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On the rampage lahore Morning
till dark peshawar Pickets
in mind The
dash and the blank spaces
Editorial We are still in the period of disbelief where nothing sounds right. The stories emanating from Peshawar and Lahore are simply incredible. To think that we would be instigated to go to such great lengths on the path of self-destruction, while we could have done it differently and would still have registered our protest strongly. The very people who had given the call now say they had no idea where all these trouble-makers came from and through which agency they had been recruited, suggesting that the violence may have been planned. Even the calls for compensation by the traders who were the joint sponsors of these rallies make little sense since these so called leaders who now accuse the law enforcers of laziness and lack of imagination should have seen it coming themselves. This is not to condone the police for taking it so easy on the day which could go a long way in shaping our destiny but the fact is that no one saw it coming. This is why the shock is so great. There is no shortage of people who say that there was no mention of the violence in the script, which further complicates matter. Imagine a band of the unidentified with no leader to guide them and hold them accountable for their acts. This would be anarchy at its worst. In fact it would be a relief to all if the theory that the protagonists of mayhem on the Mall and the Karkhano Bazaar and elsewhere were paid to do the job turns out to be true. That would separate the genuine protesters from the violent bunch. Only if it is true.
The Maul The morning was usual, but by the evening the city had bruises all over its body, with some deep scars reaching its centuries' old soul By Muhammad Badar Alam Lahore's day of infamy dawned like any other early spring
day -- soothingly sunny and refreshingly fragrant. Some hours later, the sun
was smudged by plumes of smoke and the fragrance was heavily tinged with a
rusty, metallic -- rather pungent -- smell. As the day passed on February 14,
2006, the downtown was sent hurtling down from its jolly glory to a painful
shame. By the evening the city had bruises all over its body, with some deep
scars reaching its centuries' old soul. Not that everyone in the city was caught by surprise. Even a day earlier, ominous signs were everywhere. All roads leading to the centre of the city and almost all markets all over Lahore were covered by banners urging the faithful to do their duty -- from boycotting the western goods to waging jehad against the blaspheming infidels. In a self-congratulatory style that has become a hallmark of Pakistan's polity, the traders of Hall Road greeted them and everyone else involved for a successful strike one full day in advance. And successful it was -- indeed it was the most thoroughly observed shutdown in the city in the recent past. But at the same time it was matched in its destructive frenzy by no other event taking place in Lahore during the last three decades. Also, it was not in the scale of the violence and the outreach of the mob that the February 14 strike was unique. The proof of their historic 'achievement' rather lay in the precision of the mob's operations, the impunity with which it operated and the fear it instilled in anyone seeing it at its destructive best. The rally to accentuate the message of the strike, called
by Lahore's traders to express their anger at the blasphemous cartoons
published in some western newspapers, was to start from the shrine of
Lahore's patron saint Hazrat Data Gunj Bakhsh. But before the participants of
the rally could take to the road, streets were blocked in every nook and
cranny of central Lahore -- from Samanabad to Shimla Hill and Lower Mall to
Lakshami Chowk and beyond. Bands of young men riding motorcycles and carrying
banners were roaming all over the place, defying traffic signals and flouting
one-way rules. In every neighbourhood, main approach roads were made
off-limits for commuters by burning tyres and erecting other hurdles. People
having to move under the force of necessity had to wage largely losing
individual battles against the uncompromising and clearly mischievous
mobsters on almost every road between MAO college and Mughalpura.
Surprisingly, the local authorities chose to look the other way while all
this was going on, letting the banded This activity was so widespread, so local to start with and so spontaneous that it need not be counted as part of the rally organised by Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-e-Riasalat Mahaz, a collection of some 19 mainly religious Lahore-based organisations. Of course, the banded individuals merged with the rally as and when it started moving from the shrine to the centre of the city. Even at this point the organisers and the administration failed to take note that a large number of rally participants were carrying batons and bamboo sticks -- a clear sign that the proceedings of the day would be anything but peaceful. In less than four hours -- between 2 pm when the rally started moving and 6 pm when it was finally dispersed -- businesses were burnt, vehicles were set ablaze and buildings damaged mostly right under the nose of the law enforcing agencies. Later that evening a walk from the Shimla Hall to the western end of the Mall was like walking through the set of a Bollywood movie wrecked by aliens. About 200 metres from the Hill, the building housing Metropolitan Bank was still emitting smoke. Outside its gate, burnt remains of scores of motorcycles and a couple of singed cars were offering a horrible spectacle. Nearby, McDonald's restaurant stood testimony to the ravages of the mob, with its entrance and main hall shredded into pieces. A motorcycle was thrown one storey down into its fountain. The burnt innards of scores of other vehicles lay scattered around the entrance. From McDonald's to the Wapda House, the whole of Egerton Road was littered with broken glass -- the windscreen-smashing mob had not spared even a single vehicle on the way. Some way before the Wapda House, the gutted remains of a passenger van awfully smelt of rust and burning ore. It was still emitting palpable heat. Right next to it, the PIA office had a number of holes in its window panes. Even if one ignored or overlooked the blackened Punjab Assembly chamber, the destruction at the north-eastern corner of Alfalah Building was too much to remain unnoticed. The Cititbank there was laid waste, as was another local bank and a shop selling electrical appliances. In front of the three business concerns, scores of cars and motorcycles were still smouldering. The Mall between Charing Cross and the Regal Chowk survived the mob relatively unscathed. But only relatively, because almost all shops to the south of the road had lost their decorative glass cases and a car stood burning before the Beadon Road turning. It was across Regal that the destruction was the most visible. Three buildings which housed a couple of local banks, a KFC outlet and a garments showroom stood burning in red flames, with heavy red machines and dressed in yellow firefighters scurrying about to put the raging fire down. It was after many hours that the blaze could be put out. The historic Shezan restaurant was no more. It was the only outlet in the whole double-storey Dyal Singh Mansion which was subjected to utter destruction, showing all signs of a targeted fury. Its furniture was taken out and set ablaze before the restaurant itself was put to flames. The patch of the Mall between Shezan and McDonald's near Neela Gumbad appeared as if nothing had happened. Then suddenly emerged another island of devastation, as if from an otherwise dormant if not peaceful sea. A charred jeep was parked in front of a local leasing company across the GPO and McDonald's glittering yellow M was nowhere to be seen. This apparently selective charge was carefully punctuated with the destruction of all traffic signals and decorative lights -- so meticulously placed by the Parks and Horticulture Authority -- along the large section of the Mall as well its adjoining roads like Egerton Road and as far as the Shimla Hill crossing of the Davis Road. These wounds, though spread over a large part of Lahore's body, may not take a lot of time and effort to cure but they will leave permanent scars, which will keep reminding the residents of the city of the day when it lost its soul. The best the Lahoris can hope for is that this loss turns out to be a temporary lapse not a permanent condition. If these hopes are not materialised, the children of Lahore are set for a few more agonising, terrifying, sleepless nights and the city's work brigade faces the grim prospect of operating under siege more often than not. Even otherwise, Lahore's sunny and fragrant soul will take a long time coming back.
Who were the people who held Lahore to ransom for many hours last week? While everyone is ready to protest, no one is ready to claim the rioters as their own By Aoun Sahi "The February 14 protest was the worst violence I
have seen in Lahore, even worse than the 1977 riots against Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto," says Muhammad Akbar, 55, a garments shop owner in Anarkali
Bazaar. "More than 90 per cent of protesters were teenagers and it
seemed as if they were enjoying setting shops on fire. They may have clear
targets in mind. It was as if they knew what to target." The call for strike in Lahore was given by the Tahaffuz-e- Namoos-e-Risalat Mahaz, a new group of Sunni parties and traders' organisations established to protest the publication of objectionable sketches of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) in some European newspapers. Thousands of people from various religious parties, seminary students, traders etc. participated in the strike and rally to show their anger against these publications. Two men were killed when, according to witnesses, a bank guard opened fire on a group of protesters on Egerton Road. The rally was scheduled to kick off from Data Darbar at 2 pm and it turned violent soon after its start. According to witnesses, the Lower Mall police station was the first target of protesters a huge majority of whom were teenagers. The mob found buildings having offices or restaurants of multi-national companies particularly offensive. Instances of looting were also reported. Around 500 vehicles, mostly cars, were damaged while at least 75 motorcycles and ten cars were burnt by the protesters. All traffic signals on the Mall, Egerton Road, Hall Road, Lakshmi Chowk, Bhaati Chowk and some on Ferozepur Road and Multan Road were smashed. Two McDonald's outlets and a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant came under fire. An outpouring of anti-West sentiment? People soon ran out of explanations as the good old Shezan, which has played host to generations of Lahorites, succumbed to the ire without trace. In the vicinity the Coopera Art Gallery and a Hang Ten shop were also set on fire as were the offices of Irfan Textiles. Half a kilometre further, the Citibank branch in the Alfalah Building was gutted. The main offices of the Pakistan International Airlines escaped with relatively less damage, but by that time the Punjab Assembly building was burning and many more targets lay on the way before, more than the administrative measures or the peace call by the leaders of the rally, the setting of the sun signalled the rioters to stop. Imran Ali, a 23-year-old resident of Gawalmandi, and two of his cousins joined the rally because they wanted to live the moment. They rode their motorcycle to various parts of the Mall and the adjoining areas and ended up pelting stones at shops and policemen. "It was exciting to see the police on the run," he says, but the experience was marred by the eventual arrest of both of his companions and for Imran it is time to reflect. "I think we should not destroy our city," he says post-event. Dr Muhammad Hafeez, head of the department of sociology, Punjab University, calls this youthful indulgence catharsis, resulting out of the gap between 'want' and 'opportunity'. "There is frustration and no opportunity of ventilation for youth in our society," the doctor says. Bashir Ahmed Chaudhry's world -- the World Link Travel on Durand Road -- vanished in the flames that engulfed a good part of Lahore on February 14. He says those who torched his travel agency were "all young people" who "were never stopped by the policemen standing just 100 yards away". "The policemen told me that my shop fell outside their jurisdiction," he tells TNS. By February 16, the police were a bit more active and a bit more aware about their duty. They had arrested 150 people and were planning to charge them under the terrorism act. According to a theory a senior police officer shared with TNS, the Lahore violence could well have been the handy work of a hired gang. "The rally was hijacked (and contrary to the general perception) the police handled the situation well by not using force against highly charged protesters," he says. Dr Sarfraz Naeemi, chairman Tahaffuz-e-Namoos-i-Risalat Mahaz, blames the Lahore violence on the Punjab government. "All the destruction was caused by the agents of the Punjab government to vilify religious parties and leaders," he says. "The press and channels are repeatedly showing the pictures of the people who caused the destruction in Lahore. Why is the government so reluctant to arrest them?" Dr Naeemi says the rally was planned to start at 2 pm while the destruction took place between 10 am to 1 pm, and asks: "Why is the government blaming religious parties and leaders for the devastation? We strongly condemn the destruction but will carry on with our peaceful protests. Nobody can stop us from doing that." Traders' organisation which had supported the strike call are equally convinced that the protest was hijacked. "We had given the call because we considered it our religious duty to to protest the publication of sketches," says Nazeer Chauhan, secretary information Qaumi Tajir Ittehad. "We had no political motive, but it is very sad that some political parties turned a peaceful rally into a nightmare," he says. "On the Mall and Hall Road alone, traders suffered losses of more than Rs 600 million. Post-event and on the authority of Chauhan, the traders' organisations have decided that they will not take part in any of these strikes. "The shops were closed and yet they were attacked and the government must compensate the owners," the traders' leader says. "The ministers and ruling Muslim League leaders should themselves have led the rally. They stayed away and instead gave the maulvis and other political parties the opportunity they had been waiting for six long years-- to create a law and order situation in the country. The police helped them by not stopping them. A gathering which was organised for a great cause ended up as being a rally of looters. What message does it convey to the world?" Raja Basharat, Punjab law minister, responds predictably when he rubbishes the allegation and says. "Why should the government want to destabilise itself? The public and the government were in accord on lodging a protest. But protest does not mean violence. Miscreants will be at no cost be allowed to destroy public and private property. The rangers will stay wherever and whenever they are needed." Raja Basharat says a 100 per cent compensation to those who suffered during the Lahore violence cannot be guaranteed, and confirms the losses run into several millions.
A la Lahore By the time the angry protesters dispersed on Wednesday, three men had already departed -- the youngest of them aged seven
By Nisar Mahmood It was perhaps the biggest and the most comprehensive
shutter-down in the history of Peshawar. No shop, business centre, hotel or
restaurant was open in the city on Wednesday, February 15. Even the forever
hot tandoors had their gas turned off and there was no transport on the
roads. Yet the bazaars were bustling -- with thousands of stick-wielding
protesters. They marched in various directions but with the same objective. The angry men vent their anger on the windowpanes, on streetslights and signboards. Television cable, telephone and electricity wires were severed, cutting off a large number of Peshawar dwellers from the rest of the world. The call given by the Markazi Anjuman-e-Tajiran NWFP and its affiliates in 24 districts of the province was successful. Where ransacking hurt, more grievous was the accompanying loot of the national and multinational companies. Three people lost their lives and more than 124, including 18 policemen, received injuries during the riots that were marked by severe tear-gassing and baton charge. There were reports that police ran out of teargas after nine hours of violence-ridden protest. Eventually, it was the Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps who forced the protesters to disperse late on Wednesday. The police arrested 450 protesters and prepared to charge them under the terrorism act. Daewoo Bus Company was worst hit. Some eighteen buses
belonging to the company and its terminal in Peshawar were set ablaze. A
police vehicle, two motorbikes and a private Suzuki car were also torched. The offices of Telenor, a Norwegian cellular phone company, in Sadar, City and University Road areas were looted. Kentucky Fried Chicken, Bata shoes and Imperial departmental store also suffered heavily at the hands of the mob, as did a petrol pump on Charsadda Road and five cinema houses in various parts of Peshawar. Police put the number of protesters at 40,000, which goes as high as 60,000 in other estimates. Afghan refugees and criminal elements were said to have fully exploited the protest for the destruction and looting of properties. There were reports the protesters had fired on police personnel, as also that the traders in Karkhano Market had shot to pre-empt looting. Those killed were identified as Feroz Khan, who was electrocuted after a wire fell on him due to firing on Dalazak Road, Wakil, 9, hit by a bullet in Gulbahar and an eight-year old boy, Mohammad, hit by a bullet on Phandu Road. A young girl, whose identity could not be ascertained, was also reported to have died during the unrest. Besides ASP Gulbahar, Sadiq Dogar, DSP City, Khan Raziq,
and SHO Banaras Khan, 18 other policemen received injuries. The violence forced the government to shut down all educational institutions for a week. However, Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani rejected calling in army or imposing Section 144. He said the police and FC can control the situation 'tactfully'. Addressing an emergency press conference following the Wednesday riots, the chief minister appealed to ulema and mediamen to convince the people to be peaceful while holding protests. He ruled out a Punjab-like ban on rallies in the NWFP, a statement which was seconded by Haji Ghulam Ali, the city district nazim. About Wednesday's riots officials said the traders' protest was peaceful, but some miscreants exploited the situation and looted and damaged properties. The provincial government is to constitute a committee to ascertain the losses and devise a plan to compensate the victims.
Were the police too slow to react in Lahore? Witnesses think that they were By Ahsan Zia
The eyewitnesses put the blame of February 14 violence in Lahore on a lack of expertise and on non-professional behaviour of law enforcement agencies, the district government and the chief minister's secretariat. The law enforcers seemed to be totally confused in the absence of a compact plan to pre-empt or to cope with the volatile situation. The mob ransacked or torched important buildings including
the Punjab Assembly, a police station and a kiosk, several banks, restaurants
and other private establishments. So much so, the chief of operation Lahore
police, Aamir Zulfikar Khan, was attacked by the angry mob in the presence of
scores of policemen on the Mall. The police contingents deployed at various points on the Mall, Ferozepur Road, Multan Road, Lower Mall, Lakshmi Chowk, Chauburji, Ravi Road, Faisal Chowk, Regal Chowk and Data Darbar were clueless in the face of the advance by the protesters. A police inspector on duty that day says the force was waiting for direction from the central command -- Chief City Police Officer DIG Khwaja Khalid Farooq, Superintendent Police Operation Amir Zulfikar and the SSP Chaudhry Shafqaat. He says that in the absence of no clear-cut orders, at some places, inspectors and sub-inspectors heading the police contingents took total command of the force. Teargas and baton charge followed, all too belatedly. Lahore District Nazim Mian Amir Mehmood holds the police hierarchy responsible for the episode. He tells The News on Sunday: "If the police had taken prompt action against a handful of young miscreants operating in groups of 20 to 30, the situation would have been different. Anyhow, an in-depth inquiry is under way to identify those responsible for this unfortunate incident." The City Police Chief DIG Khawaja Khalid Farooq has a totally different story to narrate. In a talk with TNS, he tries to dispel the impression that there was, at any stage, a lack of coordination between the law-enforcement agencies and the city administration. "I myself was at the centre of all this," he says. "I closely monitored the events as the unfolded and issued timely orders to the police force. The DIG corroborates the theory that the police may have been deceived by the pre-rally assurances from the organisers. "A day before the rally, they told us they would remain peaceful, but they did not fulfil their commitment," he says, adding that the police responded swiftly when the people took law in their hands. "We have deployed around 10,000 policemen and ordered them to deal with the miscreants sternly. I have directions from the higher authorities to bring miscreants to the book under anti-terrorism laws. Moreover, rallies have been banned throughout Punjab except some specific spots." SHO Ravi Road, Lahore, Inspector Aftab Ahmed says water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse the unruly crowd are an effective option in serious situations. The cannons throw coloured water on people in the act, so distinguishing the miscreants from the passersby. Rubber bullets repel without being lethal. But they could not prevent the crowd from marching towards the Punjab Assembly and much beyond on February 14, until the fatal bullets were fired om Egerton Road. They were never used.
The three-kilometre run between Aabpara and the Diplomatic Enclave caught the administration napping By Nadeem Iqbal Islamabad is as protected a city as they come in this and maybe even that part of the world. Particularly after 9/11, the security has been beefed up in the capital, and hence, the gathering of thousands of students in the heart of Islamabad and their march up to the well-guarded diplomatic enclave came as a surprise to many. To the Pakistani eye, things did not go totally out of
hand since the protesters were dispersed before they could cause real damage.
But the foreign diplomats, international NGOs and representatives of the
donors around in connection with the earthquake relief etc. may be inclined
to read the message differently. The protest came just when President George Bush was preparing his rucksack for the exciting South Asian expedition. His visit is expected to boost the reconstruction effort in the earthquake hit areas. The Tuesday's protesters were without a guide. They numbered in thousands and a majority of them belonged to Islamabad -- unlike the past when the capital would be content to play host to agitators from Rawalpindi and elsewhere. But Islamabad is picking up new vices. Of late it has acquired this habit of lumbering up and shaking at around nine. The Tuesday protest started around the same time when students from three boys' colleges in the H-8 and H-9 sectors gathered at the busy Peshawar Morr and started marching towards Aabpara chowk, protesters' favourite haunt. Particularly in the wake of 9/1, Aabpara has been the venue of demonstrations staged by the religious parties. These have been much more organised, guided affairs, limited to provide powerful images of Pakistani anger to the western media. On Tuesday, as new habits would have it, the police cleared the processions' path by diverting the traffic to other routes just as more and more marchers joined in the thrust towards the forbidden enclave. The agitators gathered at Aabpara chowk at around 10 am and were expected to disperse quickly. Instead came the unprecedented three-kilometre dash to the diplomatic zone involving fit enough boys in their teens and young men in their twenties. They managed to do the unthinkable. They trespassed the foreign land. Then they did the unthinkable again. They pelted stones at buildings inside the enclave. Section 144 is a permanently with the capital, yet protests have been taking place, even if not very frequently. In 1989 when Salman Rushdie had just published his 'Satanic Verses', thousands of protesters led by some politicians had converged on the the city and burnt a petrol pump besides torching some US installations. Five people were killed in a police shootout and many were injured. On October 6, 2003, mudrassa students protesting Maulana Azam Tariq's assassination torched a cinema that resulted in the death of a man. Property worth millions of rupees was destroyed. On occasions such as these, the model Islamabad police had emerged as a listless, helpless outfit. Even on February 14, the stick-wielders took these enforcers of law by surprise. Blame it on lack of intelligence? Not many capitals in the world can say that they have it in abundance.
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