Today, without electricity and sweating out on my drawing sofa, I had a chance to think on the afflictions that are faced by common Pakistanis in their daily lives….I then wanted to drill down to the reasons of the various issues faced by us, the common people of this country, and a verse in Urdu came to my mind that sums up each and every ill. Here it goes:
In a move reminiscent of a need to save face, Parvez Musharraf has finally decided to hand over Karachi’s law and order responsibility to Pakistan Rangers. Yesterday, when Karachi was bleeding profusely and was desperately shouting for help, the so – called law enforcement agencies meted out a step – motherly treatment to this city by just being by – standers and watching the rape of the city’s fragile peace take place. It isn’t so that the police are dysfunctional; however, it seemed that all the law enforcement agencies in the city, and rangers included, were made dysfunctional on explicit orders. Otherwise, the rangers that have been bestowed with divine blessings today have had a sizeable presence in the city since several years and could have been directed to act yesterday only when three dozen persons lost their lives and several others suffered injuries. Loss of property is besides the loss of life and limb.
Furthermore, the Munafiq Qaumi Mafia (the name given to MQM by Mahmood Khan Achakzai) a.k.a. Muttahida Qaumi Movement has announced in a press conference today of closing all its sector offices all over the country. Probably they felt the need for this, now that rangers have been virtually given a free hand in Karachi today. They must have feared that their terrorists and dens (sector offices) might come under rangers’ scrutiny so it’s definitely better to order a closure of their dens and instruct their thugs to go in hiding!!
And the blame game continues…ruling party members, Musharraf included (it’s easy to understand why I call Musharraf a ruling party member), have consistently placed the blame of yesterday’s sad events on the Chief Justice’s shoulders. More importantly, the MQM members have gone so far as to publicly say on television that the CJP had no need to visit Karachi and that his entourage must have sought consultations with Sind government (read, MQM) regarding a Karachi trip (statement by Babar Ghouri of MQM, Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping in a Geo News talk show today morning). I say is this a banana state or what? Now citizens of this country would need a visa to visit the country’s largest city?
The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, whom the government suspended on March 9 over undisclosed charges of misconduct, had been scheduled to visit Karachi today to address a gathering of lawyers at the Sind High Court as part of the concluding ceremony of Supereme Court’s 50th anniversary. But fate had other designs on this address…..
Just as the Hon’bl Judge’s plane hit Karachi Airport, the law and order situation of this megapolis took a sharp U – turn and the city got converted into a vast battlefield. Coincidentally or otherwise, the MQM had too arranged a rally for today….however, it’s perplexing as to what the MQM would be protesting against, the party being part of the current dispensation that rules the country as well as the province of Sind. Many roads in Karachi were blocked apparently to disrupt the CJ’s program from going ahead.
The story does not end just here. Three days back, appearing in an ARY talk show , Waseem Akhtar of the MQM challenged the protests of the lawyer community and the opposition parties on the matter of the CJ’s suspension and retorted that the MQM would hold rallies on all those days when the opposition parties will hold rallies, when asked as to why did MQM was adamant on going with its plans for its rally to be held on the same day as the CJ’s. This comment definitely shows how callous the MQM leadership is towards others’ democratic rights. And why wouldn’t it be?? The party that fosters on a Nazi ideology would definitely be averse to democratic principles!!
Anyhow, back to Karachi affairs: media reports that atleast 27 people have lost their lives as a result of today’s showdown between the fascist MQM and opposition supporters and the death toll is expected to rise. The media was again one of the parties to have taken the hit; Aaj TV’s offices on the Business Recorder Road were attacked and have been under continuous gunfire since midday. The channel has been telecasting live pictures of armed terrorists roaming around the locality and virtually holding the area under siege. Interestingly, the police and the rangers have only acted as bystanders letting rape of the city’s peace take place under their noses. BBC reports:
One exchange of fire went on for half-an-hour between supporters of the pro-Musharraf Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and activists from the Pakistan People’s Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto near the airport, with several deaths reported.The Sind High Court, on the other hand, was cordoned off and all the roads leading towards the court premises were blocked by placing huge cargo containers and trucks across the roads; this cordon was again strengthened by the seige laid down around the court premises by armed MQM hoodlums.Dozens of people are reported injured.
Overnight, two men from the party of exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were shot dead at a roadside cafe.
Later another political activist, belonging to the religious opposition party Sunni Tehrik, was killed while he was putting up posters and banners. All three were killed by unidentified gunmen on motorcycles.
Television clips also showed that armed MQM workers holding party flags managed to enter the airport terminal building to prevent lawyers and opposition workers to receive the Hon’bl judge. It’s so hard to imagine that the provincial administration, hijacked by the MQM leadership managed to disable the Airport Security Force, which led to armed MQM men actually making it to the terminal building.
A question that comes to mind over today’s affair is how come the CJ’s program became such a law and order situation specially given the fact that other such programs in other cities have remained largely peaceful? For this, the government functionaries both at the provincial and federal levels have been continuously blaming the person of the CJ but their arguments are so blatantly ridiculous. The Sind Governor is on record for saying this on TV today that the CJ should not have gone ahead with his plans for the program given the fact that a possibility of such a situation had been explained to him earlier. But why did they require the CJ’s program to be scrapped? One line of argument is that the government might have become nervous due to the huge reception that the CJ was accorded with in Lahore and thus, the establishment must have felt the need to show its strength too. This is probably the only reason for which the MQM was used today and its rally organized. This, coupled with Waseem Akhtar’s remark stated above, lends credence to the thought that the government may be running out of patience over the CJ issue and how it has turned out to mobilize huge masses. If this really is the truth, it also reflects how insecure the government has now started to feel regarding the situation that has arisen due to its own actions. Strengthening this line of thinking is another rally that is currently taking place in Islamabad, organized by the ruling party and where Musharraf finds enough time to rant out and bore participants from his address.
Nevertheless, today the CJ issue has taken a totally unexpected turn due to the government’s own nonchalance. Karachi, which had returned to peaceful times after a long time and arduous efforts again witnessed scenes reminiscent of the mid and late 1990s when again the MQM made this city a living hell.
Lately the international financial scene has been hit by the news of the implication of a Pakistani banker, one Hafiz Muhemmed Zubair Naseem, in insider trading in US markets and profiting immensely from his scheme. He has been charged with 25 counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy for revealing details of deals on which Credit Suisse advised. And guess what?? He was not alone.
The SEC has charged Hafiz Naseem, an investment banker with Credit Suisse, with illegally divulging non – public information to a person believed to be a banker in Pakistan concerning the leveraged buyout of TXU Corp. by an investor group led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group. Naseem misappropriated the information from his employer, Credit Suisse, which served as a financial advisor to TXU in connection with the buyout. The SEC has filed a complaint with the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleging insider trading in TXU Call Options ahead of the TXU buyout. The Comission further charged Naseem of breach of duty in telephoning his colleague in Pakistan, another prominent banker, and divulging to him material but non – public information regarding the buyout. Naseem has also been alleged to have been tipped others concerning atleast eight additional merger deals worked upon by Credit Suisse since he joined in March 2006.
Well, the icing on the cake is yet to come. Dawn reports that the other banker in Pakistan indicated above is Ejaz Rahim, former Group Head of the Investment Banking Group at Faysal Bank. Ejaz Rahim has further confirmed that he is under investigation by the SEC. Both Naseem and Rahim have earlier worked together at American Express in Lahore (and both have been accused of illegal banking practices over there as well). Although Ejaz Rahim denies any wrongdoing on his part, he accepts making $5 million on a leveraged deal of 6,700 Call Options just three days before the buyout was announced; but he maintains that the deal was purely based on market analysis data provided to him by a London based energy sector analyst. At that time, the Call Options gave Rahim the right to buy TXU stock at prices between $57.50 and $60 by March 2007, through a brokerage account at UBS in London. And when the TXU deal was announced on Feb. 26, its stock shot up $7.91 from the day before, to $67.93. This way, Rahim was able to net $5 million, the SEC maintains.
The SEC does not only stop here on the TXU deal, but further adds that other investors similarly benefitted. From January 29th to February 20th, Seema and Sunil Seghal, who are believed to be British citizens, bought several hundred TXU call option contracts, which expired in March and April 2007. Together, they made more $271,600 in profits. In late February, Francisco Javier Garcia, believed to be a resident of Switzerland, bought similar TXU securities through Fimat Banque Frankfurt based on inside information; he reaped trading profits of more than $150,500. The SEC has sued them all.
Dawn further reports that these two are just a peek into the dark world of insider trading. A number of additional Pakistani bankers, whose names haven’t been released as yet because of they being “big guns”, are also involved and are now worried about their skin as the powerful SEC pursues the case further. Dawn comments:
The banking fraternity is up in arms as this has dealt quite a blow to the reputation of the industry in the international banking arena. It is feared that the recent influx of investment by foreign banks will suffer a setback because of the fraud.No doubt it’s got to reflect badly particularly on Pakistani bankers, who are famous for their skills and acumen, and on the Pakistani banking industry in general. However, one more unintended fallout of this saga has been that western audiences have come in motion to implicate the religion of Islam in all this. Blogs have been discussing this and accusing Eastern societies and the religion of Islam in particular for being responsible. It couldn’t have gotten worse than this. Well, all such Islamophobic and rascist remarks and sentiments aside, as they are the by – product of the larger ill – will that runs across the globe at this moment in time, one thing is certain that internationally, Pakistani reputation hasn’t been helped at all by this incident.
However, as further impact of this incident takes hold, we can expect to get more details and certainly more names. Pakistani authorities should also step ahead and take action. But, to think that any strong action will be taken here in Pakistan is naive at best as insider trading is supposed to be the rule of the game to make big bucks. And it’s not just here in Pakistan. Every market must be having big fish ready to plunge into this illegality to make the big buck, and it’s true for US markets also. However, this time the powerful SEC got wind of this activity and now it will not spare a dime in processing all the relevant insider trading regulations to take offenders to task.
Pakistan, though, is another story. They never catch the big fish over here and history is replete with examples of the big culprits being let free. So for those additional Pakistani bankers who now fear that the SEC will get them, the SEC will sure do its best to get them but they can rest assured that they wouldn’t be safer anywhere else than in Pakistan.
The hollowness of this system never fails to amuse us and attest to its usefulness. The government never misses an opportunity to praise itself on any issue including human rights, but behind the scenes it’s all the same, rather worse. When assemblies and public representatives show such characteristics and behaviours, may God have mercy on the people who are ruled by such uncivilized and ill – disciplined bootlickers.
Yes, I know I’ve been away since quite a long time now….but couldn’t help it. No no….let me accept it that apart from the usual business of life that did infact get intensified, there was also a bit of laziness on my part.
However, all this matter of absences from the scene is about to end. My semester final exams are starting from Monday, which is the day after tomorrow. The exams will end by 15th of this month. So I hope of returning afresh after my exams 
.
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