Chandu Lakhani (UK) 10 Feb, 2013 06:44 PM Zardari is preparing for all eventuality. He has constructed his residence like a fortress, so nobody can successfully attack. Still, if worse comes to worst, he has also provided an air-strip so that he can sneak away no sooner army may want to move against him ! Well Done, Zardari ‘Shahab’. Pakistan seems to have bright future -it can be nothing else when you are at the helm. India is blessed with Nehru Gandhi family to rule us for ever. We do not want Pakistan to be deprived -and it is now blessed with Zardari Bhutto dynasty ! Do propagate advantages of such dynastic rules, so that more and more countries can benefit through India/Pakistan’s joint dynasty-run regimes ! Hail Pakistan, Hail India
PAKISTANI PRESIDENT ASIF ALI ZARDARI’S PRIVATE VILLA IS BLAST-PROOF, HAS RUNWAY
PTI Feb 8, 2013,
Lahore: A sprawling high-security private residence for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, complete with bomb-proof structures and a landing strip for small jets and helicopters, is nearing completion here. The compound in Bahria town, spread over some 200 kanals (25 acres), is named Bilawal House after Zardari’s son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. According to a Pakistan Peoples Party official from Punjab the residence has been gifted by property tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain.
The bomb-proof home is surrounded by lawns that can accommodate up to 10,000 people and has a runway for private jets and helicopters. The compound is surrounded by 30-feet high walls fitted with security gadgets. Once completed, the residence will have a three-tier security system. Zardari, who is due to arrive in Lahore on Sunday, is expected to visit Bilawal House with his son, the sources said. The residence in Lahore will serve as the main base in Punjab province for Bilawal during campaigning for the upcoming general election. Malik Riaz Hussain, believed to be close to Zardari, was at the centre of a controversy last year after he alleged that he funded three foreign trips by Arsalan Iftikhar, the son of supreme court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Meanwhile, on the president’s arrival, the private security guards of Bahria Town hosed water through high-pressure vehicles to disperse the journalists who tried to enter the housing society to cover the event. Some of the journalists received injuries. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Lahore Press Club leaders and the journalist community have strongly condemned the guards’ misbehaviour with the journalists and demanded legal action against them.
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO PAKISTANI PEOPLE WHILE BANDIT BILAWAL, ASIF ZARDARI LOOT THE COUNTRY
SDPI report: 58.7m Pakistanis living below poverty line
By Anwer Sumra
Published: February 25, 2014
Highest incidence of poverty prevails in Balochistan with 52% of the households living under poverty threshold.
LAHORE: As many as 58.7 million people in Pakistan are living in multidimensional poverty with 46 per cent of rural population and 18 per cent of urban households falling below the poverty line, says a survey report. The report titled ‘Clustered Deprivation’ is prepared by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) with the financial and technical assistance of United Nation Development Program (UNDP). The SDPI measures poverty on the basis of five dimensions – education, health, water supply and sanitation, household assets/amenities and satisfaction to service delivery. Further, a person taking less than 2,350 calories per day and earning less than $1.25 per day according to the United Nations standard has also been regarded as living below the poverty threshold. The highest incidence of poverty prevails in Balochistan with 52 per cent of the households living under the poverty line, followed by 32 per cent, 33 per cent and 19 per cent respectively in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), Sindh and Punjab, said the report presented to all provincial governments during the last month of 2013 In Punjab, higher incidence of poverty was observed in southern districts. Rajanpur is on top of the list with 44 per cent households falling below the poverty line. The people living below the line in other southern districts respectively comprise 40 per cent households in Muzaffargarh, 36 per cent in DG Khan, 33 per cent in Bahawalpur, 31 per cent in Layyah and Lodhran, 31 per cent in Pakpattan, and 28 per cent in Multan, Khanewal and Bhakkar districts. The SDPI report on Balochistan says the restive province faces the highest incidence of poverty as compared to others. However, except for Muskhel, the majority of the districts in the north have relatively low incidence of poverty. It is high in the central and southwest part of the province with the exception of Panjgur and Gawadar districts. In K-P, the incidence of poverty is extremely high in the northern mountainous regions, very high in the southern regions, average in the central parts while the districts adjacent to Islamabad show low levels of poverty. According to the document, the southeast part of Sindh is the poorest region, while central Sindh is relatively less poor and southwest Sindh the least poor region of the province. Out of 27 districts, the inhabitants of 18 districts are facing severe poverty conditions. Tharparkar has the highest incidence of poverty in Sindh with 47 per cent households living below the poverty line. The report says 42 per cent households in Badin, 41 per cent in Tando Muhammad Khan, 40 in Thatta, 39 per cent in Nawabshah and Jamshoro, 38 per cent in Larkana and Shahdadkot, 36 per cent in Jacobabad, 32 per cent in Tando Allah Yar, 29 per cent in Matiari and Dadu, 28 per cent in Shikarpur and Sanghar, 27 per cent in Khairpur, and 25 in Hyderabad and Sukkar districts live below the poverty threshold. The report reveals that one-third of Pakistani households are facing poverty, with uneven distribution mong provinces and rural and urban populations. With more than half of the population below the poverty line, Balochistan is the poorest province. Acknowledging the SDPI report, Punjab Planning and Development Board chief Khalid Sultan said it had used the report had used data from Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) that is specifically designed for the analysis of poverty. Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2014.
It is a fact that Pakistan’s military establishment and its various Punjabi-Muhajir affiliates (e.g., Malik Riaz of Bahria Town, Yunus Habib of Mehran Bank) have kept a large number of TV anchors and journalists (both in Islamist dominated Urdu media and lifestyle liberals dominated English media) on their payroll in order to influence the media discourse and public opinion.
The most prominent name in the list of journalists (published by Aaj TV) allegedly on the payroll of real estate tycoon Malik Riaz was that of Pakistan’s top “liberal” columnist and anchor Najam Sethi. An account of favors given to numerous journalists in shape of money, car and property etc is recorded in the trademarked letterheads of Bahria Town published by Aaj TV and other websites.
Seen from that angle, there is not much difference between right-wing daily Ummat (or Jamat-e-Islami) or liberal-wing The Friday Times (or Jinnah Institute).
Najam Sethi, the cartaker Chief Minister of Punjab, is a close friend of Malik Riaz, Pakistan’s leading and biggest land grabber. In fact, Sethi and some of his colleagues (Hamid Mir, Marvi Sirmed etc) are allegedly on Malik Riaz’s payroll. This may explain from where did Mr. Sethi got millions of dollars to buy most expensive apartments in the United States.
Malik Riaz started Jinnah newspaper in 2002 and wanted to become columnist but he failed to do so that was one of the reason for paying top columnist to write for him.
Malik Riaz has close links with Saudi-Wahhabis and ASWJ-LeJ. He is the same person who offered sanctuary to Deobandi militants of Lal Masjid / Jamia Hafsa and rebuilt a new Jihadi Deobandi madrasssa for Umme Hassan and Maulana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid. He also has liberal Marvi Sirmed on his payroll.
In other words, Malik Riaz’s influence spans from Islamofascist Umme Hassan to lifestyle liberal Marvi Sirmed.
In 2011, Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudary had ordered inquiry into alleged land-grabbing by Pakistan Army’s Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and Malik Riaz’s Bahria Town. A judicial report concluded that DHA and Bahria Town were involved in massive land grabbing and encroachment under the nose of the country’s regulators and police. The inquiry report revealed that three leading property developers, including Bahria Town and DHA, illegally seized around 30,000 kanals (3750 acres) of land using private militias. The criminal activities of the groups were perpetrated in connivance with police, revenue department and lower judiciary, the report added.
Sources claimed that Malik Riaz of Bahria Town has been rendering bribes of billions of rupees to renowned politicians, military officials, and even journalists in a bid to perpetuate his activities with complete impunity.
It is noteworthy that a senior anchorperson (Talat Hussain), while talking to saach.tv, claimed that Malik Riaz had given a “precious car” as bribe to Najam Sethi. Another anchorperson claimed that Riaz had also gifted a sumptuous villa in Dubai to Mr. Sethi.
On June 6, 2012, Talat Hussain revealed Malik Riaz had informed him that certain anchors who referred to their sources as ‘churiya’ (birdie) and other such birds, in their respective shows, were in fact referring to him (Riaz). However, Talat Hussain did not take any names, perhaps, because it is well known in news circles that Najam Sethi often refers to his sources as ‘chiriya’.
On the very same day Najam Sethi had an outburst during his show when his co-host Muneeb Farooq repeated the allegations hurled by Hussain. Sethi said he would be sending a legal notice to Talat Hussain. But Sethi wouldn’t stop there: he had a few accusations of his own to hurl towards Talat Hussain. Sethi accused Talat, without mentioning his name, of reporting for Stratfor, a global intelligence company which Sethi said was a front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), sourcing WikiLeaks. [Talat clarified his position on this allegation in a subsequent talkshow.]
Be that as it may, close aides of the popular newsman claim that up till now legal actions has not been taken by Sethi. When Sethi was contacted, he refused to divulge into his actions against Talat.
Talat Hussain was not available to comment on the story, although Raza Muhmood Agha, who is the producer for Hussain’s talk show told The Express Tribune that it was unlikely that Sethi would send them a legal notice since Hussain had already clarified all accusations levelled by Sethi, the very next day on his talk show.
Note: Watch last 20 mins of Talat Hussain’s show for his allegation against Sethi while last 15 minutes of Sethis’s show to see how he threatens Talat Hussain with legal consequences and also alleges that Talat is a CIA agent.
Najam Sethi talks about alleged benefits from Malik Riaz
In his program ,Talat Hussain explained his position about agreement with US based organization and looks fine and appropriate. Talat Hussain also declared his assets and bank accounts and dared Najam Sethi to follow the example.
Example of Malik Riaz’s links with and influence on Pakistan military establishment
Lt Gen Shahid Aziz quoted Lt Gen Khalid Maqbool, a former NAB Chairman, as saying while trying to convince him that:
“If you stop corruption, there will be no development. If ministers and politicians are not given personal benefits in contracts, why would they pursue development schemes? They have to be given personal incentives…contracts to their sons and kinship.”
Once Gen Musharraf had personally called him and asked him:
‘…. drop the name of one Malik Riaz Hussain from the exit control list. (Riaz Hussain was one of prime accused in a multi-million-forest land scam) As President of Pakistan, I give my personal guarantee that he (Malik Riaz) would not run away. Isn’t a personal guarantee of the President of Pakistan sufficient to satisfy you’? Malik’s name was removed from the ECL subsequently. NAB; A page from our history Inam R Sehri http://www.seamonitors.org/id148.html
He said when he put the name of Malik Riaz Hussain (of Bahria Town) in the exit control list while investigating a forest land case, he had to face bitter arguments with President Musharraf to take out Malik`s name from the ECL. “As President of Pakistan, I give my personal guarantee that he (Malik Riaz) would not run away. Isn`t a personal guarantee of the President of Pakistan sufficient to satisfy you”, he quoted Mr Musharraf as saying. Malik`s name was pulled out of the ECL subsequently, he said. REFERENCE: Musharraf stopped probes, says ex-chief of NAB By Khaleeq Kiani 6th December 2009 http://archives.dawn.com/archives/37897
…
Sharifs could not say no to Malik Riaz in Najam Sethi case
By Iram Salim
Islamabad, March 27 (www.pakdestiny.com) The sparrow of Najam Sethi, property tycoon Malik Riaz, has finally won the Sharif Brothers to hand over the ‘priced’ caretaker chief ministerhip to his man.
Sharifs also seemed to be afraid of the ire of Jang Group for not agreeing on the name of their anchor – Sethi. By agreeing on Sethi’s name, Sharifs think they have got closer to Malik Riaz as well as to the Jang group but only time will tell.
Sethi has shown how desperate he was to get some “official protocol” by entering the government setup. However, the actual kingmaker behind the scene is none else than the property tycoon Malik Riaz.
* Real estate tycoon says he never distributed money, house, plots and air tickets among journalists * All such allegations aim at defaming journalists
Staff Report
LAHORE: Zahid Hussain Bukhari, counsel for property tycoon Malik Riaz, read out message of his client that he (Riaz) never distributed money, houses, plots or air tickets among journalists.
Addressing a press conference, Bukhari read the message, “News reports alleging me for distribution of money, houses, plots and air tickets to various journalists are absolutely false and baseless. I deny and reject them completely.”
The message read further the allegations were anonymous which proved that their aim was to defame journalists. This is the handy work of the dirty tricks section of a political party.
“It is reported that I told TV anchor Talat Hussain that I was one of the ‘chirya’ or source of anchor Najam Sethi’s information. This is a white lie. I have never met or spoken with Talat Hussain. I demand him swear on oath that he talked to me and passed on this false information too. I reserve my right to sue him for this false allegation. I make it clear that I have never given money, plots, air tickets to Najam Sethi or anyone else as alleged,” the message also read.
“In another instance, the allegations are printed on Bahria Town letterhead, which could have been stolen from any of Bahria Town offices across the country. This is a fake document and was not prepared by the administration of Bahria Town,” it also read. “If it had been an internal Bahria Town document, at least it should have shown that these favours were given to various alleged recipients and not as received shown on document.”
To a question, Bukhari said that he was reading out this letter as a messenger.
About press conference of his client while holding the holy Quran in hand, Bukhari said it was Riaz’s personal act and “I did not like it”. He said that he respected the judiciary and would go to any extent to defend and protect its sanctity.
