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"J'accuse"
ROEDAD KHAN
Those who hold power and shape the destiny of others should never be judged in a moment of misfortune or defeat. If seen as a corpse hung by the feet, even Mussolini could arouse some pity. They must be judged when they are alive and in power. At the heart of leadership is the leader's character. He must always walk on a straight line. Honour and probity must be his polar star. People will entrust their hopes and dreams to another person only if they think the other is a reliable vessel. His character - demonstrated through deeds more than words - is at the heart of it. Mr Jinnah never misled his people even when they wanted to hear something gentler than the truth. "You could take his word to the bank", as the old saying went. If a President has credibility, nothing else matters. If he hasn't, nothing else matters. General Musharraf lost credibility on Thursday, December 30, 2004, when he reneged on his promise to give up his post as Chief of Army Staff and doff his uniform. When a man thinks he can get away with denying his own words even though there are thousands of witnesses and a video record, he clearly believes he can get away with murder. A few days after the 1999 coup, Musharraf's spokesman, Brig Rashed Qureshi (now Major General) insisted that, "while others may have tried to hang on to power, we will not. We will make history". Musharraf agreed. "All I can say", he assured a television interviewer in January 2000, "is that I am not going to perpetuate myself - I can't give any certificate on it but my word of honour. I will not perpetuate myself". That was six years ago! General Musharraf is not thinking in terms of Pakistan and her honour. Surrender rather than sacrifice is the theme of his thoughts and speeches. The tide of capitulation has swamped even the gesture of defiance. The lack of virile reaction has now become a cloying helplessness. 58 years after independence, are we really free? Are we masters in our own house? Is our sovereignty untrammelled? We lost our independence and sovereignty when we capitulated, said yes to all the seven demands presented, at gunpoint, in the form of an ultimatum, by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State. "It looks like you got it all", a surprised Bush told a triumphant Colin Powell. No self-respecting, sovereign, independent country, no matter how small or weak, could have accepted such humiliating demands with such alacrity. Our government executed a U-turn, disowned the Talibans and promised "unstinted" cooperation to President Bush in his war against Afghanistan. Pakistan joined the "coalition of the coerced". There were no cheering crowds in the streets of Pakistan to applaud the decision to facilitate American bombing of Afghanistan from US bases on Pakistan soil. Musharraf had to choose between saying No to the American Diktat and shame. He opted for collaboration. Thus began Pakistan's slide into disaster. We would have suffered if we had said No. But that is a little matter. We would have retained something which is to me of great value. We would have walked about the world with our heads erect. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif defied President Clinton and carried out a nuclear explosion. The Turks said No to the Americans and refused to allow them transit facilities. The Iranians are under tremendous American pressure, but are courageously guarding their nuclear facilities. In stark contrast, under American pressure, this administration stripped Qadir Khan, the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, of everything - his freedom, his honour, his dignity, his self-respect, his name, his fame, his unprecedented services to Pakistan; and, to sharpen his humiliation, made him appear on national television to confess to his crime! The lesson of history is that nations which went down fighting rose again, but those which succumbed to pressure, sold their honour, surrendered tamely, and capitulated, were finished. Examples abound. This is the darkest era in the history of Pakistan since 1971. The independence of Pakistan is a myth. Pakistan is no longer a free country. It is no longer a democratic country. American military personnel cross and re-cross our border without let or hindrance. They violate our air space with impunity, kill innocent men, women and children in Waziristan and Bajaur. To please the Americans, General Musharraf has deployed over 60,000 troops in the rugged tribal area and is fighting a proxy war against his own people. He has handed over more than 700 so-called Al Qaeda militants to the United States as his contribution to the American war on terrorism. More than 500 soldiers, the flower of our army, have died fighting Wazir and Mahsud tribesmen. For what? Six years after General Musharraf took over, Pakistan has turned cynical and has jettisoned the last vestiges of idealism on which the people had hoped the nation's polity would be based. October 12, 1999 will go down in our history as another day of infamy, another sad milestone on the downward path. Life flows placidly downstream. We were a nation founded on laws and rules. What has been done is essentially to throw away the rule book and say that there are some people who are beyond the law, beyond scrutiny, totally unaccountable. People are filled with anger and angst. If you believe in democracy and rule of law and sovereignty of the people, you would not be anything other than angry, living in the current day and age. Of course, some people are happy under the present system. The rich are getting richer. For the rest, life is nasty, brutish and short. It is like an open prison. You get complacent because of the comfort. They give you just enough to make you happy. The Farewell address of George Washington will ever remain an important legacy for small nations like Pakistan. In that notable Testament, the Father of the American Republic cautioned that "an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter". The strong might have interests and objectives that could be of little real importance to the weak; but once the latter submitted to acting the role of a satellite, it would find it no easy task to avoid being used as a tool by the strong". George Washington highlighted the dangers inherent in an unequal relationship between a very strong nation and a weak nation and the folly of a weak nation succumbing to the belief that "real favours" would flow to it from the strong partner. "It is folly in one nation", George Washington observed, "to look for disinterested favours from another...it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character". No truer words have been spoken on the subject. If you want to know what happens to an ill-led and ill-governed, small country, ruled by a military junta which attaches itself to a powerful country like the US, visit Bajaur and the graves of the 18 innocent men, women and children killed by our "American allies". Nuclear Pakistan lies prostrate and has lost its independence. It cannot protect the life and property of its citizens. It cannot prevent the violation of its airspace. Why? Because it is now virtually an American satellite and is portrayed in American media as a 'retriever dog'. Pakistan has lost its manhood, its honour, its dignity, and its sense of self-respect on General Musharraf's watch. "O what a fall was there my countrymen"!Here in Islamabad there is nothing but the nauseating stench of resignation. With everyday passing, the tide of hope recedes, revealing the unpleasant mud that the souls of slaves are made of. 'The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity'. An evil spirit hangs over Pakistan. Is it our destiny that there must always be darkness at high noon, that there must always be a line of shadow against the sun? We need people who will stand up and say: Enough! Enough! This is not acceptable in the 21st century. Why is the better sort of the nation so silent today? Why have the intellectuals adopted 'the genre of silence'? Why is there no outrage? Why is there no loud protest? "Where are the men to be found who will dare to speak up", as Voltaire said. The creative intellectuals have been driven to ramshackle ivory towers or bought off. The legal profession has lost its integrity and has nothing left of its former power but its rhetoric. Show me an educated man with a silver spoon in Pakistan today, and I will show you a man without a spine. So when will somebody pose a finger at General Musharraf and say: "J'accuse"?

Obituary: Mohammed Yasin Sheikh (1926 - 2005)
Mohammed Yasin Sheikh, son of Mohammed Amin Mungla, passed away on Sunday, November 13th 2005 (11th Shawwaal) in Fremont, California, USA. Mohammed Yasin was born on 4th of February 1926 in Narowal (near Lahore), Pakistan. In his college years, he contributed towards establishing Pakistan and was awarded the status of Mujahid-e-Pakistan by Quaid e Aazam - Mohammed Ali Jinnah.He spent his early years in Lahore and then in Karachi running a textile business.
In 1953, he moved to Nairobi, Kenya and joined the Police Service. Later he transferred to GSU, Kenya. Whilst in Mombasa, Kenya he became more interested in Islam and started to devote more time to promote original Islam, as taught by the Ahlul Bayt a.s. During his years in Kenya, he travelled to remote villages and sought opportunities to help the indigenous populations and invite them towards Islam. He moved from Kenya to California in 1990.
Throughout his life, he supported Islamic organizations and sent donations all over the world. He offered seed money to the unfortunate to start small businesses. At the time of his death, he was contributing towards building a school in Pakistan for the needy. During his time in California, he wrote to all 50 US Governors and to Presidents all over the world, promoting Islam.
As one brother mentioned in his condolences:“His spirit of waking the neighbours early in the morning for Fajr prayers, his extreme attachment to Imam Khumayni and the Islamic government, his extreme concern for the native African Shi'as, his constant distribution of useful Islamic literature, and his active role as a travelling muballigh - all reflected the purity of this great man whose luminous personality will never leave our memories.”
Till his last breath, during short bouts of consciousness in his hospital bed, he was heard remembering Allah. He constantly recited the Kalema, Ayatul Kursi, Ayatul Mulk and the verse:
قُلْ إِنَّ صَلاَتِي وَنُسُكِي وَمَحْيَايَ وَمَمَاتِي لِلّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ Say. Surely my prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are (all) for Allah, the Lord of the worlds; Ayah 162 of Surah Al-Anaam.
Mohammed Yasin Sheikh was laid to rest in Hayward, California, USA and is survived by his wife Mumtaz Sheikh d/o Khurshid Ali, three sons, a daughter, and 15 grandchildren.
His family requests that if he was indebted to anyone in anyway to please contact them at awsheikh1@yahoo.com for reimbursement.
Please recite Sura Al-Fatiha for his thawaab.

Kidar-nath Sharma was from Narowal.
The One and Lonely Kidar Sharma (An Anecdotal Autobiography]/edited by Vikram Sharma. New Delhi, Bluejay Books, 2002, 256 p., (pbk). ISBN 81-87075-96-1.
"Kidar Sharma was born in village Narowal, Punjab in the first decade of the last century. He had always been attracted to the world of entertainment, giving his first performance as a harmonium player in 1915. While graduating he wrote and performed in Punjabi stage plays and completed his maters in English.
"He started his career in 1932 when he joined new theatres in Calcutta as a backdrop screen painter and poster painter for B.N. Sarcar.
"He has been called a star maker and has given the film industry such great stars as Raj Kapoor, Madhubala, Geeta Bali, Mala Sinha (Hindi Films), Bharat Bhushan, Ramola and Tanuja to name a few and has been instrumental in giving the film industry music directors like Roshan, Snehal Bhatkar, Khan Sahip Jhande Khan, Buloo C. Rani and Jamal Sain.
"Some of his important films include Chitralekha, Armaan, Vish Kanya, Gauri, Mumtaz Mahal, Bhanwra, Chand Chokari Dhanna Bhagat, Duniya ek Sarai, Jogan, Neel Kamal.
"His other films include Shokhiyaan (Jamal Sain introduced as music director), Neki our Badi (in which he also starred), Bedardi, Thes Gunal, Mehkhana, Pehla Kadam, Sehme Huae Sitare, Pyase Nain, Fariyad, Bheegi Palken, Kaliyan, Rangeen Raten and Chora Chori.
"In 1958, he was asked by the international producers Shaw Brothers of Singapore to come and direct movies for them.
"He even made short films for Doordarshan including Aise Log Bhi Hote Hain, Kagaz Ki Nao, Ham Honge Kamyab, etc.
"His other contributions include his first book of poetry entitled Panchhee which was autographed by the greatest Indian poet Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. He has written most of the songs sung by the great K.L. Saigal including: Balam aeo baso more man mein, Maia kya janu kya jadu hai, So ja raj kumari, so ja, Dukh kay ab din beetal nahi, Panchhi kahye hot udas and Kahun kya as niraas bhaye.
"Kidar Sharma's all round genius has included scripting, dialogue, directing, lyrics and the deep appreciation of the total and auditory impact that cinema truly is.
"He breathed his last on 29 of April 1999." (jacket)
Return to Cinemas / Films of India Catalogue

The rescuers
Every year, hundreds of young Britons are forced into marriage in Pakistan against their will. Who can they turn to? Perhaps a team of unlikely British diplomats can help. Declan Walsh joins them at work
Declan Walsh Friday December 9, 2005
Guardian
Almost free, Yasmin Rehman darts breathlessly through the sleepy Punjabi village. Running down a sandy lane, the 21-year-old from Bradford heads for the main road, her green shalwar kameez streaming in her wake. Behind her, clutching a hastily packed suitcase, is a British diplomat and, by his side, a Pakistani bodyguard, a pistol concealed under his clothes.
A Land Rover is waiting at the end of the path. Rehman leaps in and the jeep roars off, weaving around donkeys, tractors and a gaggle of curious kids. For a moment she sits tensely, her hands gripping the back seat and her eyes fixed forward.
"I'm so embarrassed, I'm really scared, I've never done anything like this before. But I had no choice," she babbles nervously in a strong northern accent. She has just escaped a nightmare: Rehman has been thrashed by her father, threatened at gunpoint by her uncle and forced to marry a complete stranger. "I can't trust my family, never again," she says. "Next time they could kill me."
Caught between cultures and pressured by their families, hundreds of young British-Pakistani women are trapped in forced marriages in Pakistan every year. The ordeal results in tears, trauma and sometimes brutal domestic violence. But it usually starts innocently. Parents prod the young women to fly back to Pakistan for a short holiday to visit an ailing granny or celebrate a cousin's wedding. Then it all goes wrong. The weeks stretch into months. Passports go missing and return flights are cancelled. Mysterious suitors appear on the relatives' doorstep. A sour truth dawns on the woman: the wedding being planned is her own.
The parents, eager for what they regard as a good marriage, apply emotional pressure or, failing that, may resort to violence. Running away is rarely an option: male relatives keep a jealous eye and in small-town Pakistan a woman doing anything alone, even walking to a bus, triggers alarm bells.
There is one hope: the diplomatic snatch squad. Such is the plight of dual nationals caught in forced marriages that a special team has been established inside the British High Commission in Islamabad to rescue them. On average, diplomatic jeeps leave the high-walled compound for the villages of Punjab and Kashmir twice a week. Their mission: to pluck the reluctant brides from the clutches of their cousins, whisk them to safety and put them on a plane back to the UK. Last year the team saved 105 young people, according to Helen Feather, head of the consular section and leader of the team. Most are between 18 and 24, although the youngest was 14. "This is a human rights abuse and these are British nationals in distress," she says.
The pioneering programme is sensitive and secretive, plunging British officials into a fraught world of clashing cultures and family traumas; the Guardian is the first media organisation to accompany the team on a mission. Consular official Jon Turner is in charge of Rehman's rescue. With his grey hair and mild manners, Turner does not look like a typical dashing hero, though he has helped dozens of young women to escape.
The hunt begins one bright morning as Turner's high commission jeep is rushing through eastern Punjab. Turner's phone rings: it's Rehman. "It will be OK," Turner assures her. "Stay calm, act natural, we don't want them to get suspicious. And hang on to this phone. That's the most important thing." He hangs up. "The girls get incredibly worried at this stage," he says. "So do we, but we try not to show it."
According to Turner, the rescues often follow a similar pattern. A worried relative or boyfriend in the UK usually makes the initial contact with the Foreign Office. Sometimes the victim herself sends an SOS. Through hushed late-night conversations and secretive text messages, Turner and his team establish contact. After days or weeks of careful preparation, a time and date are agreed.
The element of surprise is crucial, he says. Local police are informed hours beforehand, and asked to provide back-up. Some officers are sympathetic; others need persuading. Finally, Turner knocks on the front door. What follows, he admits, is a wrenching experience for everyone.
Flustered relatives plead with the girl to stay, often resorting to emotional blackmail. "The family can be very tough and vitriolic," says Turner. "They say, 'Your father will have a heart attack,' 'Your mother will commit suicide,' 'You will bring dishonour to our family.'" The team can do little other than to remind relatives that any trouble could reflect poorly in future visa applications. The victim, says Turner, almost always feels guilty. "That's why we try to make it quick."
After escaping, the young woman is rushed to Islamabad and lodged in a refuge run by Struggle for Change (Sach), a Pakistani organisation that supports victims of forced marriage and domestic violence. The high commission will issue an emergency passport and, if necessary, loan her the price of her plane fare home. The address of the refuge is kept secret in case furious relatives try to snatch the woman back. Within a few days she travels to the airport; in high-risk cases she may be hidden under a shawl, flown out from a regional airport or escorted on to the plane.
Most rescues are resolved peacefully, Turner stresses. But in a country where so-called "honour killings" - in which reluctant family members, usually young women, are murdered rather than bring dishonour on the family - are frequent, the dangers are real. An armed bodyguard comes on every rescue. During one encounter, police cocked their weapons and formed a circle around the woman as they left the house. "It turned out her uncle was a well known kidnapper, extortionist and murderer," says Turner. In other cases, stealth is required. Last July Razia, a 19-year-old woman from Luton, was betrothed against her will to her 16-year-old cousin. Her only chance of escape was at 4am, during a family trip to Islamabad airport to see off an aunt travelling abroad. In the melee of the packed concourse Razia slipped away to find Ghazala Shah, one of two Pakistani officials on the rescue team, waiting by the toilets. As the two women walked towards the entrance, Turner was waiting in his car, and they leaped inside. "It was all done in less than 10 seconds," he says.
Rehman's rescue is comparatively easy. A perky, whippet-thin young woman, she blames the trouble on her dad, a Bradford taxi driver. "He's a bit old fashioned. He didn't like English clothes; he burned my jeans once. He didn't like girls going out and about," she says. But most of all, he didn't like the idea of her boyfriend, Mujahid. Although he is also a British Pakistani, Rehman's father believed he was from the wrong caste. So last February he sent Rehman on a five-week holiday to her cousin's in eastern Punjab. It was to last eight months.
She might have seen it coming. Rehman knew of several other girls whose passports had been burned, and her parents had already tried to marry her off once, when she was 17. That time she feigned illness and was sent back to the UK. But this time there was no escape. The marriage took place in June, to a 23-year-old architect from Gujranwala. At the wedding feast Rehman wept until makeup streamed down her face, while her father and father-in-law heaped gold rings and bangles on her. Relatives thought it a show, part of a Punjabi custom where newly-weds show their sorrow at leaving their family. "They thought I was sad to be leaving them," she says. "I just wanted to get away."
Predictably, married life was a disaster. Rehman scandalised her new in-laws by refusing to sleep with her husband, Ishfan. "It was like living as strangers. I used to sleep in the house, he was on a bed outside. I think he used to count the stars," she says. She resented the constricted life of a rural Pakistani woman; back in the UK she had earned her own money as a cashier in Safeways and Poundland and was used to going out with her friends. She pined for burgers, chips and jeans. Arguments erupted with her sister-in-law. "She was a bitch. She used to talk about me to her friends, saying I just slept all day. I said, 'I'm no fucking slave, why should I do all the work?'"
Finally, she told Ishfan she was already in love with another man. Her father and uncle beat her brutally, demanding to know Mujahid's address in Bradford. "They said, 'Watch what we will do to him, we will break his legs.'" Her uncle ordered her to surrender her mobile phone. When she refused he pulled out a gun and pointed it at her head.
"He said, 'You don't deserve to live'. I started crying and told him I had thrown the phone away. Then my dad came in and hit me some more," she says. That night Rehman waited until everyone else had gone to bed before texting Mujahid. Then she carefully hid the phone in a bag of sanitary pads. "They wouldn't dream of looking in there," she says with a smile.
By the time the snatch squad arrive, Rehman's father and uncle have returned to their jobs as taxi drivers in England. Only her grandmother and an aunt are home. They swear at Rehman in Punjabi and urge her to stay. But it is too late; she signs a police statement and leaves.
Sitting in a riverside cafe, Rehman's initial elation has been swamped by a tide of doubt and uncertainty. "I feel so depressed now, so stressed out," she says, pulling on a cigarette. "I just want to put it all behind me and get back to the UK." During the meal Shah's phone rings. It is Ishfan, begging his wife to come back. Rehman refuses the call. He wasn't a bad guy, she says; he was just the wrong guy. "I feel sorry for him. He wanted to have kids and stay with me. But I already have feelings for another man. You can't love two people at the same time."
On the fourth night after her rescue, Rehman boards a plane for the UK wearing blue jeans and an FCUK T-shirt and gripping an emergency passport. Twelve hours later she lands at an airport in the Midlands, where Mujahid is waiting.
Forced marriage is the ugly flipside of arranged marriage, a widespread and highly valued tradition in south Asia. Parents play a central role in such unions, carefully vetting their children's partners. The criteria often depend on class: the rich look for a western education and a decent income; poorer classes worry about caste and creed. Only the most liberal Pakistani families indulge in what are disparagingly referred to as "love marriages". Still, young people can usually refuse to go ahead if they don't like their prospective partner. But in a forced marriage there is no consent, just the brutally imposed wishes of the family. "This is a patriarchal society where women and children are considered as the possessions of males. They have no options, no say, no choices," says Khalida Salimi of Sach.
British citizens also become trapped in forced marriages in other countries. Diplomats have carried out rescues in India and Bangladesh, as well as Africa and the Middle East. But no other country comes close in scale to Pakistan, which has an estimated 80,000 dual nationals and accounts for 60% of cases handled by the Foreign Office's Forced Marriage Unit. One-fifth of cases involve men but none has yet been rescued, the unit instead helping with travel papers and money.
Three years ago Ayesha Bari, a 23-year-old Bradford woman, came under intense pressure to get married. "My mother was crying and all upset. She said, 'Do whatever you want but your father is pressuring me.'" Bari left home, so enraging her father that he had her kidnapped by three men who surrounded her at Milton Keynes railway station. The next day she was on a plane for Pakistan.
In Kashmir, Bari started to get used to the slow pace of life, and even started teaching in a local school. But when she started a relationship with a Pakistani man last year who was deemed to be from the wrong caste, her father threatened to electrocute her. "He put the wires in the socket and said, 'I'm going to kill you.' My granddad had to stop him. Then he whipped me with the wires, while the rest of the family were watching," she says. "He had such force and anger that nobody could pull him back. His sisters had to lock him into another room, to cool him down."
Bari was saved six months ago by a 26-year-old man from London whom she met on an internet chat room and who alerted the Foreign Office. Five weeks later Turner and Albert Davis, the other Pakistani member of the rescue team, came to the door. She fled, taking her 18-year-old sister with her. "If my father had not pressured me so much, then I might have agreed to what he wanted. There are plenty of girls in happy, arranged marriages," she says the following day, sitting in the Islamabad hostel. "But it was all about respect. Pakistanis only look at what others think of them. For my father that was more important than his children's happiness.
"I feel sorry for him. I wouldn't say that I hate him but I don't love him either. He's lost it. He's dug his own grave."
Sach has tried to spark a debate on forced marriage through the media and visits by Muslim scholars to debunk myths about women's role in Islam. "Forced marriage is part of our customs and traditions. It has nothing to do with the law and religion. In fact, it is the very opposite," says Dr Noreen Khalid, who counsels the runaway brides. Sach's efforts have met with stiff, occasionally violent resistance. A Sach driver who was helping a couple to elope was kidnapped and badly beaten for several hours in Rawalpindi.
Repercussions against the women themselves are far worse. One forced marriage victim had her nose, tongue and hair chopped off, says Salimi. Another was killed. "I remember the girl well; she stayed with us in 2000 before going to Britain," says Salimi. "The next year she returned to reconcile with the family, then she was found dead. They say she slipped, fell into a canal and drowned. We think it was murder."
A safe return to Britain, however, does not always spell the end of the story. Now back in Britain, Bari is currently living in a women's shelter in London, surviving on the £200 monthly jobseekers' allowance and struggling to find a job. "They all want work experience, even McDonalds. I try to tell them I've been abroad for the past three years but nobody wants to listen."
Rehman, meanwhile, is living in a council flat, surviving on jobseekers' allowance and seeking advice on how to divorce her Pakistani husband. But the reunion with Mujahid has not been quite the honeymoon she expected. After the initial excitement of her return, the relationship has come under pressure. "It's all messed up," she says. "His mum doesn't like me and I don't know what to do. She doesn't approve of me because I'm a runaway girl. He says he wants to be with me, but I'm not sure."
Despite everything, she would like to reconcile with her father, but he refuses. "He won't accept what I did. First he gave my mum a hard time, saying it was all her fault. Now it's my husband they are blaming. I'm stuck in the middle again".
· The names of victims and their home towns have been changed.

. pic Natalee Holloway ....

. The Latest Missing Girl ......

. Aruba Police Arrest 3 more in Missing of teen age student girl.

. By MICHAEL NORTON, AP Writer
ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Aruban police arrested three men Thursday who acknowledged giving a ride to an Alabama teenager the night she disappeared on this Dutch Caribbean island, officials said.

The three, described by authorities earlier as witnesses and "persons of interest," had been released last week after being questioned about 18-year-old Natalee Holloway.
They told police they dropped off Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala., at her hotel in the early hours of May 30, but Holiday Inn employees say security cameras did not record her return.
Police also impounded a gray Honda car. Holloway's friends reported last seeing her leave a nightclub in a silver car.
"The three people have been arrested as suspects," chief government spokesman Ruben Trapenberg told The Associated Press. He did not elaborate.
Attorney General Caren Janssen said the three were arrested at 6 a.m. She refused to name them, but authorities previously described the three as students — two Surinamese brothers and the son of a Dutch justice official studying to be a judge.
The Dutch detainee, a student at Aruba International School, left his home in the middle-class Montana neighborhood of Oranjestad on Thursday with his head covered in a blue-and-green striped towel.
Police identified the Surinamese brothers only as Satish and Deepak K.
Janssen refused to say whether the three were connected to two former hotel security guards detained earlier in Holloway's disappearance. A judge ruled Wednesday there was sufficient cause to hold the two ex-guards.
The judge's decision means authorities could detain Nick John, 30, and Abraham Jones, 28, for nearly four months while prosecutors investigate possible murder and kidnapping charges, defense attorneys said. Neither man has been formally charged.
John's lawyer, Noriana Pietersz, said she spoke to her client in jail Thursday.
"I have decided not to demand the immediate release of my client," she said. "We prefer to let the prosecution investigate, confident that my client will be released by Wednesday" when a judge will decide whether to extend his detention.
Holloway vanished while on a five-day trip with 124 classmates and seven chaperones celebrating their high school graduation.
The night she disappeared, Holloway ate and danced at Carlos' n Charlie's bar and restaurant. She did not show up for her return flight hours later, and police found her passport in her hotel room with her packed bags.
Police and the FBI said a lack of any solid leads was hindering progress in their search for Holloway.
Authorities have not said Holloway was a victim of foul play and have not ruled out any possibilities, including that she may have drowned.
The Aruba government and local tourism organizations have offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to Holloway's rescue, her family and benefactors in Alabama have offered an additional $30,000, and Carlos' n Charlie's donated $5,000 — for a total of $55,000.

Lal Krishna Advani, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and president of the BJP (Bharatya Janata Party), has resigned from his latter position within a day of returning to India from Pakistan. His resignation comes in the wake of bitter attacks on him by extreme rightwing Hindu groups, especially the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which have accused him of shaming Hindutva by being soft on Pakistan during his visit here. Mr Advani has also, remarkably, been attacked by the Congress for calling the Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a secular leader.

Pawns we are.....
This is with reference to Mr Riaz Jafri's letter published in the Nation on 30th May titled 'We 're helpless pawns'. Mr Jafri is living in a fool's paradise if he thinks our foreign policy has nothing to do with the desecration of the Holy Quran at the hands of the Americans. I would like him to refer to Mr M.A. Niazi's article published in this paper on 13th May. I would also like to add to Mr Jafri's knowledge that most of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are those handed over by Pakistan.These prisoners were handed over unconditionally without any guarantees or assurances about their treatment. I recommend that Mr Jafri be more rational and informed.-MOEZ MOBEEN, Islamabad, via e-mail, June 6.

Rajiv and Sanjay Gandhi ... sons of a Muslim?
Indira was a convert .....
Was she Hindu or a Muslim?
..... decide yourself.

• Rajiv Gandhi's father and paternal grandfather were Moslems from Gujara
• (by krishna 2004 Posted on June 2, 2005 ) ..... ...... .....

. One frequently hears that Rajiv Gandhi's grandfather was Pandit Nehru. But then we all know that everyone has two grandfathers, the paternal and the maternal grandfathers. In fact, the paternal grandfather is deemed to be the more important grandfather in most societies. Why is it then no where we find Rajiv Gandhi's paternal grandfather's name? It appears that the reason is simply this. Rajiv Gandhi's paternal grandfather was a Moslem gentleman from the Junagadh area of Gujarat. At the very beginning of his book, THE NEHRU DYNASTY, astrologer K.N.Rao mentions the names of Jawahar Lal's father and grandfather. Jawahar Lal's father was believed to be Moti Lal and Moti Lal's father was one Gangadhar Nehru. And we all know that Jawahar Lal's only daughter was Indira Priyadarshini Nehru; Kamala Nehru was her mother, who died in Switzerland of tuberculosis. She was totally against Indira's proposed marriage with Feroze.

• Why? No one tells us that. Now, who is this Feroze? We are told by many that he was the son of the family grocer. The grocer supplied wines, etc. to Anand Bhavan, previously known as Ishrat Manzil, which once belonged to a Moslem lawyer named Mobarak Ali.
• Moti Lal was earlier an employee of Mobarak Ali. What was the family grocer's name? One frequently hears that Rajiv Gandhi's grandfather was Pandit Nehru. But then we all know that everyone has two grandfathers, the paternal and the maternal grandfathers. In fact, the paternal grandfather is deemed to be the more important grand-father in most societies. Why is it then no where we find Rajiv Gandhi's paternal grandfather's name? It appears that the reason is simply.
• Rajiv Gandhi's paternal grandfather was a Moslem gentleman from the Junagadh area of Gujarat. This Moslem grocer by the name of Nawab Khan, had married a Parsi woman after converting her to Islam. This is the source where from the myth of Rajiv being a Parsi was derived.
• Rajiv's father Feroze was Feroze Khan before he married Indira, against Kamala Nehru's wishes. Feroze's mother's family name was Ghandy, often associated with Parsis and this was changed to Gandhi, sometime before his wedding with Indira, by an affidavit.
• The fact of the matter is that (and this fact can be found in many writings) Indira was very lonely. Chased out of the Shantiniketan University by Gurudev Rabindranath himself for misdemeanor, the lonely girl was all by herself, while father Jawahar was busy with politics, pretty women and illicit sex; the mother was in hospital.
• Feroze Khan, the grocer's son was then in England and he was quite sympathetic to Indira and soon enough she changed her religion, became a Moslem woman by name Maimuna Begaum and married Feroze Khan in a London mosque.
• Nehru was not happy; Kamala was dead already or dying. The news of this marriage eventually reached Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Gandhi urgently called Nehru and practically ordered him to ask the youngman to change his name from Khan to Gandhi. It had nothing to do with change of religion, from Islam to Hinduism for instance. It was just a case of a change of name by an affidavit. And so Feroze Khan became Feroze Gandhi.
• The surprising thing is that the apostle of truth, the old man soon to be declared India's Mahatma and the 'father of the nation' didn't mention this game of his in the famous book, 'My Experiments with Truth'. Why? When they returned to India, a mock 'Vedic marriage' was instituted for public consumption. On this subject, writes M.O. Mathai (a longtime Private Secretary of Nehru) in his renowned (but now suppressed by the GOI) Reminiscences of the Nehru Age on page 94, second paragraph: "For some inexplicable reason, Nehru allowed the marriage to be performed according to Vedic rites in 1942. An inter-religious and inter-caste marriage under Vedic rites at that time was not valid in law. To be legal, it had to be a civil marriage." It's a known fact that after Rajiv's birth Indira and Feroze lived seperatly, but they were not divorced. Feroze used to harass Nehru frequently for money and also interfere in Nehru's political activities. Nehru got fed up and left instructions not to allow him into the Prime Minister's residence Trimurthi Bhavan.Mathai writes that the death of Feroze came as a relief to Nehru and Indira. The death of Feroze in 1960 before he could consolidate his own political forces, is itself a mystery. Feroze had even planned to remarry. Those who try to keep tabs on our leaders in spite of all the suppressions and deliberate misinformation, are aware of the fact that the second son of Indira (or Mrs. Feroze Khan) known as Sanjay Gandhi was not the son of Feroze. He was the son of another Moslem gentleman, Mohammad Yunus.
• Here, in passing, we might mention that the second son was originally named Sanjiv. It rhymed with Rajiv, the elder brother's name. It was changed to Sanjay when he was arrested by the British police in England and his passport impounded, for having stolen a car. Krishna Menon was then India's High Commissioner in London. He offered to issue another passport to the felon who changed his name to Sanjay. Incidentally, Sanjay's marriage with the Sikh girl Menaka (now they call her Maneka for Indira Gandhi found the name of Lord Indra's court dancer rather offensive!) took place quite surprisingly in Mohammad Yunus' house in New Delhi.
• And the marriage with Menaka who was a model (She had model for Bombay Dyeing wearing just a towel) was not so ordinary either. Sanjay was notorious in getting unwed young women pregnant. Menaka too was rendered pregnant by Sanjay. It was then that her father, Colonel Anand, threatened Sanjay with dire on sequences if he did not marry her daughter. And that did the trick. Sanjay married Menaka. It was widely reported in Delhi at the time that Mohammad Yunus was unhappy at the marriage of Sanjay with Menaka; apparently he had wanted to get him married with a Muslim girl of his choice. It was Mohammad Yunus who cried the most when Sanjay died in the plane accident. In Yunus' book, 'Persons, Passions & Politics' one discovers that baby Sanjay had been circumcised following Islamic custom, although the reason stated was phimosis. It was always belived that Sanjay used to blackmail Indira Gandhi and due to this she used to turn a blind eye when Sanjay Gandhi started to run the country as though it were his personal fiefdom. Was he black mailing her with the secret of who his real father was? When the news of Sanjay's death reached Indira Gandhi, the first thing she wanted to know was about the bunch of keys which Sanjay had with him. Nehru was no less a player in producing bastards.
• At least one case is very graphically described by M.O. Mathai in his "Reminiscences of the Nehru Age", page 206. Mathai writes: "In the autumn of 1948 (India became free in 1947 and a great deal of work needed to be done) a young woman from Benares arrived in New Delhi as a sanyasini named Shraddha Mata (an assumed and not a real name). She was a Sanskrit scholar well versed in the ancient Indian scriptures and mythology. People, including MPs, thronged to her to hear her discourses. One day S.D. Upadhyaya, Nehru's old employee, brought a letter in Hindi from Shraddha Mata. Nehru gave her an interview in the PM's house. As she departed, I noticed (Mathai is speaking here) that she was young, shapely and beautiful. Meetings with her became rather frequent, mostly after Nehru finished his work at night. During one of Nehru's visits to Lucknow, Shraddha Mata turned up there, and Upadhyaya brought a letter from her as usual. Nehru sent her the reply; and she visited Nehru at midnight... "Suddenly Shraddha Mata disappeared. In November 1949 a convent in Bangalore sent a decent looking person to Delhi with a bundle of letters. He said that a young woman from northern India arrived at the convent a few months ago and gave birth to a baby boy. She refused to divulge her name or give any particulars about herself. She left the convent as soon as she was well enough to move out but left the child behind. She however forgot to take with her a small cloth bundle in which, among other things, several letters in Hindi were found. The Mother Superior, who was a foreigner, had the letters examined and was told they were from the Prime Minister. The person who brought the letters surrendered them..."I (Mathai) made discreet inquiries repeatedly about the boy but failed to get a clue about his whereabouts. Convents in such matters are extremely tightlipped and secretive. Had I succeeded in locating the boy, I would have adopted him. He must have grown up as a Catholic Christian blissfully ignorant of who his father was."
• Coming back to Rajiv Gandhi, we all know now that he changed his so called Parsi religion to become a Catholic to marry Antonia Maino of Turin, Italy. Rajiv became Roberto. His daughter's name is Bianca and son's name is Raul. Quite cleverly the same names are presented to the people of India as Priyanka and Rahul.What is amazing is the extent of our people's ignorance in such matters.
• The press conference that Rajiv Gandhi gave in London after taking over as prime minister of India was very informative. In this press conference, Rajiv boasted that he was NOT a Hindu but a Parsi. Mind you, speaking of the Parsi religion, he had no Parsi ancestor at all. His grandmother (father's mother) had turned Muslim after having abandoned the Parsi religion to marry Nawab Khan. It is the western press that waged a blitz of misinformation on behalf of Rajiv. From the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, the big guns raised Rajiv to heaven. The children's encyclopedias recorded that Rajiv was a qualified Mechanical Engineer from the revered University of Cambridge. No doubt US kids are among the most misinformed in the world today! The reality is that in all three years of his tenure at that University Rajiv had not passed a single examination. He had therefore to leave Cambridge without a certificate. Sonia appears to have studied up to 5th standard but claims to be graduate of the cambridge. Such a description is calculated to mislead Indians. She was a student in Cambridge all right but not of the University of Cambridge but of one of those fly by night language school where foreign students are taught English for one and a half month period. Sonia was working as a barmaid in Cambridge.
• And surprise of surprises, Rajiv was even cremated as per vedic rites in full view of India's public. This is the Nehru dynasty that India worships and now an Italian leads a prestgious national party because of just one qualification - being married into the Nerhu family.

Two roses. How beautiful. 

A Day keeps going on EVEN if You don't like. A review.

Ah, a great cricketer passes away !
.........IN Fazal Mahmood, who died in Lahore on Monday, Pakistan has lost one of its most glittering stars on the cricketing firmament. We all will miss him.

"Kashmir struggle" ...... ...... ..

MR M. P. Bhandara has spoken his mind boldly (Dawn April 30 and May 10). One craves for a Pakistani counterpart of the former diplomat and journalist Kuldip Nayyar or an Indian member of parliament who, like Mr Bhandara, could write similarly about the case and stakes of Pakistan and the Kashmiris in the Kashmir issue in any leading Indian daily to make it a two-way flow of ideas. Thanks to Dawn for publishing the views of Mr H. N. Akhtar (May 4) and Mr Khalid Hasan (May 5 and 16) in which they have taken note of and responded to the views of Mr Kuldip Nayyar and Mr Bhandara.When Congress leaders felt frustrated by Mr Jinnah in their programme of keeping India united without reservations/guarantees about the rights of the Muslim minority, they half-heartedly conceded a truncated Pakistan. Nevertheless, the Congress and Hindu Mahasabha vowed in their resolutions of June 1947 to strive for reunification of India. Besides other measures, they planned to occupy the Jammu and Kashmir state to control their defence parameters and the rivers of Pakistan. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhai Patel played their role in collaboration with Lord Mountbatten to achieve this national goal. These are recorded facts of history.So, holding on to the J&K state to harm Pakistan is a national policy of India, which has religiously been pursued by all Indian governments. Having used the military option in 1971 to cut Pakistan to its present size, they are now feverishly busy in constructing dams on three rivers of Pakistan in occupied Kashmir to economically strangulate us.India is exploiting the post 9/11 scenario. Mr Advani, then deputy premier of the BJP government, had dashed to Washington to offer India’s services to strengthen US-Israeli partnership which was happily accepted. This boosted the pride and arrogance of the new Indian nationalists committed to Hindutva. This is evident from India’s attitude and response to Pakistan’s peace overtures and flexibility. The people in Pakistan feel that now the US and India are hand in glove to thrust an Indian solution on Pakistan and the Kashmiris. It seems Pakistan is being intimidated, which is evident from its consistent caving in on the Kashmir issue, which has created doubts and a feeling of concern and disappointment among Kashmiris who have given more sacrifices for freedom from India than Congress workers during the “Quit India movement” against the British.Like many freedom struggles in the past, the Kashmiris’ resistance movement attracted the bona fide support and sympathy on personal or ideological grounds of some individuals and NGOs. These people numbered in their dozens and mostly belonged to ethnic Kashmiris of Pakistan and AJ&K. Mr Bhandara says Pakistan usurped the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle by “terrorism”, encouraging religious zealots and unemployed Afghans, Arabs and Pakistani “mercenaries” to take over the liberation struggle. Would Mr Bhandara say that some people of other nationalities who joined the Indian National Army (INA) of Subhash Chandra Bose were mercenaries and terrorists and that they took over the INA? Had he visited any graveyard in Srinagar and seen the tomb-stones there, he would have come to know about their identification. Molested and widowed women and orphaned children of occupied Kashmir have not been exported / infiltrated from Pakistan. They are Kashmiris living on the soil of their motherland.Mr Bhandara is wrong when he says that only Pakistan supported the Taliban. Pakistan recognized and supported them when even the US was going to do the same if they had accepted American conditions. Moreover, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (with which India has vast economic affiliations) also supported the Taliban. They had complete control over Kabul and 90 per cent of Afghan territory. Additionally, there was the Pushtoon factor which Pakistan could not overlook. By the way, were the Taliban worse than the RSS and VHP zealots?Every state in the world admits Kashmir to be a disputed territory. There is a lot of sympathy and support for the just cause of the Kashmiris in the world as evidenced by the recent EU Commission’s report and statements in many public forums in many countries.How can the Kashmiris accomplish the mission of their martyrs with scores of parties and groups? Can’t their leaders shed their personal egos and ambitions for the sake of their motherland? It is the clarion call of this critical juncture that all freedom-loving Kashmiri leaders should unite on one platform and struggle for their just cause. No power will be able to overlook or bypass their united demands. There is no substitute to unity. That is the only way to success. Otherwise, they and their people will be doomed and history will not forgive them.KHAWAJA MUHAMMAD BASHIR BUTT Muzaffarabad, Azad Kashmir .... daily Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan 6/01/2005

Sunday, February 06, 2005

Musharraf may not know, but Osama’s in Pakistan ........
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Gary Schroen, the CIA officer who has just published a book on his exploits in Afghanistan, says Osama Bin Laden is in Pakistan but President Pervez Musharraf may not know it and may not even want to know.According to the CIA veteran, “I can only speculate, but it is based on almost 20 years of dealing with the Pakistani military and ISI officers. I think at some level, probably the colonel level, there are officers probably in ISI who know where Bin Laden is at.”A report by CNN says Schroen, after being shipped to Afghanistan following 9/11, was asked by his boss Cofer Black that he wanted “Bin Laden’s head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice.” Schroen’s book ‘First In: an insider’s account of how the CIA spearheaded the war on terror in Afghanistan’ has been described as “riveting.” He claims to have developed two plans to capture or kill Bin Laden, once in 1998 and then a year later. Both were turned down by CIA and the White House.Schroen’s Afghan mission was codenamed ‘Jawbreaker’ and met rapid success in helping to topple the Taliban, using cash, contacts and air strikes coordinated by the CIA and US Special Forces. When Tora Bora was attacked, Bin Laden fled to Pakistan. Asked where Bin Laden is today, Schroen said, “He’s hiding in Pakistan in the northern tribal areas above Peshawar - an area that is rugged, hilly, heavily forested. The US government and the US military are not authorised by the Musharraf government to enter there unilaterally.”The former CIA operative is of the view that instead of going into the area north of Peshawar, Pakistani forces made the mistake of going into South Waziristan. The campaign was a failure. “They did get clobbered heavily,” Schroen says of the Pakistani forces. “I think they knew that Bin Laden wasn’t there, and therefore they would be able to arrest a few Al Qaeda operatives and make us happy.”According to CNN, Schroen believes Musharraf not only doesn’t know where Bin Laden is, but he doesn’t want to know, afraid of the internal political consequences of finding him. That’s because, Schroen thinks, Pakistan’s northern tribal areas would explode upon news of the death or capture of Bin Laden. “I think the philosophy of the Taliban, this fundamentalist view, is popular there. So Bin Laden, I think, strikes them as heroic. He fought a jihad against the Russians, and he’s bloodied America’s nose time and again.” He believes that regardless of how much reward money America offers, Bin Laden would not be captured and handed in. “As long as he stays in place, it is going to be almost impossible to find him.”Schroen’s view is at odds with information found in documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to Associated Press, according to which, a large number of Al Qaeda, Taliban and other suspects, many of them innocent, were sold to the Americans by Pakistanis and Afghans for cash.Another key job for the United States, Schroen says, is to figure out a way to find the right incentive for Musharraf to hunt harder for Al Qaeda’s leaders. One major step is for the Pakistani President to get more answers from inside his own military and intelligence establishment. “A man of that caliber (Bin Laden) could not be hidden out for that many years without word getting out in the community. So, I think some people probably know within ISI and the military,” says Schroen.