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Posted by malika in CIA AGENT NAWAZ SHARIF, Girah Cut, Jahiliya "Jihadis"Illiterate Fanatics, LIAR POLITICIANS, NAWAZ SHARIF, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, Pakistan Security and Defence: Enemy & Threats (Internal & External), Pakistan's Free Media & Press, Pakistan's Ruling Elite Feudals Industrialists, PML (N) CORRUPTION, PML(N), Taliban terrorists on May 3rd, 2013
SAY “NO” TO NAWAZ SHARIF
Following documents have been placed before the Supreme Court and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) alleging Nawaz Sharif involvement in $32 millions corruption scandal.
ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is preparing to take up cases against PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
According to sources, the cases relate to default of Rs4.9 billion loans obtained from nine banks in 1994-95.
“Cases against Sharif brothers were to be approved in a recent NAB board meeting but were deferred on the directives of the Chairman, Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari,” an official of the bureau said on Monday.
The chairman is reported to have said that all pending cases about politicians would be taken up soon.
The NAB spokesman was not available for comment.
The bureau had earlier frozen some assets of the Sharif family against which the loans had been taken.
The Supreme Court upheld in January a judgment of the Lahore High Court asking NAB to release the assets of the Sharif family. It dismissed an appeal by NAB Prosecutor General K.K. Agha against LHC’s Oct 4, 2011, directive to the bureau to return Rs115 million and property of Hudabiya Paper Mills lying with the National Bank, Islamabad.
The sources said the assets had not been released so far.
The prosecutor general had told the Supreme Court that before heading to Saudi Arabia in December 2002, Nawaz Sharif had consented to return money to NAB under an agreement.
When contacted, PML-N spokesman Mushahidullah said the party’s chief and his family were not defaulters of any bank loan. “That was the reason Nawaz Sharif demanded of the government to make public details of all bank loans not repaid by politicians,” he said.
Replying to a question, he said the value of the frozen assets was far higher than the amount of loans obtained. “Once their assets are released, they will pay the loans,” he said.
The loans were taken from the NBP, Habib Bank, United Bank, Muslim Commercial Bank, Punjab Mudaraba, Bank of Punjab, Agriculture Development Bank, Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation and ICP Bank.
During the proceedings in the Supreme Court, the NAB prosecutor general submitted an agreement signed by Nawaz Sharif and the Musharraf government.
The LHC had declared the taking over of property of the petitioners as unconstitutional, ultra vires under NAO, 1999, and without lawful authority. It had also ordered payment of compensatory cost of Rs150,000 per petition to Hudabiya mills, Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and Mian Mohammad Abbas Sharif.
ISLAMABAD: Government land costing billions of rupees on the Murree Road has allegedly been allotted.
While widening the Murree Road in 1998-99, the then Punjab chief minister, who also holds the post now [Shahbaz Sharif], had decided to allot alternate land instead of financial compensation to some of the affected persons.
Working swiftly, the Highways Department first got transferred six acres of land on the main Murree Road owned by the Agriculture Department in their own names and then transferred it illegally to fake victims.
The Revenue department had also declared the allotment illegal six years back. After probe, it was learnt that land was provided to Raja Abdul Latif without any legal justification ignoring the legal claimant Zia Rashid.
Likewise, Raja Shafqat, son of Raja Mohammad Siddiq, was also allotted land while the actual claimant, Mohammad Hashim Khan, son of Haji Manzoor Hussain, was ignored. Two other real claimants Mohammad Usman and Jamila Akhtar were also not included in the list.
A six-member committee consisting of officials of the Revenue and Highways departments in the light of a detailed report of tehsildar Rawalpindi had ruled that all bogus allotments may be cancelled and the land illegally allotted maybe got vacated. The committee had also ruled that the genuine affected persons may be given alternate lands elsewhere.
source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=12142&Cat=13
Punjab, with Lahore as its bustling capital, contains half of Pakistan’s population. The provincial government is in the hands of the conservative, mildly Islamist party of a former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. In a speech in March his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who is chief minister, pleaded with the Taliban to leave Punjab alone as his administration shared their ideology of keeping out “foreign dictation” (ie, Americans). Officials bristle at comparisons between Punjab, which is moderately well run, and the lawless tribal areas.
It is correct to say that there has been no territorial takeover by extremists in any part of the province, nor any enforcement of Islamic law. However, Punjab functions as an ideological nursery and recruiting ground for militants throughout the country. Distinctions between the Taliban in the north-west and older jihadi groups in Punjab have broken down. The federal government says Punjabi groups have been responsible for most of the big terrorist attacks in the province.
Punjab’s minister of law, Rana Sanaullah, went on the campaign trail in February with the reputed head of Sipah-e-Sahaba, for a by-election in the southern town of Jhang. The two rode through the streets in an open-top vehicle. The minister says that he was just trying to bring the group into the mainstream. Jhang is Sipah-e-Sahaba’s headquarters; the group makes little effort to hide its presence there.
Another outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammed, is based in Bahawalpur, also in southern Punjab, where it has a huge seminary. Former members of both organisations are integral parts of the Pakistani Taliban. Another group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the devastating attack on Mumbai in 2008, also has Punjab as its home. “The Punjab government is not only complacent, there is a certain ambivalence in their attitude” towards extremists, says Arif Nizami, a political analyst based in Lahore. “They compete for the religious vote bank.”
Mr Falur Rehman Niazi sahib, who is president of PML-N lawyers wing federal capital Islamabad and is a lawyer himself and has been president for many years, he garlanded a self confessed murderer. Please answer Nawaz Sharif
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Recent agitation against the Punjab government on the intermediate result fiasco, underscores the growing wedge between the youth and a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) desperate to woe the younger generation. The protests could not have come at a worse time for the Sharif’s, who are trying to mobilise the public against the federal government. Following the cancellation of the intermediate exams at four Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) centres in Punjab, students and the youth have raised fingers at the credentials of the Punjab Chief Minister (CM) to mount an anti-corruption campaign against the federal government. The failure of the online examination system across Punjab has sparked anger that now risks the 28 October rally by the Sharif brothers against the federal government, Pakistan Today learnt on Sunday.
Students have asked on what grounds are the Sharif brothers taking out a rally against corruption when the education boards in their own province had become the hub of corruption. While the Punjab CM was visiting education institutes to garner support, the cancellation of Inter-1 result at four BISE boards, including Lahore, Gujranwala, Multan and Faisalabad, sparked rage amongst students who chanted slogans against Shahbaz and Nawaz Sharif and set Punjab government advertisements on fire. After his Inter result was cancelled, student Wasif Ali said,
“Everytime I find the Punjab CM criticising corruption by the federal government, I want to ask him: what happened at the four BISE boards, Mr CM?”
– Wasif Ali
“Is it because of his love for education that no permanent education minister has been appointed in Punjab,” he said, “the education ministry has failed due to its incompetence and the CM should not expect the youth to turn up at his rally.”
“The parents of female students are sitting on roads and chanting slogans against the Punjab government but his government has ordered police to beat up students protesting for their rights. Why should we join him in the rally?” Kashif asked. Another intermediate student, Adeel Ahmad said it was ironic the PML-N was holding a rally against corruption when the CM himself was supervising corruption in Punjab. “While Shahbaz has rightly suspended the BISE Chairman and Controller, no action has been initiated against the man behind the fiasco, BISE It Consultant Dr Majid Naeem, who is related to a PML-leader,” Adeel said.
He said it was common knowledge that Dr Majid had corruptions cases registered against Majid, who had been terminated from Punjab University on corruption charges. He said the fact that the PML-N was turning a blind eye to Majid’s corruption, showed their hypocrisy.
http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/10/%E2%80%98clean-up-your-own-house-first%E2%80%99/
As Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) battle through banners, Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) is unable to regulate the display of banners which has officially been banned on the Mall and other major roads of the city, Pakistan Today has learnt. The Mall is heavily polluted by an array of banners that have been put up to advertise the PML-N rally on October 28, from Nasir Bagh to Bhatti Chowk, and the PTI rally on October 30 in Minar-e-Pakistan, following a lack of implementation of the ban. A senior official of PHA said it appeared as if political parties were questing to achieve political glory by attracting people to join their causes but neither did they consider the ban nor did they consider how adversely it polluted the road. He said some of the banners hanged through electric poles and traffic signals after last night’s windstorm. Some had fallen on the road, dirtying it while most poles displayed three to four banners which looked unsightly, he added.
In front of the Punjab Assembly, PML-N banners with pictures of Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and Hamza Shahbaz bearing political slogans were seen. On the other stretch of the road, PTI banners could be sighted in the proximity of the Governor House.
Javed Jabbar, a resident of lower Mall, told Pakistan Today that the unsightly banners were a cause of concern for citizens. He also noted that the government’s promise to keep the Mall free from banners had not been fulfilled.
PML-N President, Mian Nawaz Sharif, made an unannounced dash to Dubai Thursday afternoon and returned to Pakistan the same evening. The visit was kept completely under wraps and even the senior most party leaders had no idea that their leader had gone missing from the country for a few hours.
According to a source, Mr. Sharif also held an “important meeting lasting a couple of hours” with some undisclosed individuals; however no further details were available on this count and could not be confirmed by another independent source.
According to details, Nawaz Sharif landed in Dubai late afternoon and drove straight to the residence of Senator Ishaq Dar, whose son is married to Nawaz Sharif’s daughter. When contacted, Senator Pervez Rashid (PML-N) insisted that there was nothing unusual or “mysterious” about the visit and that Mr. Sharif had gone to Dubai to meet his daughter and to deal with some family matters.
Responding to another query he said, “Mian sahib had planned this private visit for a while but we (party leadership) had asked him to postpone it because of the evolving political situation here at home. Now he felt that he could afford to take out a few hours for this visit,” adding, “Please do not read anything into a simple private family visit”. When asked about the need to keep the visit a secret, Senator Rashid shrugged off the assertion by saying, “It was a private visit, that’s why”.
It may be recalled that in the past however, every time Mr. Sharif went on a ‘private’ visit either to the UK or the UAE, maximum media coverage was always ensured by his political aides and respectable sized reception parties were assembled at the destination airports. Why this past tradition was suddenly abandoned and a blanket of secrecy thrown over the visit, only time will tell.
SOURCE: http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=9538&Cat=13
Posted by malika in Afghan -Taliban-India Axis, India, India Hall of Shame, India's Missile Technology Proliferation, India's Nuclear Proliferation, Makaar Dushman, Suppression of Women in Hindu India on April 15th, 2013
Think for a moment about which countries cause the most global consternation. Afghanistan. Iran. Venezuela. North Korea. Pakistan. Perhaps rising China. But India? Surely not. In the popular imagination, the world’s largest “democracy” evokes Gandhi, Bollywood, and chicken tikka. In reality, however, it’s India that often gives global governance the biggest headache.
Of course, India gets marvelous press. Feature stories from there typically bring to life Internet entrepreneurs, hospitality industry pioneers, and gurus keeping spiritual traditions alive while lovingly bridging Eastern and Western cultures.
But something is left out of the cheery picture. For all its business acumen and the extraordinary creativity unleashed in the service of growth, today’s India is an international adolescent, a country of outsize ambition but anemic influence. India’s colorful, stubborn loquaciousness, so enchanting on a personal level, turns out to be anything but when it comes to the country’s international relations. On crucial matters of global concern, from climate change to multilateral trade, India all too often just says no.
India, first and foremost, believes that the world’s rules don’t apply to it. Bucking an international trend since the Cold War, successive Indian governments have refused to sign nuclear testing and nonproliferation agreements — accelerating a nuclear arms race in South Asia. (India’s second nuclear tests in 1998 led to Pakistan’s decision to detonate its own nuclear weapons.)
Once the pious proponent of a nuclear-free world, New Delhi today maintains an attitude of “not now, not ever” when it comes to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. As defense analyst Matthew Hoey recently wrote in theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “India’s behavior has been comparable to other defiant nuclear states [and] will undoubtedly contribute to a deteriorating security environment in Asia.”
Not only does India reject existing treaties, but it also deep-sixes international efforts to develop new ones. In 2008, India single-handedly foiled the last Doha round of global trade talks, an effort to nail together a global deal that almost nobody loved, but one that would have benefited developing countries most. “I reject everything,” declared Kamal Nath, then the Indian commerce and industry minister, after grueling days and sleepless nights of negotiations in Geneva in the summer of 2008.
On climate change, India has been no less intransigent. In July, India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, pre-emptively told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton five months before the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen that India, a fast-growing producer of greenhouse gases, would flat-out not accept binding carbon emissions targets.
India happily attacks individuals, as well as institutions and treaty talks. As ex-World Bank staffers have revealed in interviews with Indian media, India worked behind the scenes to help push Paul Wolfowitz out of the World Bank presidency, not because his relationship with a female official caused a public furor, but because he had turned his attention to Indian corruption and fraud in the diversion of bank funds.
By the time a broad investigation had ended — and Robert Zoellick had become the new World Bank president — a whopping $600 million had been diverted, as the Wall Street Journal reported, from projects that would have served the Indian poor through malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and drug-quality improvement programs. Calling the level of fraud “unacceptable,” Zoellick later sent a flock of officials to New Delhi to work with the Indian government in investigating the accounts. In a 2009 interview with the weekly India Abroad, former bank employee Steve Berkman said the level of corruption among Indian officials was “no different than what I’ve seen in Africa and other places.”
India certainly affords its citizens more freedoms than China, but it is hardly a liberal democratic paradise. India limits outside assistance to nongovernmental organizations and most educational institutions. It restricts the work of foreign scholars (and sometimes journalists) and bans books. Last fall, India refused to allow Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan journalists to attend a workshop on environmental journalism.
India also regularly refuses visas for international rights advocates. In 2003, India denied a visa to the head of Amnesty International, Irene Khan. Although no official reason was given, it was likely a punishment for Amnesty’s critical stance on the government’s handling of Hindu attacks that killed as many as 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat the previous year. Most recently, a delegation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a congressionally mandated body, was denied Indian visas. In the past, the commission had called attention to attacks on both Muslims and Christians in India.
Nor does New Delhi stand up for freedom abroad. In the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Human Rights Council, India votes regularly with human rights offenders, international scofflaws, and enemies of democracy. Just last year, after Sri Lanka had pounded civilians held hostage by the Tamil Tigers and then rounded up survivors of the carnage and put them in holding camps that have drawn universal opprobrium, India joined China and Russia in subverting a human rights resolution suggesting a war crimes investigation and instead backed a move that seemed to congratulate the Sri Lankans.
David Malone, Canada’s high commissioner in New Delhi from 2006 to 2008 and author of a forthcoming book, Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy, says that, when it comes to global negotiations, “There’s a certain style of Indian diplomacy that alienates debating partners, allies, and opponents.” And looking forward? India craves a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, seeking greater authority in shaping the global agenda. But not a small number of other countries wonder what India would do with that power. Its petulant track record is the elephant in the room.
Nawaz Sharif and his cronies have always been working to plunder Pakistan’s wealth as their sole agenda. He expanded his business empire by misusing his authority as Chief Minister Punjab and Prime Minister Pakistan. And in order to gain financial benefits, he manipulated laws and changed policies. Likewise, in a bid to avoid accountability, the Nawaz Sharif Government amended “The Ehtasaab Act” and made it effective from “1990” instead of “1985” as proposed in the original text of the “Ehtasaab Act” prepared by the interim government of caretaker Prime Minister (Late) Mairaj Khalid (1996-97). And by bringing this change he cunningly saved his tenure of Chief Minister Punjab (1985-88) from accountability.
Despite all maneuvering following references were filed against the Sharifs:-
The first tenure of Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister in the year 1990 saw another reign of loot and plunder. During this period Mian Nawaz Shairf obtained loans amounting to more than Rs.614 billion from Banks through his influence against inadequate guarantees. According to the details of loans obtained by Sharifs include Rs.1556 million for Ittefaq Foundries, Rs. 543 million for Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills, Rs.455 million for Mehran Ramzan Textile Mills, Rs.373 million for Ramzan Bukhsh Textile Mills, Rs.339 millions for Ch. Sugar Mills, Rs.226 millions for Ittefaq brothers, Rs. 205 million for Sandalbar Textile Mills, Rs.182 million for Hudaibiya Engineering Mills, Rs.153 million for Hamza Board Mills Ltd, Rs.134 million for Hudaibiya paper Mills, Rs.351 Million for Brothers Sugar Mills, Rs.174 million for Brothers Textile Mills, Rs.159 million for Brothers Steel Mills, Rs.623 million for Ramzan Sugar Mills, Rs. 191 million Khalid Siraj Textiles, Rs.313 million for Ittefaq Sugar Mills, Rs.164 million for Ittefaq Textile Mills, and Rs.239 million were obtained for Ittefaq Brothers. Due to the malpractice the national wealth was used for establishing personal empire while the country’s economy was facing disaster. This loan was equivalent to the total internal loan obtained by the government of Pakistan! These so called patriotic politicians ruthlessly plundered the national exchequer and used national wealth for personal financial gains. In addition money laundering worth billions of dollars through illegal means, wheat import scam, awarding motorway’s contract to an internationally black listed company, receiving heavy loans despite of being defaulter, secret businesses in UK (Evidence attached), Sugar mills in Kenya and four flats in the most expensive area of London and huge commissions in privatization of Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB) are also a few “achievements” of Nawaz Sharif and family.
The Auditor General Report released in the year 1988-89 reported that Nawaz Sharif, misusing his authority as Chief Minister Punjab, issued directives which resulted into direct malpractice of Rs. 35 billion.
The report said that the Chief Minister Secretariat had been turned into a hub of corrupt practices and Nawaz Sharif used public money like an emperor that resulted into huge fiscal deficit of the province.
The Auditor General Report released in the year 1986-87 said that the then Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif had used Rs. 1200 million for malpractices in only one year.
Nawaz Sharif allotted 3000 precious Lahore Development Authority (LDA) plots among his favourites due to which the province suffered loss of billions of rupees.
Nawaz Sharif was the lead character of the Cooperative and Financial Institutions Scam, which deprived the retired employees, orphans, widows, and poor of their total assets amounting to Rs. 17 billion.
Nawaz Sharif released Rs. 1200 million from his discretionary grant in the year 1985-86 while Rs. 1895 million were released in 1986-87, Rs. 1899 million were used in 1987-88 while another Rs. 1887 million were distributed among his cronies.
Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and other party leaders practically share and proudly identify commonalities between PML-N and Taliban and they have very close ties and cordial relations with terrorists and banned terrorist outfits. In early 90s Nawaz Sharif received huge sums of money from Osama Bin Laden to overthrow former Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaheed Benazir Bhutto’s Government. Even now PML-N’s cabinet members and spokespersons are commonly seen hanging around with members of those banned outfits, reportedly involved in managing terrorist attacks on thousands of innocent Pakistanis including soldiers, police officials and members of other law enforcement agencies.
Due to compromising attitude of PML-N’s leadership and their mild will to fight against the menace of terrorism the members of law enforcement agencies are completely demoralized. That is one of the reasons that the investigations against terrorists are not carried out in a proper manner and proof against arrested terrorists usually is not available. Due to the incapability of the Punjab Government terrible terrorist attacks took place in the province including suicide attack on Police Training School Bedian Road, blast in Moon Market Lahore, car bomb blast in the Rescue 15 building, car bomb blast in F.I.A building, suicide attack on Munawan Police Training Center, Model Town link road bomb blast, suicide attack on Jamia Naemia, terrorist attack on Ahmedi’s worship places, blasts in Imam Bargahs including Karbla Gammay Shah and suicide bomb blasts in the sacred shrine of Hazrat Data Gunj Buksh along with many others. After these attacks PML-N has morally lost its right of government in Punjab.
Further, it was Shahbaz Sharif, who instead of showing courage and political and moral will to fight against the enemies of Pakistan, in his speech in Jamia Naemia Lahore, begged for mercy from the terrorists. He, in a very disgraceful manner, requested them not to attack Punjab as they are likeminded and standing on the same side. This statement of Shahbaz Sharif reflects his mindset !
Nawaz Sharif and Co. has always been involved in destabilizing the democratic system by one way or the other and did not even hesitate to take bribes to grab power. Lt. General (R) Naseerullah Babar, the former Interior Minister had disclosed in the National Assembly in 1994, that the ISI had disbursed money to purchase the loyalty of various right wing politicians, including that of Nawaz Sharif, in order to manipulate the 1990 elections, for the Islamic Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI- Pakistan democratic alliance), and bring about the defeat of the PPP. As proof Lt. General (R) Naseerullah Babar, Lt. General (R) Asad Durrani and others have filed affidavits supported by copies of various documents. In Air Marshal Asghar Khan’s human rights petition (HRC 19/96) in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against the former Chief of Army Staff Mirza Aslam Baig and the former Chief of the ISI and a banker concerning the criminal distribution of the people’s money for political purposes. The case is pending adjudication in the Supreme Court of Pakistan for the last 14 years.
1. 6. DECEIT AND LYING
Nawaz Sharif’s politics is based on the philosophy “lie repeatedly till it seems as the truth”. He has based his politics on deceit and lies. Nawaz Sharif and his “chellaz” believe in lying repeatedly and religiously follow their convictions in this regard. They are masters in the art of manipulation and alteration and use their wealth to achieve their goals. One example is enough to expose their hideous character. After conviction in the hijacking case, Nawaz Sharif and his family approached foreign friends who persuaded President Pervez Musharraf to have mercy and forgive them. Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and family sought pardon and signed agreements including a commitment not to participate in politics for a period of ten years but they kept lying and hid the existence of these agreements from the nation until the head of Saudi Arabian Secret Agency, Prince Miqran Bin Abdul Aziz and Prime Minister of Lebanon Mr. Saad Hariri’s unveiled the existence of these agreements and Ch. Nisar had to admit the existence of these agreements during the press conference of Javed Hashmi. Sharif brothers in return of Pervez Musharraf’s “Ehsaan” (generosity) have not only crossed all limits of hostility but also lied to the nation. Would Nawaz Sharif and his “chellaz” ever tender apology to the Pakistani Nation, for lying to them for so many years?
Under the horrible times of Shahbaz Sharif’s Government the Punjab province has been virtually converted in to a “Badmaash” (rogue) province. Here police officials get involved in heinous and brutal criminal activities like one in Sialkot. The administration did not take any action against the shameful and atrocious lynching of two young brothers until the footage was telecast on electronic channels. It is believed that only in Gujranwala Division, where a brother of PML (N) MNA was deputed as head of police department, more than two hundredextra judicial killings have taken place. The record shows that in Punjab, police force has been continuously used to harass and insult political rivals. An endless campaign of lodging false FIRs against political opponents has also been initiated. Use of brutal police force and baton-charge has become a routine. Every segment of society including journalists, doctors, teachers, students, nurses, Government employees, semi Government and private institutions and lawyers have faced the brutality of police while protesting for their demands.
It is a hard fact that poor governance & maladministration is trade mark of Sharif brothers. Shahbaz Sharif is an attention-seeker and likes to show off. For the sake of “cheap publicity” he has started calling himself “Khadam-e-Ala” but miserably failed to meet the challenges of governance and administration. It’s a harsh reality that during his tenure in Punjab all institutions deteriorated conspicuously. In order to achieve their motives, Sharifs always appoint their blue eyed personnel on key posts by completely ignoring merit. Almost all districts of Punjab are being run by grade 19 officers who are incapable hence a basic reason for poor governance. Due to his dictatorial approach Shahbaz Sharif himself heads 12 provincial ministries and he seldom holds cabinet meeting. He takes decisions over ruling, the cabinet. His obstinate behavior is the prime reason for the maladministration in the province. It would be just and appropriate to suggest that Sharifs have failed to establish a democratic spirit in their government and have completely overlooked the norms of democratic political setups.
In order to consolidate and attain more power, ‘the champion of democracy and independent judiciary’, Nawaz Sharif attacked every individual and institution, he felt could get in the way and challenge his authority. In order to get rid of Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, who Nawaz Sharif despised, the latter created divisions amongst the judges using the humble services of a former judge, Rafique Tarrar (later President of Pakistan) to make life difficult for the Chief Justice. A group of judges refused to acknowledge CJ Sajjad Ali Shah as the Chief Justice and things got so bad that a number of junior judges made it difficult for him to carry out his duties. Eventually, Sharif ordered his thugs to attack the Supreme Court in order to prevent the Chief Justice from giving a ruling against him.
The police did nothing to stop Sharif’s thugs as they attacked and entered the Supreme Court premises. The judges inside the building barely managed to escape. The thugs, led by Sajjad Naseem and Mushtaq Tahir Kheli, Nawaz Sharif’s political secretaries, entered the court chanting anti-CJ Sajjad slogans and destroyed the Court Room.
1. 10. CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE PRESS AND JOURNALISTS
A number of incidents during 1998-99 indicated a pattern of harassment and intimidation of individual journalists as the government was increasingly becoming intolerant. Imtiaz Alam, a Lahore-based journalist, complains of threats over the telephone and then of his car being set on fire in a mysterious manner the next day. Another Lahore journalist, Mahmud Lodhi, was picked up and held in illegal custody for two days. He was questioned about his involvement with a BBC team filming a documentary on the rise and wealth of the Sharif family. Present Pakistani ambassador in USA Mr. Hussain Haqqani was picked up in a cloak-and-dagger fashion and interrogated at a FIA Center for money embezzlement while he held government office.
The residence of Idrees Bakhtiar, a senior staff reporter of monthly Herald and BBC correspondent in Karachi was raided by CIA police on Nov. 26, 1998. The police harassed the family and also arrested his 28-year old son, Moonis, who was later released. On Feb. 13, 1999, three persons, including Senator Abdul Hayee Baloch and a lady worker from Lahore, were injured when the police baton-charged, used water cannons and threw bricks on a peaceful procession of the Pakistan Awami Ittehad in front of the parliament house in Islamabad. The march, organized by the PAI for the freedom of the press, was led by PAI president Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan (late), the then opposition leader Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and secretary general of the alliance Hamid Nasir Chatta, besides a number of sitting and former PPP MNAs and senators.
The owner of the Frontier Post, Rehmat Shah Afridi, was arrested in Lahore on April 2, 1999, by the Anti-narcotics Force. The Peshawar-based Frontier Post was critical of government policies. Afridi’s arrest was seen by journalists and others as another attempt to gag the Press. On May 8, 1999, Najam Sethi, Editor of The Friday Times, was arrested on the orders of Nawaz Sharif. Police stormed into his house in Lahore and dragged him out of his bed room. After brutal torture and breaking furniture of the house he was shifted to some unknown place. And before leaving the house with Mr. Sethi, they tied his wife Jugnoo’s hands with a rope and locked her up in a dressing room. Later, Nawaz Sharif asked COAS Gen. Musharraf to charge Mr. Sethi under the Pakistan Army Act for being a traitor and give him maximum punishment (maximum punishment is death!).
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a press freedom organization, said on June 1, 1999 that it was conducting an investigation into a “hit list” prepared by the Pakistan government that contains 35 prominent journalists of Pakistan. According to reports received by the CPJ, the federal government had decided to establish a special media cell comprising officials from the police, Intelligence Bureau and the Federal Investigation Agency to punish the journalists, who had been writing against the government. Ehtesab Bureau Chairman, Senator Saifur Rehman Khan was to head this cell which would function from Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi and Peshawar with its head office in Islamabad.
According to the CPJ, the journalists were: Irshad Ahmed Haqqani (late), Rehmat Ali Razi, Anjum Rasheed, (writer and anchor person) Suhail Warraich, Sohaib Marghoob and (late) Roman Ehsan (Jang Lahore), M. Ziauddin (Dawn Islamabad), Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, Javed Jaidi, Nusrat Javeed, Mariana Babar and Ansaar Abbassi (The News, Islamabad), Rehana Hakeem and Zahid Hussain (Newsline), Ejaz Haider, Khalid Ahmed, Jugnu Mohsin and Adnan Adil (The Friday Times, Lahore), Mahmood Sham (Jang, Karachi), Rashed Rehman (The Nation, Lahore), Amir Ahmed Khan (Herald, Karachi), Imtiaz Aalam, Beena Sarwar, Shafiq Awan, Kamila Hyat and Amir Mir (The News Lahore), Abbas Athar (Nawa-e-Waqt, Lahore), Kamran Khan and Shehzad Amjad (The News Karachi), Azam Khalil (Pulse), Mohammad Malik (Tribune), Imtiaz Ahmed (The Frontier Post, Peshawar), Ilyas Chaudhry (Jang Rawalpindi), Naveed Meraj (The Frontier Post, Islamabad) and Syed Talat Hussain (The Nation, Islamabad).
The Government of Nawaz Sharif started a campaign against the Jang group in July 1998 when it refused to sack a number of journalists critical of Government policies. The government objected to the Jang group newspapers’ reporting about the law and order situation in the country and put a ban on advertisement. On August 13, a report was published about non-payment of Rs. 700 million to farmers by the sugar mills owned by the Nawaz Sharif family. Three days later, the government sent notices to Jang for non payment of taxes and the case was shifted to the Ehtesab cell. On September 27, 1998, the Government asked the Jang group not to publish a report of ‘The Observer London’ that Nawaz Sharif had siphoned off millions of rupees. The report was not published by the Jang but it was published by its sister English newspaper The News. On November 5, bank accounts of the Jang group were frozen and FIA raided the Jang and the News offices in Rawalpindi and customs authorities stopped delivery of newsprint to the Jang.
On Jan 28 1999, a sedition case was registered against Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman for publishing an advertisement of Muttahida’s Khidmat-e-Khalq Foundation on January 1, which according to the police, was aimed at inciting people against the state.
Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman revealed that Senator Saif-ur-Rehman
asked him to sack a number of Jang employees who should be replaced in consultation with the Government. He released to the press audio-tapes of conversation with Saif-ur-Rehman on this issue. Saif-ur-Rehman accused Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman for evading tax and customs duty to the tune of Rs. 2.6 billion.
The hostility of Sharifs towards media is also evident from the fact that in the parliamentary history of Pakistan for the first time a resolution, condemning the media, was tabled (by a group of MPAs belonging to Nawaz League) and passed in the Punjab Assembly.
1. 11. DESTABILIZATION OF INSTITUTIONS
There is probably no institution in Pakistan which Nawaz Sharif did not aggressively confront in order to make them comply with his wishes. Besides picking a fight with the President, the Judiciary and the restricted/limited media of that time, Sharif also decided to have a confrontation with the army, the only viable institution left in Pakistan. Due to his hostile and dumb approach in Nawaz Sharif’s first term as prime minister, he fell out with three successive army chiefs: General Mirza Aslam Beg, General Asif Nawaz and General Abdul Waheed Kakar. During his second tenure, he fell out with two other Generals, General Karamat and later with General Pervez Musharraf. General Karamat became the first Chief of Army Staff in the history of Pakistan to have been prematurely retired!
One by one all challenges and potential obstacles to his dictatorial mindset were removed from his way by Nawaz Sharif. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Farooq Leghari, Sajjad Ali Shah, and General Jehangir Karamat were all removed from the scene by Nawaz Sharif.
1. 12. Ill-CONSIDERED ECONOMIC DECISIONS
Nawaz Sharif’s ill-considered economic decisions cost Pakistan dearly! But the Sharif family’s personal business empire grew exponentially through questionable means.
Nawaz Sharif, during his tenure as Chief Minister Punjab from 1988-90, deprived the provincial departments of Rs. 15.35 billion. In addition in 1997-99 he caused huge loss amounting in 11 billion US dollars to private account holders by freezing foreign currency accounts contrary to the law and constitution wherein he and his cronies managed to get away with huge sums even after the freeze. Billions of dollars were removed from the banks without the permission/consent of the account holders but the accounts of common Pakistanis were withheld.
In last two and half years, Shahbaz Sharif wasted more than 40 billion rupees in “Sasti Roti” and other subsidized food schemes that had been initiated to earn cheap popularity and to benefit their political supporters. Admittedly these funds have been distributed amongst their own supporters without any audit just to gain political mileage. A huge chunk of these funds has been disbursed by the ghost “Tandurs” (burners) owners. Inflation and un-employment is rocketing day by day due to the ill-conceived decisions of the provincial government. This is one of the reasons that Punjab could not help flood victims at the time because they had utilized their funds in senseless politically motivated schemes and now have an overdraft amounting Rs. 80 billion.
The so called son of soil Nawaz Sharif virtually sold Kashmir in 1999 during Indian PM’s visit to Lahore. Nawaz Sharif deleted the word Kashmir from the joint declaration to please Indian counterpart. By crossing all the limits of treachery and falsehood Nawaz Sharif and his cronies claim that Pakistan armed forces lost the Kargil war. In fact, due to the decisions of Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan lost this war in the drawing room of the American President after wining it in the battlefield.
1. 14. ATOMIC EXPLOSIONS
It is a proven fact that in 1998 Nawaz Sharif was double-minded about the atomic explosions. While the nation waited breathlessly for a befitting reply to India, Nawaz Sharif was busy in negotiating economic packages with US Government. Gohar Ayub Khan, who was foreign minister at that time, has also corroborated this fact in his book.
Posted by admin in "Jihadi" Outfits of Terrorism, Asif Zardari Crook Par Excellance, BOOT THE SCOUNDRELS OR SHOWDAZ, Corruption, Defense, Domestic Policy, Foreign Policy, Looters and Scam Artists, Pakistan's Ruling Elite Feudals Industrialists, Pakistan-US Relations, PML (N) CORRUPTION on March 2nd, 2013
Iqbal Baig, the biggest heroin smuggler to US is building a Shopping Arcade on Hall Road in Lahore. He has torn down historic and architecturally unique flats built in 1920s and 30s, which were part of Pre-Partition Lakhshmi Mansion. Therefore, another, beautiful landmark of Lahore has been victim of corruption and malfeasance of the Sharif brothers dynasty.
How did Iqbal Baig manage to get approval for destruction of a historic landmark? Simply, by bribing the Punjab Government, whereby he was able to get a permit to destroy these historical buildings. This is another example of Punjab Government’s expedient cooperation with crooked builders like Malik Riaz and Iqbal Baig.
Hall Road shopkeepers have watched helplessly as this drug lord rolls over their property rights and create clouds of dust and debris in one of the biggest electronics market in Asia. The Punjab Government is in cahoots with this drug smuggler, who finances his activities by money laundering and uses mules to smuggle drugs to the West.
Why is the West silent on the rapid growth of the Empire of Drug Baron, Iqbal Baig in Lahore, Pakistan? What is the nature of relationship, between Shahbaz Sharif & the Sharif Family with this known drug kingpin? These are the questions, which have caused considerable distress in the minds of Hall roads business community. But, these concerns may be short lived, as Iqbal Baig can use strong-arm tactics and considerable financial clout to silence his most vocal critics.
Many businessmen on Hall Road are appalled at the blatant criminal activities of a known heroin smuggler. It seems the US DEA has all but forgotten about Iqbal Baig’s narcotic empire and his partnership with Al Qaeda and Taliban? However, this criminal is more dangerous than ever, because now he is acquiring a cover of legitimacy. Although, convicted in a US court, this criminal will try to beat the system through use of couriers, instead of getting himself involved in heroin smuggling. Nowadays, due to a weak and corrupt government, Pakistan is awash with narcotics. Iqbal Baig will continue to indulge in his drug smuggling activities, and finance them with money earned through of legitimate business enterprise, like the Hall Road Project. This also provides a conduit to launder drug money and stash it in Middle Eastern Banks. In the process people like Iqbal Baig destroy not only young peoples lives in the West, but also in Pakistan. They buy greedy politicians like the Nawaz Sharif by “donating,” to their electioneering. It is a creative form of indirect bribery, where the “obligated” politician looks the other way at the illegal activities of their benefactors.
It is imperative that US Ambassador pressure the Punjab Government to crack down on such criminals turned legitimate entrepreneurs. Otherwise, they will come to bite back by destroying the lives of people in East and West in the garb of their worst terrorist nightmares. Heroin smuggling, legitimate business, and terrorism are an explosive mix, which the global community should help Pakistan, nip in the bud. However, Pakistani politicians are always drooling for illegal gratifications in the form of bank deposits in Dubai, Cayman Islands, and Isle of Wight made by the likes of Iqbal Baig, Tapi, and Malik Riaz.
Iqbal Baig is well known to most of Lahorites, who often wonder, why US, which has waged a War on Terror, does not protest to the Punjab government, about the money laundering, property acquisition, and funneling of drug money into legitimate businesses. In Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexico, US has used its DEA agents to stop drug kingpins from infiltrating legitimate commercial enterprises. But, in Pakistan, heroin smugglers and money launderers are roaming around scott- free. Almost every person in Lahore knows about this drug kingpin and are surprised that the US Embassy or the Lahore Consulate or DEA have not raised Malik Iqbal’s burgeoning empires issue with the Pakistan or at least the Punjab Government. It is non-productive for DEA to chase small time drug mules, and leaving the barracudas among heroin. Smugglers untouched. It also earns the ill will of a nation, where US is spending considerable amount of money to build its image. US government should proactively, coaxing the Punjab Government to cut off money laundering activities of the Iqbal Baig Empire. This will go a long way in improving the image of US in Lahore, a city, which is the political capital of Pakistan. At the same time it will also earn the considerable goodwill from the people of Lahore, where the image of US suffered during the Raymond Davis Affair. And it will also go a long way in restoring good relations with the people of Pakistan. Otherwise, the question, as to why people of Pakistan, will remain unanswered.
The Taliban and tobacco
By Aamir Latif and Kate Willson June 29, 2009, 10:15 am
http://www.icij.org/project/tobacco-underground/taliban-and-tobacco
Tumman Khan is a poor, aging farmer who tills another man’s land in the restive northern tribal belt of Pakistan. For him and others in the Khyber Agency region, Sahib Ayub Afridi is considered an angel. The illiterate 70-year-old tribal leader finances construction of water pumps, streets and lighting, builds mosques and madrasahs, and supports the penniless and widowed.
But there’s another side to Afridi.
A one-time notorious drug kingpin who in the 1980s armed the Afghan Mujahidin at the CIA’s behest, Afridi churns out millions of counterfeit cigarettes to smuggle across central Asia, China, and Africa, and splits the proceeds with the pro-Taliban militants who control the swath of mountainous borderland, according to Pakistani intelligence and customs officials. The leaders of some of these militant groups are on the U.S. most-wanted list in the region — among them, Baitullah Mehsud, who has claimed responsibility for bloody attacks in Pakistan and has sworn to strike Washington, D.C. U.S. officials have responded by putting a $5 million price on Mehsud’s head.
A tax for terrorism
As government sanctions restrict traditional sources of terrorist financing, Pakistani militant groups increasingly rely on proceeds from counterfeit cigarette production and smuggling, intelligence sources say. Although income figures are rough estimates at best, profits from the illicit cigarette trade account for as much as 20 percent of funding for these militant groups, second only to heroin production, according to terrorism experts in Pakistan. “Taliban and other militant groups do not have to do much,” says Ikram Sehgal, a senior defense and security analyst who heads SMS Security, Pakistan’s leading private security company. “They simply receive taxes on a regular basis from owners of illegal and legal cigarette factories and later for the safe passage they provide to the convoys.”
Sahib Ayub Afridi: top cigarette counterfeiter in Pakistan.
The Afridi case is part of a broader trend of terrorism groups relying on contraband to finance their activities, experts say. Even if efforts to cut the region’s booming heroin production are successful — an unlikely prospect — the lucrative tobacco trade suggests how hard it will be to stanch funding to terrorists and insurgents in areas far from government control. The world’s longest-running civil wars are fueled by contraband according to a 2002 study by Stanford University’s James Fearon. Cocaine smuggling has largely propelled FARC’s 40-year insurgency in Colombia. Diamonds have funded civil wars in Sierra Leone and Angola. Opium has led to drawn-out conflicts in Afghanistan and Burma.
In the badlands of the Afghan-Pakistan border, the challenges are particularly daunting. U.S. President Barack Obama recently deemed the region “the most dangerous place in the world” for Americans. The growing power of the Taliban and other militant groups, combined with new waves of terrorism, has put Pakistan’s weak government on the defensive. The risks are indeed high: as much as two-thirds of the nuclear-armed country is ruled not by a central government but by insurgents, militants, tribal leaders, or warlords.
Overlooked in the Pakistani Taliban’s growing power is the role of tobacco smuggling.
As U.S. and NATO forces attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan, the predominantly Pashtun fighters increasingly sought sanctuary along the ungoverned border of Pakistan. The Khyber Agency — a border province boasting the most-traveled trade route between the two countries — is also the hotbed of cigarette counterfeiting in Pakistan. And its renegade factories have become the region’s largest employer, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.
Fateh Mohammed, a senior Pakistani tax official, said counterfeit cigarette production is on the rise, costing the government an estimated $88 million annually in lost taxes. He said the excise department does what it can, but the factories are “out of reach.”
“It’s hard for us to curb the sale and production of counterfeit cigarettes as we neither have the manpower and other resources to do that,” Mohammed said. “Nor do we have any reach to the tribal belt where this business is flourishing.”
Illicit cigarette production in the strife-torn tribal belt, a semiautonomous region of Pashtun tribes bordering Afghanistan, accounts for an estimated 22 percent of all consumption in Pakistan, a country with cigarette taxes among the highest in the world — accounting for 87 percent of the cost per pack. Mohammad Khosa, who heads the anti-counterfeiting efforts for British American Tobacco in the region, estimated that the region’s factories pump out some 15 billion cigarettes a year, a large portion of which end up smuggled to neighboring Afghanistan.
“Smuggling has long existed because of physical proximity to land routes going into Central Asia and beyond,” said Sumit Ganguly, professor and Pakistan expert at Indiana University. “On top of that, there are very poor people. The two dovetail very neatly.”
Trade routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan developed over thousands of years with no governmental controls. It wasn’t until the British drew a 1600-mile border between the two countries, in 1893, that a culture of illicit trade flourished. Today, Pashtuns pay little attention to the poorly marked borders that separate the rugged terrain between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Following the October 2001, U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, smuggling contraband goods across to Pakistan provided the Taliban with a major source of financing. In his final story published in The Wall Street Journal before his January 2002 abduction, Daniel Pearl reported on how the group “taxed” goods being smuggled across the border. The militants skimmed between $35 million and $75 million off exports of Marlboro cigarettes, Sony TVs, and Gillette shaving cream, Pearl wrote.
Today, no figure is more deeply mired in the region’s contraband trade than Haji Ayub Afridi, a tribal leader of the region-ruling Afridi clan, which has long controlled trade routes into Afghanistan and whose name is synonymous with trade and transport throughout Pakistan.
Who’s Who of militants
Afridi’s sweeping luxury estate near the Afghan border is enclosed by 20-foot high walls topped with concertina wire, guarded by a private army and protected by an anti-aircraft battery. Authorities point to a pair of lucrative, yet nameless, cigarette factories that Afridi owns, known locally as “One More Cigarette,” and to a number of cigarette-filled warehouses he is said to own near Peshawar — the region’s largest city, 25 miles east of his home. Because most of his business is in the names of associates, the full extent of Afridi’s assets is unknown, but officials believe he operates as many as six factories.
Afridi churns out copies of an array of Western brands — Marlboros, Camels, Benson & Hedges, and 555s, among them, officials say. The Marlboros and Camels are smuggled into Afghanistan and the central Asian countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Benson & Hedges is favored for shipment to South Africa, while counterfeit 555s are moved through the Khunjarab pass into China. Afridi also produces low-quality local brands One-Touch and Datchi, which are popular in Afghanistan.
Tobacco counterfeiter Afridi lives in a heavily guarded compound near the Afghan border.
Afridi pays protection money to a Who’s Who of the region’s militant leaders, according to Pakistani intelligence. In exchange for operating his factories in the Khyber Agency, sources say, Afridi pays $36,000 a month — the average combined annual income of 47 Pakistanis — to Mangal Bagh, leader of the area’s ruling pro-Taliban militia.
A former bus token taker and fellow member of the Afridi clan, warlord Bagh commands thousands of heavily-armed Islamist militants through his group Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam). In addition to collecting taxes from the likes of Afridi, the pro-Taliban group specializes in kidnapping for ransom. Early in his smuggling racket, Afridi refused to cut Bagh a percentage of his proceeds, instead paying protection taxes to a rival Taliban group, officials say. The two groups clashed in 2008, leaving 19 dead. Following the battle, Afridi agreed to pay Bagh.
Bagh may be the most moderate militant leader on Afridi’s payoff list. Afridi also pays a pair of rival Taliban factions in the neighboring tribal region of Waziristan, along the Afghan border to the south, who are actively fighting U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. One of the men, Mullah Nazir, opposes fighting against Pakistan security forces. But his rival, Baitullah Mehsud — leader of Pakistan’s Taliban movement — has advocated attacks against the Pakistani government and is blamed by Islamabad for ordering the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Mehsud’s troops also provide a safe haven for al-Qaeda forces fighting in Afghanistan, and his militancy has made him a prime target for the Americans. But that has not deterred the Taliban leader; he recently joined forces with Nazir and a third warlord who, together, now control much of the region. The rival groups agreed to “fight the U.S. together, because we are concerned over the surge in American troops in Afghanistan,” Nazir told local tribal chiefs, according to the Daily Times, an English-language newspaper in the region.
Afridi isn’t the only counterfeit cigarette producer in the tribal belt. Smugglers also transport cigarettes from illegal factories in neighboring provinces of Kohat and Bannu into Afghanistan through the border town of Miramshah. The area is in the grip of an al-Qaeda militia of ethnic Uzbeks loyal to Mehsud. Pakistani intelligence sources say cigarette smugglers pay the militant groups up to 20 percent commission for each convoy. American and Japanese model trucks leave the sprawling, high-walls cigarette factories almost daily, while bigger convoys of five to seven trucks leave twice a week, local residents say.
On the lam
Afridi is no stranger to the black market. During the 1960s he drove truckloads of smuggled gold through the Khyber Pass. His partner was a slightly older gold smuggler named Iqbal Baig. The two prominent tribal members would remain close business partners as they expanded into currency, hashish, and heroin smuggling.
The Torkham Crossing, a heavily traveled trade route between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In the 1980s, Afridi is credited with orchestrating the heroin trade between eastern Afghanistan, through the Khyber Pass, to the Afridi clan in Pakistan. Pakistani and Belgian authorities first sought his arrest in 1983, after tying the smuggler to 17 tons of hashish in a southwest Pakistan warehouse and another 6.5 tons in Antwerp, Belgium. But when 50 Pakistani police sought to arrest Afridi in 1990, they were met by an armed militia and quickly retreated, according to U.S. court records.
Despite his record as a narcotics trafficker, the CIA had its own uses for Afridi. In the 1980s, he was one of many Pashtun tribal leaders tapped by the agency to help finance and arm the Mujahidin struggle against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, according to The New Dimension of International Terrorism by former Harvard University fellow and U.S. Army Colonel Stefan M. Aubrey. After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, Afridi turned his attention homeward. He was elected to Parliament in 1990 — reportedly after paying up to $600 per vote to represent the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Through it all, Afridi never stopped dealing drugs, according to U.S. court records. He ordered subordinates to truck hashish to Karachi in Bedford trucks and old tanker trucks. Meanwhile, he and his partners made millions smuggling tons of heroin and hashish across the globe — through India to London, Paris, and Amsterdam, packed amid frozen fish into the Netherlands, through Singapore and Hong Kong, and across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada.
Afridi, through his longstanding contacts in the drug world, became the key supplier to the biggest narcotics ring in Pakistan, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA branded Afridi’s syndicate “the single most prolific heroin and hashish drug trafficking organization in Pakistan.” The amounts were indeed impressive: 57 tons of hashish into the Netherlands in a single shipment; 30 tons of hashish to California; and massive amounts of heroin around the world.
At the center of the operation was the notorious Iqbal Baig–a respected, well-known businessman whose assets included cinemas, textile factories, commercial property, and a pizzeria. And at Baig’s side was Tarik Butt, his brother-in-law. Butt took over a battery manufacturing plant in 1986 after its owner — smuggling heroin into Vienna on Butt’s behalf — died from a drug-filled balloon exploding in his stomach. The factory became “a social club of misfits, thugs, murderers and dope dealers,” said a New Delhi-based agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.
By the 1990s, however, Afridi’s criminal past was catching up with him. With authorities threatening prosecution, he went into hiding and was soon splitting his time between Pakistani tribal areas, Afghanistan, and the United Arab Emirates.
It was a trio of hash shipments — 58 tons in all — that finally led to Afridi’s undoing.
Children line up with lunch buckets at a refugee camp near Swabi, Pakistan, during spring 2009 fighting in the Swat valley.
Hidden amid fish, tires and sacks of rice, the drugs were sent to Long Island, New York, and Newport News, Virginia, and led to the arrest of one Stewart Newton, Afridi’s U.S. connection. Arrested in 1988, Newton was sentenced to 47 years in prison, but served only eight after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against the Pakistani smugglers. Also indicted were Butt and Baig, whom Pakistan extradited to the United States in 1995.
Afridi stayed out of reach, hiding in the tribal zone. But fearful of arrest by Pakistani officials and concerned his now-arrested co-conspirators would turn against him, he negotiated with the DEA for a year before finally turning himself in.
Now-retired DEA agent Gregory D. Lee recalls fielding odd questions from Afridi’s go-between during that time.
“He would ask crazy questions like, ‘how many times a day will I be beaten by the Marshals?’ and ‘will I be able to stay at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan,” Lee said during a recent phone interview. If he wasn’t permitted to serve out his sentence at the four-star hotel, Afridi wanted to know if he could employ a personal cook at the prison. “He had no idea what to expect.”
In 1997, Afridi pleaded guilty to smuggling hashish and was sentenced to five years in prison and a $100,000 fine. But the Pakistani godfather served only two years in U.S. jail, paid just $425, and in 1999 he was deported to Pakistan, where officials promptly arrested him for an earlier smuggling case.
Although sentenced in Pakistan to seven years in prison, Afridi was released without explanation shortly after 9/11. Soon after his release, he traveled to Afghanistan to unite anti-Taliban warlords, according to senior Pakistani intelligence and anti-narcotics officials. His attempts failed, they say, and the aging Afridi returned home.
It is back home, in the Khyber Agency, where Ayub Afridi has refocused his attentions. Gone are the hashish and heroin shipments, officials say. The old smuggler has found an easier racket to ply, with few penalties and easy profits — the untaxed cigarette trade. Reached by telephone, in English and Urdu, an elderly man at Afridi’s home denied he was Afridi and declined to comment further.
Nor will others talk openly about Afridi in his native land. Journalists do not write about the man, and even law enforcement officials speak about him in hushed tones. But the poor of the Khyber Agency are not so reticent. Despite his years in Afghanistan, in jails and throughout his smuggling exploits, Afridi didn’t forget the poor who surrounded him, farmer Tumman Khan told a visiting reporter. Even when Afridi was locked away in an American prison cell, the poor and widowed continued to receive monthly checks on his behalf.
“Haji Sahib is an angel for poor people like us,” Khan said. “We don’t know much about his business, whether legal or illegal. What we know is that he has helped us when no one was there to do that.”
Posted by admin in BOOT THE SCOUNDRELS OR SHOWDAZ, Corruption, Jahiliya "Jihadis"Illiterate Fanatics, LIAR POLITICIANS, Looters and Scam Artists, Morosi Siyasat & Political Crooks, NAWAZ SHARIF, Pakistan's Fights Terrorism, Pakistan's Hall of Shame, PML (N) CORRUPTION, PML(N), SHIA +SUNNI = MUSLIMS=ISLAM=PEACE on February 19th, 2013
O, What a Shame for Pakistanis to see the Murdering Mullas/Fanatical Goondas of Punjab are being patronized by the Sharif brothers…Adnan Khan,Pakistan Think Tank Commentator
LAHORE: Malik Ishaq enjoyed Punjab government’s financial assistance ever since the Sharif’s came to power in 2008, officials on condition of anonymity told The Express Tribune. The accused terror kingpin belonging to banned Sunni outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), nominated in 44 cases in which 70 people were killed, allegedly received a monthly stipend, during imprisonment, from the Punjab government. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah confirmed the disbursement but clarified that it was given to Ishaq’s family, not him, as per orders of the court. However, upon further investigation, it was revealed that nor was there any such disbursements during former president Musharraf’s tenure, nor was there any court order pertaining to the matter. REFERENCE: LeJ’s Malik received monthly stipend from Punjab govt By Asad Kharal Published: July 16, 2011 http://tribune.com.pk/story/210827/lejs-malik-received-monthly-stipend-from-punjab-govt/Ghalvi while talking to The Express Tribune confirmed that on the direction of Multan City Police Officer Amir Zulifqar, Multan and Vehari police have provided two policemen to him for security protection. Furthemore, Ghalvi has also relocated from his native town out of fear for his own life. He had been currently residing in two different locations, moving back and forth for security purposes.
However, leaving Ghalvi out, two other key witnesses and one complainant have not been provided any security as of yet and fear for their lives. The men identified as Khadim, Sikandar and Abdul Ghafour (complainant) are the only people to have survived the court cases which have taken 20 lives, including eight people who were murdered purely for being associated with the case.
“I can be attacked at any time and I do not know if I will be alive tomorrow or not, as you know almost everyone who was a witness or a relative has been slain,’ said Sikandar, who now operating a cloth store in Dokota on Multan Road.
“When Ishaq was in jail eight people were killed mercilessly by the same group,” said Khadim Hussain, who is now a farmer in Dokota.
The complainant (Abdul Ghafour) of the first case against Ishaq in which 12 people were massacred during a majlis, said he has been awaiting justice for 14 years but has completely lost hope since the release of Ishaq.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 16th, 2011.
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