Ex-NED student killed in drone strike was expelled in 2008

Standard

Karachi

Among the three militants killed in a drone strike in Miramshah, one of them was a former student of the NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi who was expelled in 2008.

On November 29, a drone attack at a residential compound in the tribal areas had killed three suspects allegedly associated with the Punjabi Taliban and injured another one.

The one from Karachi’s NED University was identified as Abdur Rehman, who, the varsity administration says, was kicked out of the prestigious engineering university over attedance issues. The varsity’s admissions section confirmed that Rehman was enrolled in the industrial manufacturing department in the year 2004-2005 but was expelled because of continuous absence from classes in his third semester year.

According to university rules, students cannot have less than 75 percent attendance. “Rehman was always absent from class. He was served show-cause notices twice, but when he failed to come up with a satisfactory explanation he was expelled in 2008,” says Arshad Hassan, the deputy registrar.

The administration also admitted that Rehman was associated with the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) – the student wing of the rightwing Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). “He was an active member of the IJT,” recalled Javed Aziz, the university registrar.

The Jamiat, however, denied any links with the former student. “Rehman had no affiliation whatsoever with our party. The news circulating in the media is mere propaganda,” said an IJT spokesperson.

But the news of Rehman’s death first became viral over the social media, where his body was shown along with the details of his links to the NED University and Jamiat.

A former chairperson of the industrial manufacturing department’s remembered Rehman as his student. He, however, could not recall him by face, saying the name was very common at the campus.

A graduate of the department, who knew Rehman personally, said though his slain classmate never indulged in violence his activities at the campus were suspicious. “Often he would get up and leave in the middle of a lecture. The boys he often hanged out with were not university students and were much older than him. His attitude showed that studies were not his top priority,” the engineer said requesting anonymity.

“We all knew him as an activist of the IJT. He had an extremist approach to life and a very strict interpretation of Islam, a characteristic not uncommon among IJT workers,” he said. “He often told me he had been shot in the chest once. We were young boys then and it was something to boast about.”

After the class graduated, nobody knew where Rehman went. He just disappeared. “It was weird because the university has a very well-connected alumni network,” he added.

Rehman lived in Shadman Town of North Nazimabad. His funeral prayer in absentia was held at a mosque in North Karachi. His brother Abdullah Shujaat, also a student at the NED, once occupied a key position in IJT.

Not unprecedented

While the JI claims to have always supported democracy and stood by the constitution, the political Islam it promotes has often produced workers who believe in pan-Islamism and are soft on Al Qaeda’s ideology.

In 2003, one of the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks in the US – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – was arrested from the house of a leading JI women wing leader in Rawalpinidi.

Several former activists of the JI have joined extremist groups or even formed their own. One of the most prominent among them is Jundullah, which attacked the motorcade of Karachi Corps Commander in 2004. Jundullah’s founder Atta-ur-Rehman was once a member of the party. Two more prominent suspects – Dr Arshad Waheed and Dr Akmal Waheed – were the leading figures of the JI-affiliated doctors association.

After acquittal in this case, Arshad shifted to Wana where he was also killed in a drone strike in March 2008. His brother Akmal was rearrested, this time in Abu Dhabi, for his alleged Al Qaeda connections.

All these cases and many more like them have been widely reported in the media and documented in several books focusing on Al Qaeda-linked militancy in Pakistan.

The confusion on being with or against terrorist organisations is even evident in the party’s top leadership, supported by JI chief Munawar Hassan’s recent statement declaring Hakeemullah Mehsud, the slain chief of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a martyr.

Prof Jaffar Ahmed, the director of Pakistan Study Centre at Karachi University, believes the JI should think what it has achieved by supporting militancy. “If Maulana Maududi was alive he would have been depressed by the state of the JI. He was an academic man who tried to appeal to the educated Muslim middle class,” he said.

“Very few people [actually] know that Maulana Maududi was against the anti-Ahmadi legislation. The JI narrative changed during the time of Qazi Hussain who supported the Afghan jihad. The problem now is that the state’s policy against militants does not go with JI’s policy of pan-Islamism,” Ahmed said.

originally published here

Once aboard the ship, sea marshals are forgotten men

Standard

 

Middlemen in the fishing business hire people but disown them at the sea
Karachi

On his deathbed, Rana Sarfaraz vowed to take his murderers to court. The 37-year-old sea marshal spent 13 months in the open seas before he died on August 29 hungry, sick and too weak to move.

sarfaraz

the late Sarfaraz who died while performing his duties at the sea

Sarfaraz and his friend Umer Khanzada had been hired on a six-month contract by an agent named Asad Iqbal Gill. Their job was to provide security to the Jet Mark 726, a Taiwanese fishing vessel. But once aboard the ship, the men realised what a huge mistake they had made.

As a general practice Pakistani middlemen recruit sea marshals, fix a contract and send them off to foreign companies. In this case, the Pakistani company Cosmic Transportation and Chartering Network hires employees for an Australian company named Shian International. Bahria Security provides the sea marshals licensed weapons. While sailing, the captains refuse to take care of them and the recruits become the responsibility of the middlemen.

“While the captain had meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables for his crew, he only gave us a few cans of fish, half a kilo of sugar and a bottle of coffee, which was to last for the entire 13 months we sailed,” recalls Khanzada, who survived to narrate the horrific ordeal.

On board, the two friends developed a disease called acute pulmonary oedema. “Our bodies swelled, our gums began bleeding and we could barely breathe.”

In February 2013, their six-month contract expired. But they were not relieved of their duties. Their repeated calls for help were ignored. In April, they managed to contact their employers through a fax machine at the vessel.

Copies of the fax messages available with The News reveal 20 messages were sent to the employers over the period of seven months; with each call for help more desperate than the previous. The last message on August 16, a few days before Sarfaraz died, stated: “Our food stock is over. Our bodies and gums are swollen. We cannot walk. Call us back.”

Stranded in the middle of the sea with nowhere to go, the two men were confined to a tiny room and their beds. “When Sarfaraz died the captain did not believe us. He said we were lying, pulling up an act.”

Khanzada takes a few minutes to pull himself together, then continues: “A kind crewmember performed the funeral rites [of Sarfaraz], washed the body, wrapped it in a bed sheet, and placed it in the cold storage with the fish catch. By then I had no strength to move.”

It was only after a human life was lost, the captain realised the seriousness of the situation. On August 30, a barely alive Khanzada was taken to a hospital in Mauritius. Sarfaraz’s body was flown back to Pakistan, where a mourning brother, a widow and four children awaited.

Rana Israr, the victim’s brother, says there have been no explanations or compensations. “Gill slipped Rs10,000 in my pocket. I kept asking how could a healthy young man die? Was there no treatment given at the ship? I never received a reply.”

Gill, who heads the Cosmic Transportation and Chartering Network, refuses to take the blame of Sarfaraz’s death. “I am just a middleman. According to my knowledge, Rs1.1 million have been paid in compensation to the family.” But the family awaits.

Modern slavery

A tycoon, who has been in the fishing industry for 25 years, requesting anonymity says that this case is the perfect example of criminal negligence at the hand of the employers. “This is modern slavery. This was murder, a total disregard for human life.”

The industrialist maintains Pakistani men are not made for a life at sea, and should be released after two months. “Unfortunately, fishy recruiters hoodwink men, promising them exaggerated financial gains. Several lives are lost this way every year.”

Dr Abdur Razzaq, a criminal law expert, says the employers should be tried under the Fatal Accident Act, 1855. The law states when an employee dies due to criminal negligence of the employer, the aggrieved family should receive compensation. The court decides the compensation based on the economic worth of an individual. The employer has to pay the aggrieved family the victim’s annual earnings for the rest of his life. Pakistani laws define the average life of a person as 70 years.

“So in this case, the company should pay Sarfaraz’s family for 33 years,” Razzaq maintains. “Apart from financial compensations, there is non-financial compensation as well.”

originally published here