Targeted attack: Anti-Taliban lashkar leader's son gunned down in Peshawar

 Doctor Tehsinullah Safi, the son of a peace lashkar head was gunned down in Peshawar today in a targeted attack.

An initial investigation revealed that two unidentified men fired at him near his clinic in the Budni area of Peshawar.

He was rushed to Lady Reading Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

Dr Safi belonged to the Safi Tehsil of Mohmand Agency, where his father was the head of an anti-Taliban peace lashkar head.

Police confirmed that this was a targeted attack and his attackers had successfully escaped. Further investigations are underway.

Kohat historical sites turning into ruins

Most historical places in Kohat are in an absolute shambles due to the archeology department’s neglect.

Many artefacts, including carved stones, marble tiles and statues, are taken away possibly by smugglers for a better price abroad.

Not long ago, the government had planned preservation of these places and sent in archeological experts for survey. However, the plan didn’t enter the execution phase.

Among these sites listed by the erstwhile federal tourism ministry are caves from Aad and Samud dynasty, Kohat springs visited by Baba Guru Nanak, Zinda Pir shrine, Kohat Fort, Cavagnari House, Guava Gardens, hilly track, Teri ashram and Hindu Bazaar, Handy Side Gate, Toi Banda rest house, Khushal Garh rest house, a 16th century mosque in Shahpur village, grave of former West Pakistan chief justice M. R. Kayani, palaces of emperor Durrani and his princes, Dhoda ground, where emperor Zahiruddin Babar camped on his way to India, eight out of 12 gates of the Walled City and Khushal Garh iron bridge.

During a visit, Dawn found the Durrani graveyard and the ruins of Aad and Samud without precious tiles, gravestones, coins and statues. A few are rebuilt by caretakers.

KP launches laptop scheme for students

 It was responsibility of the federal government to provide adequate funds to the public sector universities till next National Finance Commission award, said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti.

However, he said that provincial government would extend every possible financial support to the universities.

The chief minister was addressing a ceremony, held here on Sunday at the Convocation Hall of University of Peshawar (UoP) to launch free laptop distribution scheme.

He launched the Naway Sahar Scheme (New Dawn Scheme) by distributing 35 laptops among the position holder students of four-year bachelor programme. The position holders, who got the laptops, were students of 30 departments of UoP, its three constituent colleges and two affiliated degree colleges.

The chief minister said that provincial government established eight new universities as education was its top priority. He said that the laptop scheme was introduced to keep the educated youth of the society connected with the world. He said that an amount of Rs1 billion was allocated for purchase of laptops.

Mr Hoti claimed that utmost importance was given to ensure transparency in procurement and distribution of laptops among more than 23,000 students. He directed the vice-chancellors and head of the institutions to oversee transparency in the award of laptops to deserving students.

Traffic congestion in Peshawar: Signal-free corridors proposed

Construction of signal-free corridors and shifting of all bus stands and vegetable markets out of Peshawar city could substantially ease traffic pressure on the city roads.

Peshawar SP (traffic) Asif Iqbal said this while speaking at ‘Meet the Press Programme’ of Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday. He said that a proposal to install closed circuit cameras at prominent spots across the district was under consideration to check performance of the traffic police.

He said that for pedestrians the government should focus on building overhead bridges instead of underpasses because the former could be built in the shortest possible time with minimum problems for traffic.

Mr Iqbal said that enforcement, education and engineering were three essential things for controlling traffic problems and the police could focus on the former two points. He said that engineering department was not under the police and that was why the lack of liaison created difficulties.

“We have no engineer to help control the system and all such problems are seen by the Peshawar Development Authority,” he said and added that engineering department was supposed to play key role in the system otherwise the problems would continue.

Scholarships for tribal students

Twenty-one students belonging to tribal areas were awarded scholarships during a ceremony held at Institute of Management Sciences (IMS) Peshawar.

According to a press release, the scholarships were awarded to deserving students of tribal areas under IMS Fata Scholarship Programme by Arshad Majeed, the secretary of Fata Investment Facilitation Authority (Fifa), Fata Secretariat.

Centre’s reply to petition against FCR sought

The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday directed the federal government to file written reply to a petition challenging several provisions of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) and terming it inconsistent with the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Irshad Qaiser directed deputy attorney general Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand to submit the reply within 15 days.

The bench observed that in case it accepted the petition, it would have severe implications and impact for the government and therefore, it was necessary for federal government to furnish its reply.

The petition is filed by a Khyber Agency resident, Ghufran Kukikhel, who was convicted by the political agent on Nov 23, 2011, of drug trafficking.

His conviction was made on the basis of the inquiry conducted by a jirga of elders constituted under FCR.

He was handed down 10 years rigorous imprisonment and Rs100,000 fine.

The petitioner was charged under the Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order, 1979 read with FCR whereas he claimed that in presence of Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997, he could not be tried under the former laws.

Noor Alam Khan, lawyer for the petitioner, said several of the FCR provisions were in conflict with the Constitution and against several judgments of the superior courts.

He said his client had also challenged the judicial powers of the political agent for being in conflict with Article 175 of the Constitution.

The lawyer said the FCR sections mostly related to powers of district magistrate, additional district magistrate, council of elders and trials were also questioned.

Bhoja crash: compensation to families overdue

THE ill-fated aircraft of Bhoja Air crashed on April 20 last, killing all the 127 persons on board. There was an outpouring of sympathy for the perished and the affected families. But as the days passed, the tragedy has been overtaken by other events and almost forgotten.

Unfortunately, this has been a hush-hush affair from the beginning. Reticence to tell the truth on the part of the government, the CAA and the airline itself is giving rise to rumours of all sorts. There is a story afloat of attempted sale of Bhoja Air to an unknown entity in the UAE to apparently avoid adverse consequences.

If true, this might complicate payment of compensation to the bereaved families, as only 11 out of 127 have been reportedly paid compensation till now, apparently for an invidious reason to benefit the insurance company.

Results of the aircraft investigation and action, if any, against those responsible for the accident, directly or indirectly, has also not been disclosed, keeping everybody in suspense apparently for ulterior reasons. And last, but not least, why the unprecedented action for initiating criminal proceedings against the management of the airline for murdering the people on board the aircraft was taken again remains a mystery.

Was it for upholding the rule of law or for arm-twisting for political or other less than altruistic reasons, as this has never happened in airline history.

Delay in passport delivery

PASSPORT authorities are getting Rs3,000 for ordinary and Rs5,000 for urgent passport. Fifteen days’ time is promised for an urgent passport and 30 days for an ordinary passport.

However, urgent passports are not delivered on time while ordinary passports are delivered after three months.

This is ridiculous and unjustified. The passport authorities give the plea that they are short of passport books and hence the abnormal delay.

Owing to the abnormal delay in issuing ordinary passports, many people prefer to apply for passports on an urgent basis.
However, despite payment of extra money, urgent passports are not delivered on time.

Pakistani officials say the government plans to build a recreation complex in the town where al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was killed

Pakistani officials say the government plans to build a recreation complex in the town where al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was killed by US commandos in 2011.  

Syed Aqil Shah, sports and tourism minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said Monday the project in Abbottabad will have a zoo, paragliding club and water sports facilities. It will also have cultural heritage park.

Shah said the development is not intended to counter Abbottabad’s negative reputation following bin Laden’s discovery there. He said it’s part of a revival of recreational and cultural activities in the province.

Wedding woes: Minor contests fixed marriage in court

Fourteen-year-old Shahista* has approached the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to challenge her parents’ decision of getting her married against her will.

A resident of Pir Gulab Shah in Hashatnagri area, Shahista recorded her statement before the PHC Human Rights Directorate (HRD) saying her father Gul Ahmed has decided to give her hand in marriage to their landlord Dr Irfan who is 40 years old.

Downpours trigger avalanches in Dir

Heavy winter downpours added to the cold wave sweeping central Pakistan and triggered avalanches in the north on Monday, burying and stranding dozens of people.

Six people – among them two engineers of a foreign construction company – were buried when an avalanches hit Upper Dir district on Monday.

Two engineers of a Korean construction firm and their guard were buried under tons of snow when an avalanche hit their camp in Lowari Tunnel in the early hours of Monday, a security official said. Other staffers of the company rushed to the Sambo camp on time and rescued the trapped people.

Later in the afternoon, an avalanche hit a security check post near the Pak-Afghan border in the Bin Shahi area of neighbouring Upper Dir district. “Three security personnel were buried under tons of snow,” the official said and identified the trapped soldiers as Nizam, Arif and Allah Bakhsh – all from the 33 Baloch Unit of Pakistan Army. A rescue operation is ongoing at the site.

Pushto folk music queen’s awards up for sale

The ‘queen of Pushto folk music’ Zarsanga, has offered her lifetime’s worth of titles and awards up for sale at her home – a tent near Azakhel.

Her house in Pabbi tehsil was swept away in the 2010 floods and she has been displaced since. Talking to Express News in her tent, the 68-year-old said, “I have been to the US, France, Russia, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia among 60 more countries, but now I am just living a burdensome life.”

Rugs and trinkets collected on her many travels adorn her living space. A number of awards, medallions and certificates lie atop a metal box. Her goat stands close to her.

“It’s difficult for me to practice in the tent,” she said, adding that it too had been borrowed from someone else.

Govt indifferent to citizens’ access to information right

The passage of Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act, 2010 is considered significant for it allowed devolution of several subjects to the provinces through abolition of Concurrent Legislative List. One of the important developments in the amendment was the acceptance of right to information of a citizen as a fundamental right. The parliament introduced Article 19A in the Constitution through which the right to information was included in the Constitution for the first time. This step was taken for the sake of introducing transparency in overall governance system.

Article 19A states: “Every citizen shall have the right to have access to information in all matters of public importance subject to regulation and reasonable restrictions imposed by law.” Prior to this the constitution provided right to freedom of speech and expression and freedom of press through Article 19, but these are also subject to restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan; friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court. It is now binding on the provincial government to introduce such laws which provide mechanism to citizens to have access to information in government departments. However, from its attitude it is evident that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is least interested in fulfilling its constitutional obligation.

One important development in this regard is the enactment of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act 2012, which was passed by the provincial assembly in May 2012. Through this Act the government has replaced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Ordinance 2001, which was promulgated during Pervez Musharraf’s rule.

Rain lashes most parts of KP, Fata

Heavy rain lashed most parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Peshawar, and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), while  hilly areas of Swat valley and upper parts of Hazara also received snowfall on Sunday.

The rain continued throughout the province all the day on Sunday paralysing daily routine of people, who mostly remained indoors.

According to the local Met office, Peshawar received 14 millimetre rain during past 14 hours. It has predicted more rain and snowfall in upper parts of the province.

Met officials said that Parachinar had received 10mm rain, Bannu 11mm, Saidu Sharif 19mm, Chitral and Dera Ismail Khan 4mm each, Kalam 2mm, Timergara 10mm, Drosh 6mm and Kohat 15 mm, while one inch snowfall was recorded in Malamjabba. The officials have forecasted more rain and snowfall during next 24 hours.

Work begins on Hazara amusement city

 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sports and Tourism Minister Syed Aqil Shah launched work on
 project at Harno here on Sunday.

The project would be completed on public-private partnership to provide recreational facilities to people.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Mr Shah said that the government was taking steps to revive tourism and sports activities in the province. He said that work had been started on three major tourism projects in Hazara, including water sports (Khanpur-Haripur), eco-tourism (Naran-Kaghan) and the amusement city project at Harno in Abbottabad. He said that Rs3 billion estimated cost of these projects would be managed by Tourism Corporation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Mr Shah said that 20 per cent income earned through each of the project would be spent on the development of the respective area, while priority would be given to residents in different jobs.

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Sethi House reopens for tourists

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Archaeology, Museums, Sports and Youth Affairs Syed Aqil Shah on Friday inaugurated the renovated Sethi House and declared its lower portion open for the visitors.
Secretary Archeology and Museums Syed Jamaluddin Shah, Director Archeology Dr Shah Nazar, Ms Farida Nishtar and Ghulam Dastagir Sethi were also present. Sethi House had been built in 1884 and the present government had issued funds for its renovation. The renovation work on its lower portion has been completed.

Syed Aqil Shah said the street from main road to Sethi House would be developed and the whole Sethi Mohallah would be made a hub of tourists. He said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was full of tourist attraction sites, including Gandhara and Buddhist civilisations.
He said soon tour packages would come to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from the whole country and the visitors would witness worth seeing sites, including the Sethi House. Syed Aqil Shah said Gor Gathri would be

KP reinstates 4,000 sacked employees

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has restored more than 4,000 civil servants, who were sacked by the second Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government in the province after declaring them redundant, officials say.

The restoration of their services has come after the Election Commission of Pakistan’s ban on ‘all kinds of recruitments’ in the public sector, according to official documents available with Dawn.

“The provincial authorities are of the view that the decision to restore their services had been taken much before the Election Commission’s decision, banning the new recruitments,” said an official.

However, according to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Establishment Department’s appointment letter, in one particular case, the restored employee, who has been appointed against a BPS-07 post, has been informed that his appointment ‘shall be considered

Vast govt land reoccupied in D.I. Khan

Around 7,090 kanals of government land in Dera Ismail Khan district has been reoccupied by the people evicted earlier, official sources have said.

The department got possession of the farmlands after the standing committee on agriculture, livestock and corporation department of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly took notice of the matter in 2011.

However, occupants expelled staff of the department and took over the lands again, sources said.

“Lessees, who were expelled with the help of police and the district administration, have reoccupied lands,” an official said, adding that the department and the local administration were helpless to expel land grabbers.

According to the house’s committee report, five seed farms measuring 7,090 kanals and 12 marlas belonging to the agriculture department were leased out to several people in the district. However, the leaseholders refused to hand over possession to the department after termination of the agreement.

eturn of FC personnel to KP: Interior minister, secretary issued contempt notices

The Peshawar High Court on Thursday issued contempt notices to the interior minister and secretary for violating its order for redeployment of Frontier Constabulary platoons to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from other parts of the country.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Khalid Mahmood directed the interior minister and the secretary to submit their respective written replies to the contempt notice and show cause why they should be not proceeded against for committing contempt of the court for disregarding and flouting its clear order issued on Nov 6, 2012.

The bench later fixed the next hearing into the case for Feb 19.

Peshawar to get mass transit system

With completion of its term only a few weeks away, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has planned mass transit system for the provincial capital.

Highlighting performance and achievements of the transport department during the last four and a half years, provincial minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told a news conference on Thursday said a special initiative feasibility study on mass transit system for Peshawar had been approved and that would be conducted with the technical assistance of Asian Development Bank.

He added that a memorandum of understanding had already been signed under which the bank would provide $372,000 million for the study work on which is likely to get underway next month.

Delay in Peshawar road project: Many top officials facing contempt

The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday issued show cause notices to the federal communication and finance secretaries, the National Highway Authority (NHA) chairman and two other officials for explaining the delay in construction of Peshawar Northern Bypass Road despite their assurances given two years ago about speedy work on the project.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Khalid Mahmood directed the two secretaries, the chairman, the director general of Peshawar Development Authority and the provincial secretary of communication and works department to submit their replies and explain why the show cause notice should not be converted into a contempt of court case as they had deliberately violated the court’s order.

It later fixed the next hearing for Feb 27 directing the officials in question to submit their respective replies.

Scholarship programme ray of hope for poor students

My mother has told me to save money from my monthly scholarship, which is to last a year, for higher education,” according to a shinning student of University of Peshawar.

Rizwanullah, student of second semester of bachelor of studies in UoP environmental sciences department, told Dawn that he would have been unable to get admission to the university had the provincial government not financially supported him by giving him scholarship.

“My parents admitted me to a government school as they couldn’t afford to pay my Rs500 monthly tuition fee when I was a student of a private school,” he said.

Rizwanullah, resident of Hassankhel area of Frontier Region Peshawar, got 856 of 1,050 marks (81 per cent) in Secondary School Certificate examination in 2009. He later passed intermediate examination in 2011 from Government Higher Secondary School, Sama Badhber, FR Peshawar.

The youngster remained the top first position holder among the students of government schools by obtaining 838 of 1,100 marks (77 per cent).

Sony ignites talk of PS4 unveil with Playstation meeting

Sony Corp will this month host its first major Playstation meeting in two years, sparking a flare-up in online speculation the Japanese consumer electronics giant is preparing to unveil the successor to its 70 million-selling PS3 games console.

Sony declined to say whether it would release a new product at the meeting in New York on February 20. “We will be talking about the Playstation business,” spokesman Masaki Tsukakoshi said on Friday. A Google search for “Sony Feb 20 Playstation” returned more than 7 million hits.

The last time Sony held a Playstation event, in January 2011, it presented a protoype of its handheld Vita console. Before that, it convened a gathering in 2005 two months after it first demonstrated the PS3 concept. A meeting in 1999 revealed designs for the PS2.