, a voice India often adopts in speaking to its smaller neighbours. But to fathom it you will need to know the story of Agent Vinod. The film’s opening shots chart out the escape of Agent Vinod (Saif Ali Khan) from a fortified camp in the inhospitable terrain of Afghanistan, which an ISI officer, Colonel Huzefa, who is jihadist in his orientation, oversees. On his return to Delhi, Agent Vinod is assigned by RAW boss Hassan Nawaz to track down a miniature nuclear device a Russian has fabricated. This sets the film rolling as Agent Vinod flies to Russia, where he confronts underworld baddies, and eventually lands in Morocco, where mafia don David Kazan (Prem Chopra) is due to receive $ 50 million for purchasing ‘242.’

At Kazan’s mansion is present his personal physician, Dr Ruby Mendis (Kareena Kapoor), whose real name is Iram, a Pakistani-British undercover operative of the ISI. Later in the film, we are told Iram and her family had migrated out of Pakistan 15 years earlier, and that she’s the recruit of the ISI chief. In a flashback, the film represents the ISI boss as responsible and reasonable, but not in control of his organisation. When he is asked over the phone by RAW’s Hassan Nawaz why the ISI wants to acquire a nuclear device, he expresses ignorance and promises to investigate the issue. But the ISI chief is bumped off by Colonel Huzefa. The jihadi faction in the ISI has triumphed.

Agent Vinod in Morocco manages to decipher the 242 code — it is a detonator for the miniature nuclear device, and has been disguised as an antique volume of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyyat, that is scheduled to be auctioned. Let us cut out all the details; they can make your head spin. But this much needs to be said — the nuclear device reaches India and the detonator lands in Karachi, where Colonel Huzefa takes the assistance of a fugitive underworld don to transport it to Delhi. Agent Vinod and Dr Ruby/Iram band together to save the city from catastrophe; it is Iram who guesses the password to deactivate the detonator.

At this point most Bollywood films would have ended, but not Agent Vinod. In a rush of sequences, Sir Metla is exposed as the unrepentant mastermind who had India and Pakistan teetering on the brink of nuclear war. Horrified at being manipulated, a Lashkar suicide bomber kills Sir Metla through an explosion. Perhaps you could take the denouement as a more nuanced approach to the world of terror. Perhaps you need to ask the Lashkar leaders whether their hackles will be raised by a film that portrays them as mere puppets of global tycoons.

Such fantasies about India and Pakistan abound in Agent Vinod. For one, the film simplistically echoes those commentators who believe the prickly nature of Indo-Pak relations is because of the dangerous games RAW and the ISI are perpetually engaged in. In Agent Vinod, though, the Indians are not to blame. It is the ISI’s rogue elements. The film, in a way, also endorses the current global fears about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

The film’s blueprint for peace is cooperation between the officialdoms of the two countries, best exemplified through the partnership between Iram and Agent Vinod. It is fleetingly reflected in the readiness of the ISI chief to pursue the tip-off from the RAW chief about the plan of ISI’s rogue elements to provide nuclear sinew to the Lashkar. It is again glimpsed in the depiction of the Pakistani diplomat who worked the phone to reveal to the Indian foreign office where the bomb had been placed in Delhi. But the diplomat isn’t innately sensible — he’s frightened into cooperation as he is made to realise that his wife and children could die in the nuclear explosion.

Yet unlike say, the film Border, Agent Vinod doesn’t portray the Pakistani as an inveterate evil who must be fought and liquidated. Iram, the ISI chief and the diplomat are virtuous, humane and responsible. On a closer reading though, you do perceive the creeping shadow of stereotypes — the good Pakistani is one who doesn’t reside in Pakistan (Iram), either driven out or killed (the ISI chief), or posted to Delhi (the diplomat) where he can be persuaded to behave rationally. In contrast, most Indian baddies, barring the Lashkar mole in Delhi, do not reside in the country.

Such stereotypes don’t appear revolting because Agent Vinod deftly does the balancing act through the complicity of Sir Metla in the Lashkar plan. For the Indian audience, the most poignant fantasy of Agent Vinod is the depiction of a Muslim officer as the head of RAW. This is ahistorical: never has a Muslim headed the intelligence agency, nor is he expected to in the immediate future. It is common knowledge in India that Muslims are rarely recruited or deputed to intelligence agencies. Perhaps Agent Vinod seeks to recreate the ideal of secular India, where people of all religious persuasions are treated equally. Perhaps through this fantasy about the Muslim RAW chief the film is protesting against the absence of Muslims in intelligence agencies.

It is impossible to tell whether the depiction of the ISI demanded a ban on Agent Vinod. The question to ask is: would India have allowed the screening of a Pakistani film in which RAW had been shown divided between the hawks and doves, and the nationalities of Saif and Kareena had been switched? Perhaps the clue lies in yet another recent thriller, Kahani, in which the Hindu intelligence chief is shown as a traitor who is exposed partly through the efforts of a Muslim officer. The Indian censors cleared the film. Perhaps you can argue that fiction not grounded in reality rarely offends.

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NCAA Football: Sandusky Penn State sex abuse trial delayed

A Pennsylvania court on Thursday ordered the start of the child sex abuse trial of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky delayed three weeks to June 5, citing logistical issues.

Sandusky, 68, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, faces 52 counts of child molestation over accusations he abused 10 boys over a 15-year period. He has denied the charges and is under house arrest.

The explosive scandal focused national attention on child sex abuse and led to the firing of Penn State's legendary head coach Joe Paterno and university President Graham Spanier. Paterno died in January.

In an online filing, Judge John Cleland ordered the trial's start in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas moved back to June 5 from May 15.

A court spokeswoman had no details about the logistical issues. Joe Amendola, Sandusky's attorney, was not immediately available to comment, and a spokesman for the attorney general had no comment.

Amendola asked last week that the charges against Sandusky be dismissed. He specifically raised questions about the validity of charges tied to three of the boys.

Amendola's motions in the case are still scheduled to be heard on April 5, Cleland's order said. Prosecutors filed their response on Thursday.

NBC News said on Saturday that psychologist Alycia Chambers warned Penn State University police in 1998 that Sandusky's behavior was that of a pedophile after he had showered naked with an 11-year-old boy.

Chambers, who was the boy's counselor, wrote a report for university police involving the boy, known in court documents as Victim 6.

A second psychologist concluded there was no evidence of a sexual offense. The district attorney did not file charges.

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Cricket: England embarrassed again

 England’s ace spin bowler Graeme Swann has made it a habit of putting his foot in his mouth in recent months. On Tuesday he told BBC Sport, “If I was a betting man I would back England heavily as we’re here to make history.”
If any of his friends believed his audacious prediction, he isn’t likely to have any left today as they would have been taken to the cleaners.
England’s chances of winning the first Test versus Sri Lanka in Galle Thursday bordered between slim and none after being set a mammoth 340. England had never previously chased more than 332 in the fourth innings to win a Test since 1928 against Australia. And England wasn’t likely to top that on the road and predictably crashed to a 75-run defeat.
Rangana Herath, who had match figures of 12 wickets for 171 runs limited England to 264. He spun his way into the record book by becoming the first left-arm spinner to claim more than 10 wickets in a match as England’s lost its last six wickets for 31 runs. Off-spinner spinner Suraj Randiv claimed the other four for 74. The only England batsman who played confidently against the spinners was Jonathon Trott who scored 112 in a losing cause.
The world’s No. 1 Test team has now lost four matches on the trot. Pakistan handed England a 3-0 drubbing last month.
“Any Test win is important, but to do it against the best side in the world is a moment to cherish,” said an elated Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene. England captain Andrew Strauss stated the obvious: “If you want to win Test matches you need to get runs on the board and we haven’t done that.” The teams meet in the second and final Test starting at Colombo Tuesday.

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