Tag: Balochistan

Pak Military Helicopter Crashes In Balochistan, Six Soldiers Dead

By LokMarg

A Pakistani military helicopter crashed in Balochistan province late on Sunday killing all six soldiers on board, the country’s media affairs wing said on Monday.

“All six personnel on board, including two pilots, have embraced shahadat,” Dawn newspaper quoted the Pakistan military’s public relations wing saying in a statement.
No reason was given for the helicopter crash in the southwest area of the country.

Former federal minister Fawad Hussain Chaudhry said helicopter flying is getting dangerous and needs engineering evaluation.

“Heli flying is getting dangerous this needs engineering evaluation, too many crashes …RIP Braveheart’s all were too young to die,” Chaudhry tweeted.

The latest incident comes weeks after a similar chopper crash took place in August which claimed six lives including Quetta Corps commander Lt Gen Sarfraz Ali, Dawn reported.

The chopper had lost contact with the air traffic control in Balochistan’s Lasbela district.

The remains of the military chopper’s wreckage, along with the bodies of the six officers and crew members who were aboard, were later found in a coastal Balochistan area. (ANI)

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Response: Naming Doval For Pak’s Own Evil Won’t Work

By LokMarg

Referring to the need to intensify Pakistani narrative about Jammu and Kashmir that Pakistan has concocted over the past 73 years, former air vice-marshal Shahzad Chaudry concluded his article, which was full of baseless accusations regarding National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, with the following words: ‘It is time we re-introduce our script’.

Two words caught my attention while I read the last sentence of the former Pakistani air marshal’s article. First was the word “re-introduce” and the second was “script”. I would like to discuss them in reverse order.

It is common knowledge among history fans and students who have a keen interest in the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir that on October 22, 1947, Pakistan Army along with thousands of tribal lashkars launched an unprovoked surprise attack on our state of Jammu and Kashmir.

For the attack to be portrayed by Pakistan as a legitimate approach to an imaginary revolt by Muslims of Poonch and Muzafarabad against imaginary communal bloodshed by Hindus, Pakistan made up a story that the Muslims in Kashmir have called them for help.

Hence a script was written which was performed by Pakistan’s handpicked local actors one of whom Sardar Ibrahim Khan was given the lead role. He was later to become the first president of Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

On October 26, Maharaja Hari Singh signed an instrument of accession with India and by nightfall, Indian troops began to arrive in Srinagar to defend us against the invaders. For lack of space and to do justice to our topic I will not delve into the nitty-gritty of the affairs that took place which led to a criminal ceasefire between India and Pakistan, however, I would like to draw your attention to the ‘script’ which the air marshal is referring to.

Pakistan has since portrayed herself as a victim of Indian atrocities. It has played the victim card and used it to galvanise support among 56 Muslim majority Arab states making them to believe that India had somehow invaded Jammu and Kashmir, while the truth is diagonally opposite. India has never encroached an inch of its neighbours land.

Since the abrogation of article 370 and 35A from the Indian constitution, Pakistan has suffered from diplomatic frostbites as the Muslim majority Arab counties have refused to take sides with Pakistan against India.

On the contrary, they have made huge strides toward investing in the newly emerging Asian economic giant that believes in Sanatani norms of business i.e. friendship primary,business secondary or friendship not competition. Hence the need for Pakistani establishment to “re-introduce” the “script”!

Shahzad Chaudry has depicted Pakistan as the protagonist and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval as an antagonist for the new script Pakistan plans to re-introduce.

Once again facts are conveniently twisted. There is no siege going on in Kashmir, there is no Indian involvement in Imran Khan’s poor economic performance that has led to the formation of Pakistan Democratic Movement and India has not ordered Pakistan army to massacre innocent Pashtuns and Baloch and orchestrated human right activists and political dissent to be killed extrajudicially.

But who cares what the fact is. For Pakistan to re-introduce the old script based on lies and fabricated by its central ministry of disinformation called ISPR is a routine matter.

However, unlike previous decades the world has unanimously refused to buy into these false narratives. It was reflected in their acceptance of the Indian government’s initiative in abrogating the article 370 and 35A. Not a single Arab country stood by Pakistani hue and cry, not a single session of Organisation of Islamic Community (OIC) was called, not a single Pakistan sponsored resolution was able to make its way into the United Nations Security Council and not a single anti 370 abrogation protest was taken out in the valley of Kashmir.

On the contrary, people rejoiced the decision of the BJP government in Jammu and in Ladakh as well as in the valley itself.

Today a new generation of Kashmiri youth has sprung on the political and social scene of Jammu and Kashmir. This new generation of young men and women is taking strides in assisting with the implementation of development projects right across the Union territory. And that is exactly what is bothering Pakistani military establishment. Their 73 years of evil doings are crumbling right in front of their eyes.

Hence, the need to ‘re-introduce’ the ‘script’ has born out of the necessity to reignite the flames of hate based on Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s communal two-nation theory.

It is this context that former air marshal’s article has been published in Pakistan. It is acontinuation of the press conference held by Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in which he unsuccessfully tried to malign India.

Former air marshal’s attempt to name Ajit Doval as the man behind Pakistan’s disastrous social and political upheaval stands no ground. The Baloch have been up in arms against the Pakistani state since 1948, the Pashtuns since the formation of the Durand line and the Sindhis since the 1970s.

Pakistan is a country that is dying due to its self inflicted wounds caused by a thousand cuts it has executed on its decaying body. Long periods of military rule, nurturing jihadists, exporting terrorists, initiating proxy wars in Afghanistan and Jammu Kashmir and the parasitic exploitation of the human and natural resources of its provinces have reduced Pakistan down to a failed state.

To blame Doval will not work. The people of Pakistan know who is responsible for their misery. Although the PDM might become successful in bringing Imran khan government down, however, what is needed is to deliver a death blow to the whole terrorist infrastructure build on the foundations of the Pakistan military establishment.

(The writer is a human rights activist from Mirpur in PoK. He currently lives in exile in the UK – ANI)

Pakistan’s Diplomatic Downfall, Internal Implosion

By LokMarg

Unable to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Suleiman of Saudi Arabia, the high-powered delegation led by Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Bajwa and ISI chief has returned empty-handed to Islamabad.

In addition to the humiliation caused by failing to gain an audience with the Crown Prince, the Saudi government also cancelled its decision to honour General Bajwa, a promise that was made by the Islamic Kingdom just a few months earlier.

The trip of the Pakistani generals to Saudi Arabia comes after Saudi Arabia cancelled a USD 3.2 billion oil credit facility to Pakistan. In 2018, when Imran Khan ‘won’ the general elections, Saudi Arabia gave Pakistan a loan of USD 3 billion to help the latter with its balanced of payments crisis and issued the above-mentioned oil credit facility to Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia’s decision to cancel the oil credit facility to its Muslim brother country came after Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi issued a statement literally threatening the Saudi led Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to convene an emergency special session on Kashmir or else he would call a meeting of like-minded Muslim ‘brother’ countries. This tantamount to splitting the Saudi led alliance.

The statement enraged the Saudis and in retaliation they cancelled the USD 3.2 billion oil credit facility and made a demand that Pakistan pays back USD 1 billion dollars that it already owes them. Pakistan had to beg China to lend her the money in order to pay Saudi Arabia. Since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution that gave the so-called special status to the former state of Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has suffered an anti-India diplomatic knockout. Pakistan has isolated herself and the country has only itself to blame.

Defence analyst Major (R) Gaurav Arya says that in today’s global economic environment only a pluralistic approach would work. And rightly so. UAE and Israel establishing diplomatic and trade relations brokered by Donald Trump’s administration is testimony to the reality of pluralism in a cutthroat competitive global market. Regrouping of nation-states into new economic zones and partnerships requires new thinking and bold leadership.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is still entrapped in the obsolete political narrative of the Ottoman period and has failed to produce or even adapt to new patterns of thought and give birth to bold leadership. Pakistan and its politics is rooted in envy, dishonesty and deception and has cost her the trust of the global community.

Today, Pakistan is known for its hate of Hindus, being envious of a fast-developing India, for its corrupt and dishonest handling of foreign aid and its trickery and deception in dodging the global community in the fight to eliminate Taliban and other variants of Islamic Jihadist organisations such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammad or the recently covert terrorist outfit The Resistance Front which Major (R) Gaurav Arya calls “secularisation of terrorism”.

The news regarding the establishment of diplomatic relations between UAE and Israel coincided with another important development. 10,000 Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) stationed in the Kashmir Valley have been directed by the Home Ministry to return to their bases in mainland India. This sends a strongmessage to the global community regarding the law and order improvement in the ill-fated region of the Kashmir Valley.

Since the abrogation of Article 370, peace has been re-established in the Valley at a more-than-expected fast pace. No bloodbath has taken place as previously predicted (read threatened) by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Scores of sleeping terrorist cells have been busted in Srinagar and many jihadi infiltrators, as well as home-grown individual terrorists, have been eliminated in deadly encounters in which our jawans have also laid down their lives. And even more interestingly, (but mostly unreported in Indian media), people of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) have been holding protests against Pakistan almost every single day.

Daily protests are now the new norm in PoK. The political and social content of these protests range from demonstrations against long durations of load shedding in Palandri for instance, to demands for justice raised in Nakyal for Ejaz Abbasi, a senior PoK journalist who was beaten up at the Press Information Department (PID) in Islamabad a couple of weeks ago, to torch-bearing rallies in Muzafarabad against the diversion of Neelum-Jhelum River for Azad Patan and Kohala Hydropower Projects, both of which are part of the illegal CPEC agreement between Pakistan (read military) and China (read Communist Party-controlled corporations).

The CPEC is illegal because PoK is Indian territory occupied by Pakistan and the later cannot enter into any defence or economic agreement that include GB or PoK until and unless the territorial dispute between Pakistan and India is resolved and Pakistan withdraws its army from GB and PoK.

Similarly, in Pakistani-occupied GB, people are protesting against cuts in wheat subsidies, illegal land grab of green pastures in Nilter, land grab for a bus stand in Gilgit as well as for the illegal extension of Gilgit airport, lack of medical facilities in Hunza, Load shedding in Skardu, and so on and so forth.

The USD 14 billion Diamer-Bhasha Dam Hydroelectric project is another issue that has generated anxiety among the subjugated population of GB. The displaced people of the villages in and around the historic city of Chillas are awaiting the deceitful promise made by the Pakistan and Chinese companies to resettle them and pay compensation for loss of their ancestral home.

For every 25 people in GB, there is one Pakistani army personnel deployed. Only last month, Imran Khan approved of an additional 100 army platoons to be sent to Diamer district to protect the construction site of the dam.

Pakistan’s high handedness and arrogance is manifest in the fact that she does not even bother to consult the real stakeholders of CPEC or so-called developmental project that are being initiated in the occupied territory of GB or PoK. Therefore, in the coming weeks and months, conflict between PoK/GB and Pakistani establishment seems inevitable. This became evident when on August 5 this year Imran Khan went to address the puppet legislative assembly in PoK.

During his speech, a rebellious PoK Prime Minister Farooq Haider, demanded that Imran Khan and Pakistan grant PoK self-determination! He said, “The world will not listen to you (Pakistan), however, if we (PoK) were free and had autonomy then they themselves would take their case to the global community!” This came as a shock to the Pakistani establishment.

Likewise, the outgoing chief minister of GB Hafiz Hafeez Ur Rehman, has been complaining about Pakistan’s high handedness in dealing with pressing issues related to GB. Hence, Pakistan has lost the goodwill and the trust of its ‘Muslim’ brothers living under occupation in GB and PoK and they now seem desperate to find a solution to end their misery.

On the other hand, Pakistan is faced with an insurgency in Balochistan that is now turning into a civil war between the oppressed Baloch people and the barbaric Pakistani army. Similar, with the resurfacing of independence movement in Sindh reignited by peasant-based Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army; a previously non-violent nationalist, anti-feudal, anti-Pakistan sentiment is now gradually turning into an armed insurgency.

While this movement has managed to catch the imagination of the youth, more importantly, it has been able to attract the Sindhi urban lower-middle and working-class since urban-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) announced that it would join the struggle to free Sindh from Pakistani occupation.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) is becoming a focal for crusade against the atrocities of Pakistan military in the tribal areas. In Punjab, a witch-hunt against those who oppose domination of civil society by military and Islamic clergy is currently underway. Sackings of Professors Pervez Hoodbhoy and Ammar Ali Jaan of Quid-e-Azam University in Islamabad and FC College in Lahore respectively are fresh examples of state-sponsored repression in Punjab.

The new Tahafuz e Bunyaad e Islam (Protection of Fundamentals of Islam) bill passed by the Punjab assembly last month is seen as part of establishments’ attempts to impose censorship on print and spoken word. 100 books were banned immediately after the bill became an Act. More than 1,000 books are being scrutinised by the state to check if they meet the Wahhabi narrative of Islam. Hence cultural and intellectual genocide has begum in Punjab. Student and workers’ protesting and striking for better pay and health and safety facilities are now holding joint protest rallies in Lahore.

The recent visit to Saudi Arabia by Pakistan Army chief General Bajwa and DG ISI that ended up in humiliation will add to the feeling of alienation and haplessness among the common people in Punjab and PoK in particular and Pakistan in general. The failure of Imran Khan to provide 50 lakh houses and 10 million jobs, a GDP showing negative growth of minus 0.38 per cent and the persecution of political opponents are all perfect ingredients of a recipe for rebellion.

However, it is the recent visit of the Pakistan Army chief and DG ISI along with other top brass military officials and Pakistan’s perpetual failure in harnessing diplomatic support that could prove to be the last bale carrying the straw that will sink the ship.

The aftermath of the downward diplomatic spiral and the impending rebellion of Pakistani society can be summed up in Major (R) Gaurav Arya’s own words “an implosion of the synthetically manufactured country called Pakistan is neigh.”

The author who is a human rights activist from Mirpur in PoK. He currently lives in exile in the UK. (ANI)

Why Is Europe Quiet On Baloch Journalist’s Death?

By LokMarg

The story is known, and has been written and advertised for at least a month before disappearing from the radars of the press. The story is known and starts with a body dumped into a river. The body of a Baloch journalist, Sajid Hussain.

Is not uncommon, unfortunately, to find mutilated dead bodies, in various stage of decomposition and beyond recognition dotting the roads of Balochistan: it is part of the nefarious ‘kill and dump’ policy of Pakistani intelligence agencies highlighted many times by human rights organisations both national and international. But this time, there was a twist in the usual plot.

Sajid was dumped into a river, but the river was in Uppsala, Sweden. The place where he had fled is country and asked for political asylum. “His body was found on 23 April in the Fyris river outside Uppsala,” Jonas Eronen, a police spokesman, said. Adding that a crime could not be completely ruled out, but that Hussain’s death could equally have been an accident or suicide. And, after more than three months, the Swedish authorities did not give any answer yet.

The family has been allowed to see the body only after two months, and have been denied permission to bury Sajid in Balochistan by the Interior Ministry until ISI did not give permission: yesterday. The clearance has just been given but, with the clearance, another strange thing happens.

An Urdu newspaper, in Pakistan, carried a story on Sajid quoting the police report on his death. According to the article, the investigative reports states that Sajid has not been killed but his death was an accident. Point is, nobody has this police report and the person the article is quoting as a source, Taj Baloch who was Sajid’s flatmate, has no idea of what the article is talking about.

The family, until today, has not been given any investigative report and the Swedish police are not even releasing the post mortem report. Not to the family, not to the lawyers, after more than three months. According to sources close to the family: “There must be something political and diplomatic going on between Sweden and Pakistan”.

And there must be for sure, because is just unbelievable, especially for a European citizen, that Sweden is behaving, in this particular case, practically like Pakistan.

And, if the article tells the truth and they saw the report, is even worst: giving reports to Pakistani press and intelligence agencies (don’t forget in Pakistan press is controlled by the agencies) before the family is informed is not only against the law but against any decency.

The Swedish police should answer many questions, and quickly: Why the investigations about Sajid’s death started only the March 28 if he disappeared the two of the same month; why during all this time they did not give any news to the family about the developments of the case; why after a round of inquiries there was only a deafening silence; how a body can stay for almost two months in a river which, by definition, flows; why the post mortem report is not out after more than three months; and why somebody who had survived ISI and Frontier Corps ‘attention’ would go and drop himself in a river in Sweden.

The article is perfectly in line with the ISI behaviour, and they are most probably trying to cook up a story in order to wash their hands of Sajid’s death.

But, since Sajid had been granted political asylum, Swedish authorities must have been familiar with Pakistan’s behaviour toward its own citizens.

In the country and now even abroad. A number of human rights organisations have been openly calling out Pakistani ISI for Sajid’s murder.

But, apparently, no attempt of investigation has been done following this track. No country and no official international body is even trying to charge Pakistan for enforced disappearences and kill and dump, even though they violate international treaties and laws.

Filing Sajid’s disappearance and murder as an ‘accident or suicide’ case is very tempting, because it will allow Swedish Government, and other European governments after it, to deny what is happening under their own eyes. Sajid is dead, but his death should not be taken lightly. European governments are responsible for the safety of their citizens.

Democratic governments are responsible for the freedom of those fleeing dictatorial, military regimes. Silence and connivance with those regimes in the name of diplomatic relationships are as criminal as the deeds of the perpetrators.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are strictly those of the author) (ANI)