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  • Army needs to distance itself from PTI, says retired general

    Army needs to distance itself from PTI, says retired general

    Defence analyst Lt Gen (r) Ghulam Mustafa has urged the Pakistan Army to distance itself from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in order to kill the impression that the ruling party has the support of the military.

    In a TV show, the analyst said the impression that the army has gotten PTI’s back needs to be defused as it is damaging the reputation of the state institution.

    Mustafa said the opposition, however, was being unfair for claiming that the army was supporting the ruling PTI. He said the military stood by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government in 2014 during the protests led by Imran Khan, but nobody accused it of “supporting the Nawaz-led government”.

    He said the army chief needed to take measures to take his force out of the tug of war between the political parties, as the current situation was rapidly heading towards disaster.

    The defence analyst’s comments came in the wake of countrywide protests by the joint opposition alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement.

    During its first rally in Gujranwala on Oct 18, former prime minister and PML-N supreme leader Nawaz Sharif hit out at the security establishment for ousting his government and installing Imran Khan in power. This was the first time that the opposition named a sitting army chief for meddling in the elections.

    Nawaz addressed the crowd via video link from London. “Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, you packed up our government, which was working well, and put the nation and the country at the alter of your wishes,” the former PM added.

  • ‘Inconvenience is highly regretted’: IBA cancels Dr Atif Mian’s lecture on economy

    The Institute of Business Administration (IBA), one of the best business schools in Pakistan, has cancelled a talk by top economist Atif R Mian on Pakistan’s poor economic growth without any plausible cause.

    In a tweet, the IBA wrote: “Dr Atif R. Mian’s lecture “Why has economic growth fallen behind in Pakistan?” scheduled on November 5, 2020 has been cancelled. Inconvenience is highly regretted.” There was no further explanation by the school on why the lecture was cancelled. Dr Mian has yet to comment on the development.

    Observers say that the economist was disinvited from the lecture probably because of his affiliation with the minority Ahmadiyya community. However, this is not the first time Atif Mian, who teaches at ivy league Princeton, has faced discrimination due to his faith.

    He was appointed by Prime Minister Imran Khan in the Economic Advisory Council after the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). However, the post was short-lived after the government came under fire for appointing an Ahmadi to the economic body. It subsequently backtracked and sacked Atif Mian from the advisory council, much to the chagrin of progressive quarters.

    Dr Atif is John H. Laporte, Jr. Class of 1967 Professor of Economics, Public Policy and Finance at Princeton University, and director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance at the Woodrow Wilson School. He is the first and only person of Pakistani origins to have been named on the IMF’s list of ‘top 25 brightest young economists.’  

    The 39-year-old has dedicated his time to studying the connections between finance and the macro economy. An expert on international debt markets, his latest book, House of Debt, builds on data to describe how debt precipitated the ‘Great Recession’. He is often the go-to economist for the world media on the subject.

  • ‘Lahore CCPO sent home on forced leave’

    ‘Lahore CCPO sent home on forced leave’

    Journalist Adeel Raja on Wednesday claimed that the new chief of Lahore police, Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Umar Sheikh, who has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons since his appointment last month, has been sent home on forced leave.

    While The Current’s sources corroborate the journalist’s claim as they say that the Lahore top cop was sent home after Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan expressed displeasure over a viral audio clip in which the CCPO purportedly hurled abuses at a woman, a leave application by Sheikh suggests otherwise.

    READ: Bright cop resigns after CCPO Lahore abuses him for speaking English

    “It is submitted that I have to look after my ailing daughter admitted to hospital. Please allow me three days [of] casual leave from 21.10.2020 to 23.10.2020,” read the application, a copy of which is available with The Current.

    Sheikh further stated that during his leave, Lahore’s Operations Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Muhammad Ashfaq Khan will look after the charge of the post of CCPO in addition to his own duties.

    This was also endorsed by Punjab chief minister’s spokesperson in a tweet.

    Azhar Mashwani, while responding to Raja, claimed that CCPO will back after tending to his ailing daughter.

  • ‘Bakwas band karo’: PTI’s Waleed Iqbal threatens to hit PPP leader with glass on live show

    Senior leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Waleed Iqbal, who is also the grandson of 20th-century poet and philosopher Allama Iqbal, has threatened to hit former Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) senator Mukhtiar Ahmed Dhamrah with a glass on live television.

    As per the details, the two, along with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Khurram Dastgir, had appeared on senior journalist and analyst Nasim Zehra’s show when a war of words turned ugly after Iqbal was told to shut up.

    Speaking of Capt (r) Safdar’s “inappropriate” arrest for raising political slogans at the mausoleum of Quaide Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Iqbal quoted Bilawal as saying that it did not merit the door of PML-N leader’s hotel room being knocked down.

    “Does he not get it? Let’s see how he reacts if someone does this at the tomb of his grandfather [ex-prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto] or mother [ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto],” a visibly annoyed Iqbal said, which was met by a “bakwas band karein [shut up]” from the PPP leader.

    “You can’t talk about Bilawal’s grandfather. Talk about the topic at hand,” an angry Dhamrah told Iqbal, leading to an on-air spat between the two.

    It took an uglier turn when Iqbal picked up a glass and threatened to hit the PPP leader with it had he been present in the studio and not appearing via videolink.

    WATCH VIDEO:

    The anchorperson was seen trying to tell both the politicians to calm down but to no avail.

  • Fact check: Bilawal did not say eggs are Rs200 per kilo

    Fact check: Bilawal did not say eggs are Rs200 per kilo

    Claim: Bilawal Bhutto said eggs are PKR 200 per kilo

    Fact: Bilawal Bhutto’s video was doctored to make it sound like he confused the duodecimal system and the metric system

    In the aftermath of a Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) power show in Gujranwala, a video of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has been making rounds on social media platforms and Whatsapp groups.

    In the video, the PPP chairman has seemed to get the metric and duodecimal (dozenal) systems confused. In the video, while taking a dig at the rising inflation, Bilawal purportedly said that ‘eggs are being sold for Rs200 per kg and potatoes Rs100 per dozen’ due to the poor economic policies of the government.

    But did Bilawal really say that? No.

    A fact-check ran by The Current revealed that the PPP chief has said no such words and video circulating on social media websites was altered to humiliate the opposition leader. In the original video, Bilawal said the due to poor economic policies of the government, people were forced to pay Rs200 for a dozen eggs, Rs100 for a kilogramme of potatoes’ and so on.

    The fake video was shared by pro-government supporters who took jibes at the PPP chief for mixing the metric system with the duodecimal system. It garnered many views on Facebook and Twitter and was shared hundreds of times on the Whatsapp groups.

    A crime reporter of ARY News, Iqrarul Hassan also swallowed the bait and posted the video on his Twitter account. He, however, removed the video and issued an apology after it was revealed that the video was fake. Iqrar said he couldn’t tell whether the video was fake because the mic was in front of Bilawal’s face.

    VERDICT: FALSE

  • Newspaper office sealed in occupied Kashmir for ‘speaking out’ against govt

    In another attempt to stifle the press freedom, the authorities in India-occupied Kashmir have sealed the office of Kashmir Times, one of the oldest newspapers in the occupied region, for “speaking out” against the government.

    The Estates Department sealed the office, which is located in the press enclave in the main city Srinagar. The move prompted a strong response from the editor of the newspaper, who termed it a vendetta.

     Anuradha Bhasin said the government’s action was a “vendetta for speaking out” while noting that no process of law was followed. “No eviction notice was served on us and neither was there any formal communication,” the Press Trust of India quoted her as saying. 

    On her Twitter handle, she wrote: “Today, Estates Dept locked our office without any due process of cancellation & eviction, same way as I was evicted from a flat in Jammu, where my belongings including valuables were handed over to ‘new allottee.’ Vendetta for speaking out! No due process followed. How peevish!” 

     Reporters without Borders (RSF) termed the act an attack on press freedom. 

    “The office of The Kashmir Times, one of the most respected newspapers of the region, has just been sealed by the local govt after its editor AnuradhaBhasin was recently manhandled. @RSF_inter is appalled by this new attack on press freedom in the valley,” it said. 

  • Sindh police say Safdar was arrested as per law, delete tweet later

    Sindh police say Safdar was arrested as per law, delete tweet later

    The social media cell of the Sindh Police has further aggravated the controversy surrounding the arrest of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Capt (r) Muhammad Safdar after it deleted a tweet that termed the arrest of the PML-N leader in accordance with the law.

    The statement updated on Twitter read: “The arrest of Capt (r) Safdar was done according to the law and the investigation will be impartial and on merit.” However, the tweet was hastily removed for unknown reasons, but it had generated over 450 retweets before being taken down.

    Screen-grab of now-removed tweet

    It was reposted to the Twitter handle later in the day.

    Safdar was arrested from his hotel room in the early hours of Monday for raising slogans at the mausoleum of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and jumping over the grill surrounding the grave. This had resulted in a backlash on social media and the government quarters who demanded his arrest for violating the sanctity of the place. However, the way he was arrested by police gave rise to speculations.

    Senior journalist and analyst Hamid Mir has claimed the Sindh government informed Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Muhammad Zubair that the provincial police chief had been “kidnapped by rangers at 4 am and forced to issue the orders for the arrest of Maryam Nawaz’s husband, Captain (r) Safdar”.

    “Unfortunate incident. Sindh Govt informed PML-N leader Muhammad Zubair that IG [insector general] Sindh was kidnapped by Rangers at 4 in the morning he was brought in sector commander’s office where addnl IG was already present and were forced to issue the orders for the arrest of Cpt Rtd Safdar [sic],” Mir claimed in a tweet.

    It was, however, rejected by another senior journalist, who said the IG was “fully onboard with the arrest”. Maintaining that internal rifts were marring the affairs of the joint opposition’s Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), Kamran Khan quoted sources as saying that all claims regarding the IG’s arrest were not true.

    CASE AGAINST SAFDAR, MARYAM:

    The FIR registered against the PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz and Capt Safdar and about 200 other people said the PML-N leaders, along with 200 of their followers, reached the Quaid’s grave where Safdar jumped over the grill surrounding it and resorted to sloganeering.

    A case has been registered under Section 6 (convening of meetings or processions in the mausoleum), Section 8 (entry into mausoleum with weapon) and Section 10 (penalty for contravention of provisions) of The Quaid-e-Azam’s Mazar (Protection and Maintenance) Ordinance, 1971.

    It said the PML-N leader and his followers damaged the state property at the shrine besides threatening to kill the complainant upon intervention. “My complaint is that Safdar and his cohort violated the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum and his grave. A case [should be] registered against him for raising political slogans inside the mausoleum complex, death threats against me and for damaging government property.”

  • Karachi police break into Maryam’s hotel room to arrest Safdar

    Karachi police break into Maryam’s hotel room to arrest Safdar

    Karachi police have arrested Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Capt (r) Muhammad Safdar for violating the sanctity of Jinnah Mausoleum by raising slogans at the grave of the founder of Pakistan.

    The development was shared by his wife PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz, who wrote that police broke into her room to arrest Safdar while she was sleeping.

    The PML-N leadership, including vice president Maryam Nawaz, had visited the mausoleum to offer fatiha on Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s grave ahead of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) power show in Karachi. However, the fatiha was followed by slogans by the PML-N supporters and Safdar jumping over the grill surrounding the grave.

    The sloganeering at the mausoleum attracted flak, especially by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leadership, who sought action against the PML-N leaders for the ‘hooliganism’.

    Similarly, Maritimes Minister Ali Haider Zaidi pushed police to register a case against the PML-N leaders over the incident. “Once again clearly warning CS & IG of Sindh. Action must be taken against the hooligans who created ruckus at Mazar-e-Quaid. If they are allowed to leave KHI, you will be directly held responsible for letting them escape. U will be considered as aiders & abettors in the crime,” he tweeted ahead of the arrest.

    Subsequently, an FIR was registered against the PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz and Capt Safdar and about 200 other people. According to the complainant, the PML-N leaders, along with 200 of their followers, reached the Quaid’s grave where Safdar jumped over the grill surrounding it.

    A case has been registered under Section 6 (convening of meetings or processions in the mausoleum), Section 8 (entry into mausoleum with weapon) and Section 10 (penalty for contravention of provisions) of The Quaid-e-Azam’s Mazar (Protection and Maintenance) Ordinance, 1971.

    It said the PML-N leader and his followers damaged the state property at the shrine besides threatening to kill the complainant upon intervention. “My complaint is that Safdar and his cohort violated the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum and his grave. A case [should be] registered against him for raising political slogans inside the mausoleum complex, death threats against me and for damaging government property.”

    WAS SAFDAR ARRESTED FROM HOTEL’S ROOM?:

    Though the PML-N claims that Safdar was arrested from the hotel room by the Karachi police, the claim was contested by the federal minister, Ali Zaidi, who shared a video of Safdar being taken in a police mobile. “Maryam once again lying that the hotel door was broken. Video shows otherwise. Do u see any handcuffs? Does it look like he was arrested by force?” he took a jibe at Maryam.

    However, to corroborate the claim, PML-N social media cell shared a video of the hotel room, showing the broken door of the hotel room. The statement issued by the provincial minister also strengthened the claim that the police barged into the hotel room of the PML-N leaders.

    Surprisingly, the Sindh government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has distanced itself from the matter, even though the police chief is answerable to the chief minister. PPP minister Saeed Ghani said that while Captain Safdar’s behaviour was inappropriate, the way his arrest was carried out was condemnable.

    PPP MPA Sharmila Farooqi said “sloganeering inside Mazar-e-Quaid is inappropriate, but breaking doors & arresting Captain Safdar in this manner is also unacceptable”. “Sindh government is not a party to this. Clearly a blatant attempt to sabotage the solidarity of PDM and defame Sindh government,” she added.

  • Info minister Shibli Faraz shares ‘father’s poetry’, is told it is not Ahmad Faraz but Ghalib’s ghazal

    Info minister Shibli Faraz shares ‘father’s poetry’, is told it is not Ahmad Faraz but Ghalib’s ghazal

    In a rather embarrassing development, Federal Minister for Information Shibli Faraz on Friday had to delete a tweet criticising the opposition after he was told that the poetry he had shared as that of his father, Ahmad Faraz, was actually a ghazal by Mirza Ghalib.

    “Jiski bahaar yeh ho uski khizaa naa pooch [don’t ask about the autumn of whose spring is this],” the minister said in the deleted tweet aimed at mocking the joint opposition for what the government called was “an empty stadium” in Gujranwala during the maiden public gathering of the opposition parties’ anti-government campaign.

    The tweet was deleted after journalist and Geo News Managing Director Azhar Abbas told him that the phrase the minister had attributed to his father and late poet Ahmad Faraz was actually from a ghazal by classical Urdu poet from the 19th Century, Mirza Ghalib.

    “I think it’s Ghalib’s not Ahmad Faraz’s,” Abbas tweeted.

    Shibli Faraz, who is serving as the federal minister for information and broadcasting since April 28, 2020, is a member of the Senate from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) since 2015. He is the son of the late renowned poet Ahmad Faraz, who was displaced by dictators for also being a vocal critic of military rule.

  • Hardliners smear portrait of Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam outside National Science College

    A group of youngsters, allegedly science students, has smeared a portrait of the only Nobel laureate physicist from Pakistan and champion of science in the developing world, Dr Abdus Salam.

    A video doing rounds over the internet showed the group, consisting of State Youth Parliament Pakistan members, painting the portrait black while raising slogans against the minority Ahmadiyya community, of which Dr Salam was a member, outside Gujranwala’s National Science College.

    “They are students of so-called science colleges, what a shame,” read a strongly-worded post by Facebook page ‘The Hoodbhoyist’ that describes itself as a “social club for liberal, secular, humanists and progressive”.

    When he won the Nobel prize in 1979, Dr Salam became the very first Pakistani to achieve this distinction, and only the fourth from the subcontinent.

    Born in 1926 in a remote village in Punjab, British India, Salam was a child prodigy. He came from humble beginnings, growing up in a small brick house with a large family of eleven. While Salam’s legacy looms large in the world of physics, he is largely forgotten in Pakistan because of his faith.

    “Salam — The First ****** Nobel Laureate” — a feature-length film on Dr Salam’s life — was released on Netflix in October last year.

    It has won accolades on the international film festival circuit, including DFW South Asian Film Festival, South Asia Human Rights Festival, South Asian International Film Festival and the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal, among others.