The main feature of Pakistan’s 70th National Day was the impressive and colourful military parade that remained the focus of media coverage on 23rd of March this year. The march past was supposed to represent the country’s determination for defeating terrorism, which is a noble and desirable goal. So far so good. But for the last many years the country ...

Afrasiab Khan Khattak With the exception of a few sane voices Pakistan has lacked a rational and fair discourse on the question of accountability for obvious reasons. Prerequisites for genuine accountability such as supremacy of the Constitution, rule of law and equality of citizens before the law aren’t there. Holy cows have been and still are above the law and ...

It is official now. The Punjab police has issued written instructions to its personnel to keep an eye on people with Pashtun/Afghan dresses and food habits as terror suspects. Police officials of Mandi Bahaudin were not shy of widely circulating written instructions for profiling of Pashtuns/Afghans with interesting details in this regard. According to credible press reports Punjab police is ...

Pakistan has faced numerous terrorist attacks in the past but the current wave of terrorism has turned this week to be the bloodiest in the country’s history so far. The last five days have seen ten attacks targeting all the four provinces. Bloodbath at Sehwan, Sindh, on Thursday peaked the series of attacks when a suicide bomber hit the Sufi ...

A virulent debate has been going on in Pakistan about the implementation of the 20 points National Action Plan (NAP)  against religious extremism and terrorism since its inception on December 24, 2014. The opposition political parties have been blaming the government of lacking the required political will and commitment for taking the short term and long term measures for eradicating ...

A mysterious flurry of so-called jirgas (a traditional people’s assembly of tribal areas) has been witnessed during the last few weeks. The agenda of these activities seems to create confusion at a time when Pashtuns living in Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) appear to be at the verge of taking steps out of the colonial system of governance. The aforementioned ...

Enforced disappearances have remained a serious problem in terms of violation of human rights in Pakistan for a long time. But the scale and magnitude that this problem has acquired over the last one decade is frightening. The fourth military operation that started in Balochistan against Baloch nationalists in 2005 saw a growing number of Baloch political activists getting disappeared. ...

In the mid 1980s when the Cold War was at its peak and things had heated up in Afghanistan, the former Soviet statesman Mikhail Gorbachev described Afghanistan as a country that had turned into a bleeding wound. Unfortunately, apart from some brief intervals, the unlucky country hasn’t seen peace in the true sense of the word throughout the last four ...

The 110 pages damning report by Justice Qazi Faez Isa-led Inquiry Commission on Quetta terror attack of August 8 has categorically exposed the hypocrisy and double-dealings of the state institutions in their policy and action on terrorism. The report has been submitted to a three members Supreme Court bench led by the Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali on Thursday (December ...

The most glaring irony of the “federal, parliamentary democratic system” of Pakistan is that we congratulate ourselves when our elected assemblies complete their constitutional term (so far that has happened only once) and we also do the same when an army chief retires on the expiry of his tenure! Historically, apart from imposing outright martial laws, the deep state has ...