New Delhi: The overall political, security and economic situation appears to be deteriorating in Pakistan day by day. Pakistani vernacular media gives a clear perspective on the prevailing trend and also brings out the pathetic state of affairs in various provinces in as far as callousness on the part of the government is concerned.
One hardly comes across any positive news or developments that could enhance the mood of the people in Pakistan. Most papers over the last few days have reported vandalising the statue of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in a hand grenade attack by miscreants at Marine Drive in Gwadar.
The statue collapsed as a result of the attack and the Baloch Republican Army apparently claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, according to the ‘Express Daily’ tribal and political leaders in Balochistan held a meeting to deride the government for lack of focus and attention on the province.
They mentioned that the province was being deprived of all basic amenities and were being treated in a “step-motherly way”. Extremely poor infrastructure, shortage of water and electricity has brought down business and trade to the lowest level. They demanded action by the government to reverse the situation or else people’s angst would show up in the form of large scale protests.
Pakistan has also been marred by mass scale corruption including in sensitive security related sectors. The daily Islam reported on September 27 that members of the Senate Committee on Interior released a report on issuance of ‘fake’ identity cards to terrorists and defunct organisations besides foreigners in Sindh.
The Federal Investigating Agency (FIA) mentioned that as per the report, several Afghan nationals have been arrested carrying ID cards issued by NADRA (Karachi). The FIA indicated that more than 50 per cent of the NADRA staff were involved in corruption. Significantly, the report claims that Al Qaeda member Abdullah Barooch had received ID cards from NADRA more than twice. The FIA claimed that in one case an identity card was provided to an Indian national.
The report goes on to mention that in Karachi, there are large number of people who have been issued ID cards. In the backdrop of these developments, Chairman NADRA claimed that a serious investigation has been launched on the fake ID issue and 12 officers of NADRA have been arrested and several suspended.
The Sindh Express of September 27 reported that Jalal Mahmmod Shah, a Sindh nationalist leader and Convener of the Sind Action Committee, who has been protesting against illegal detentions in the province, claimed that only the hunger strike part of protest was over, but the stir would continue.
He was protesting against the arrest of certain activists of Sindh Action Committee who were detained under false charges against them.
Shah also mentioned that the Supreme Court should take note of land grabbing of Sindh plots/lands and other resources in the name of mega projects and then reselling the same land to make profit.
He mentioned that Sindh Action Committee will hold hunger strike on October 1 and 2 in Hyderabad and carry out protest across Sindh on October 10.
Hunger strikes, security lapses, terror attacks, kidnappings by state apparatus etc form the news pattern virtually on a daily basis. With Pakistan claiming to be pursuing a strict rule of law mechanism when it comes to national security and dealing with terror entities, it comes as a surprise that the Karachi NADRA office has been issuing ID cards to people all across including Al Qaeda leaders.
With the situation being fluid in neighbouring Afghanistan one cannot rule out the possibility of large number members of various terror entities having acquired Pakistani ID in the last few months.
