43 dead, 24 injured in bus attack on Karachi's Ismaili community

Six unidentified assailants on motorbikes opened fire on a bus belonging to the Ismaili community in Karachi’s Safora Chowrangi area, leaving at least 43 dead and 24 injured on Wednesday. Full Story @ eTribune

MQM, Rangers trade barbs after raid

KARACHI: In a rare display of mutual recrimination, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Rangers lashed out at each other after the paramilitary force raided an MQM office and claimed to have seized ‘Indian military weapons’ on Tuesday.
Earlier in the morning, the Rangers carried out raids in the Quaidabad and Landhi areas and arrested three suspected hit men. The paramilitary troops later raided a place in Landhi No 5, took into custody 14 ‘criminals affiliated with a political group’ and claimed to have seized arms, including an Indian-made light machine gun, according to a Rangers spokesperson.
The Rangers did not name the political group or disclose the place from where they had arrested ‘14 criminals’.
However, later in the day, the MQM held a press conference at the same place in Landhi and alleged that the Rangers illegally raided a public contact office of MQM lawmakers, ransacked the furniture, took away valuables and public documents before writing abusive and provocative sentences against MQM leadership on the walls of the office.
Speaking at the press conference, MQM leader Dr Sagheer Ahmed said that the Rangers carried out an ‘illegal raid’ at 7am on the office of MQM MNA Asif Hasnain despite the fact that the federal and provincial governments had assured the party that no raid would be carried out on the offices of any political party and the ongoing operation against criminals would not be politicised.
He said that more than 15 workers and sympathisers of the MQM had been arrested in the Rangers raid. “We have showed patience despite the fact that our workers and supporters are being arrested and subjected to brutal torture before they are handed over to their families.”
He said that the Rangers and police should take action against those black sheep involved in torturing innocent people.
Accompanied by other MQM leaders, Dr Ahmed was of the view that irresponsible and unjust actions were being taken to provoke peaceful people of Karachi and to sabotage the efforts for restoring peace to Karachi.
He said that the MQM was not against the operation and appealed to the authorities, including the Rangers director general, to take notice of a conspiracy to politicise the operation and to take legal action against those involved in arresting and torturing innocent citizens.
Later in what appeared to be a tit-for-tat statement a Rangers spokesman termed the MQM press conference an attempt to mislead the people of Karachi and said that the recovery of Indian weapons from a so-called political party office was proof of existence of anti-state elements in the ranks and files of political parties.
“Can Dr Sagheer inform the hapless people of Karachi why were Indian weapons kept in a political office?” asked the Rangers spokesperson.
He said that the paramilitary force had conducted more than 1,000 operations in the city.
“It’s not our tradition to stoop so low in our conduct… looting of office equipment and other items and wall chalking must have been done by criminals within the ranks of the political party,” said the spokesperson, adding, that “this kind of tactics will not deter Rangers resolve to fight crime and terrorism in the city and we pledge to provide peace to all Karachiites”.
In response to the alleged recovery of Indian-made weapons, an MQM spokesperson rejected the allegation and demanded that the president, the prime minister, the army chief, the ISI director general and the Rangers chief to take notice of the false allegation.
“Such false and fabricated allegations after our press conference proved that it is part of a campaign to malign the MQM,” said the spokesperson. “The MQM is a patriotic party and levelling such false allegations is highly regrettable.”
 

 

DAWN News

Karachi police arrest MQM activist in Randhawa killing

KARACHI: AIG of Karachi police, Shahid Hayat, has said a man suspected of involvement in the killing of Naimat Ali Randhawa, a lawyer involved in the Wali Babar murder case, has been arrested on Tuesday. 

Additional IGP Shahid Hayat addressing a press conference at CPO. — Photo by APP

During a press conference held at the Central Police Office, Additional Inspector General of Police (AIGP) Karachi Shahid Hayat, who was accompanied by the Rangers sector commander and West Karachi DIG Javed Alam Odho, named the suspect as one Kazim Abbasi Rizvi and said he was associated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement's Unit 178.
The senior lawyer, who was also a leader of the Sindh PML-N’s legal wing, was shot dead in an attack in the city’s Nazimabad area on Thursday that also left his lawyer son injured.
Hayat was asked whether Randhawa's killing had a sectarian dimension, responding to which, the police chief said the lawyer's killing was of a political, not sectarian, nature.
He said that during initial investigation, the accused had confessed to killing Randhawa.
The accused is also involved in target killings of eight other people, said the AIGP. Raids were being conducted to arrest three other accomplices of the accused, he added.
Police claimed to have recovered a 9MM pistol with five rounds from his possession. The accused was arrested under the Sindh Armed Act.
Answering a question, the Karachi police chief said the ongoing targeted operation was against criminals irrespective of their political affiliation. He said police carried out targeted action whenever they received information about the presence of criminals in any area, be it Lyari, Sohrab Goth or Azizabad. He added that it would take time to clear ‘the chaos’ of 23 years.
Moreover without naming MQM, a spokesman of Pakistan Rangers Sindh has said that Indian-made weapons were seized from the office of a political party in Landhi area of the city.
Both developments have drawn severe condemnation from the MQM, as its Rabita Committee has declared them as continuation of ‘political victimisation’ of the party.
“This media trial of MQM is being carried out through a planned conspiracy,” said the committee in a statement.
The Rabita Committee said it was unfair to declare someone guilty without proofs and evidences merely on the basis of an allegation.
In a statement, the MQM coordination committee condemned allegations levelled by Karachi police chief Shahid Hayat regarding the involvement of the MQM worker in the case.
It said that the police official had stated at a press conference that Kazim Abbas Rizvi had been arrested on Monday night, but he had been in police custody for five days, since his detention on Sept 27.
The MQM said police had earlier arrested former MQM lawmaker Nadeem Hashmi in the case of killing of two policemen but the allegation turned out to be false and he was released. “Now they are trying to falsely implicate the MQM in the Randhawa murder case.”
Muttahida also demanded of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan for the formation of the promised impartial monitoring committee to oversee the Karachi operation. “It was imperative to form such a committee at the earliest so that innocents are saved from being targeted in the future,” they added.
The revelation came in the wake of yet another row between the MQM, and the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Sindh over an operation that has seen MQM lawmakers and activists being arrested.
The MQM has dubbed the operation as one-sided action against its office bearers.
Wali Khan Babar, a journalist who worked for a private television channel, was gunned down in January 2011 in Liaquatabad area of the port city.
Several witnesses in the journalist’s murder case have been killed and the fact has also attracted the apex court's attention.
Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah had recently told a press conference that one of the witnesses in the Babar murder case was still alive and was being given ample security.
Karachi, a sprawling port city on the Arabian Sea and economic hub of Pakistan, has long been beset by religious, sectarian and ethnic strife. Here armed wings of political parties battle for control of the city, Sunnis and Shias die in tit-for-tat sectarian killings, and Taliban gunmen attack banks and kill police officers.
 

Source: DAWN

Four of a family murdered in Rawalpindi

RAWALPINDI: Four persons of the same family were found murdered in Al Shifa Colony on Tuesday here, Geo News reported.

Police said that four bodies were recovered from one house in Al Shifa Colony, which were identified as Brigadier (retired) Sikandar Malik, his wife and two daughters.

Police have cordoned off the area, while the bodies have been shifted to the hospital. Further investigation was in progress.

  

Source: The News Pakistan.

In wake of gang rape, India sees rise of ‘women only’ taxis, buses and parks

‘Women only’ spaces in India on the rise: As reported sexual violence against women has increased, so have segregated buses, trains and hotel floors.

NEW DELHI — In the months since a gruesome gang rape riveted India, a “women-only” culture has been on the rise here, with Indians increasingly seeking out women-only buses, cabs, travel groups and hotel floors.
One city is preparing to open a women-only park. And in November, the government is launching a women-only bank it hopes will empower women financially.

In a country where reported sexual violence is increasing — despite heightened attention to the problem — many say the women-only spaces are a welcome refuge from lewd looks, groping and unwanted male attention. The concept appeals to women across a broad spectrum of Indian society, including a 60-year-old named Sarita, who recently traveled to New Delhi from a village in Maharashtra by train and said she still had to squabble with male passengers who tried to sit next to her in the women’s coach.
“It’s the ways of men,” Sarita said. “They’re not good. How can we coexist?”
But critics argue that the trend toward separation threatens the gains that women have made in education and access to new career fields over the past two decades, as the economy has rapidly modernized. It’s the men who need to change their behavior, they argue, not women.
“It’s appalling,” said Jayati Ghosh, an economics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “It’s a way for a patriarchal society to announce it’s not going to protect women. It’s simply going to segregate women and restrict their freedom, instead of securing it.”
“Must banks too go pink?” the headline of an editorial in the Hindu, a leading newspaper, asked recently.
Some women-only spaces — in trains, on Delhi’s Metro system — already had existed before December, when a 23-year-old physical therapy student was gang-raped and injured so severely she later died. The country’s male-dominated culture is rooted in religious customs and societal norms that date back centuries, and the sexes were long kept separate in schools and temples.
But the Dec. 16 rape and subsequent death penalty sentences for the four attackers drew intense attention to the problem of sexual violence against women in India, where reports of rape have increased more than 25 percent in recent years, statistics show.
Some women believe the harsh sentences will have little impact and feel the harassment problem is getting worse, forcing them to retreat.
A scramble for change
After the gang rape, state governments across India scrambled to do something — anything — that would calm a public increasingly agitated about sexual violence. They installed help lines for crime victims, more street lighting, better surveillance cameras.
But it was the idea of creating more safe places for women that really caught the attention of bureaucrats. The city of Coimbatore, in the southern part of the country, announced plans to spruce up a decrepit park and limit it to women, who would also have access to a gym with a female fitness trainer. Localities from Assam to Odisha created women-only bus lines. The ministry of tourism began pushing even small hotels to add female-only floors.

 And the government announced plans for a $161 million banking system exclusively for women, the Bhartiya Mahila Bank, with a predominantly female staff and 25 branches across the country. It is set to be launched Nov. 19, the birthday of Indira Gandhi, the former prime minister and the country’s most revered female icon.
A spokesman for the finance ministry, D.S. Malik, said that the new bank is a “major step” toward correcting the gender inequity in credit and banking in India, where only 26 percent of women have a bank account, compared with 44 percent of men.

But some women’s scholars and advocates don’t believe segregating the sexes is empowering, saying it could have a negative impact in the long run.
“The attempt is to shrink women into limited spaces,” said Ranjana Kumari, the director of the Center for Social Research in New Delhi. “Women still have to come out and walk on the same streets and work in the same offices and shop in the same markets as men.” Limiting such spaces out of concern for women’s safety “is not at all a good message,” she said. “It encourages segregation and more violence.”
‘It’s not really safe’
One recent evening, Aishwarrya Kapoor, 20, a recent college graduate with a sociology degree, wanted to attend a birthday party at a club near a mall in downtown Delhi. As it happened, it was the same mall at which the victim in the gang rape had watched the movie “Life of Pi” with a male friend before heading home on a bus, where the attack occurred.
Kapoor’s mother was adamant: The young woman could go to the party only if she hired a cab driven by a female for the night.
“Because in India, even though we are in the 21st century, with any [male] cab driver it’s not really safe,” the young woman said.
The company Kapoor hired, Sakha Cabs for Women, was founded in 2010 in Delhi and now has 12 female drivers, with 62 others in training. After the gang rape, its founders say, business increased 50 to 60 percent, and they’re often booked several days in advance.
One of the young drivers, a college student who goes by one name, Geeta, 21, said she thinks her female clients feel more secure traveling with her than with a male.
And yet.
“I think it’s horrible women have to find watertight compartments, so to say,” Geeta said as she shifted gears and sped through Delhi’s clamorous traffic, horns honking in her wake. At 4 feet 9 inches tall and 99 pounds, she has to sit on top of a tapestry pillow to see over the steering wheel.
“There should be women in all walks of life and all fields of life,” she said. “Where we don’t feel isolated.”

Suhasini Raj contributed to this report.

Source: WashingtonPost
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