 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
|
 |
| News Post E-mail: news.post@thenews.com.pk |
|
|
|
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I was shocked to read Maj-Gen (r) Ehtisham Zamir's statement in your newspapers on February 24 regarding his role in rigging the 2002 general elections. Now the retired general repents of his past wrongdoings, but was he not aware at that time that he was obeying an illegal order of his senior? He should have had the courage to resign at that time and record his name in the history books alongside those who stand by their principles at the cost of their career advancement. The general should have gone through the war diaries of the Normandy landing of 1944 which tell us that the then British army commander had the moral courage to not only differ with Winston Churchill but also to then resign in protest.
Had generals like Ehtesham Zamir and Jamshed Kayani heeded their conscience and resigned Pakistan would have been different today. These officers enjoyed perks and privileges associated with their high offices; and now in order to be in the limelight again, they create controversies. Are these 'prisoners of conscience' prepared to appear in a court of law to testify against General Musharraf?
Mohammad Zohair
Islamabad
(2)
As reported in your newspaper, a former senior official of the ISI, Maj-Gen (r) Ehtesham Zamir confessed that he played a key role in rigging the 2002 general elections in favour of President Musharraf's allied parties. One is not really shocked that Maj-Gen Zamir attributed his involvement in the rigging process to his professional responsibilities. We have many examples of senior military and civil officials who withdrew their sympathies for a dictatorial regime once they were out of office.
Muhammad Ismail Khan
Islamabad
Foreign interference
The anti-America sentiment prevailed in the February 18 elections as the people expressed their disapproval of the US foreign policy with respect to Pakistan by rejecting the proponents of the so-called war on terror. The voters expressed their disappointment at President Musharraf and his team of cronies who ruled the country for more than eight years with US blessing.
In the post-election scenario, we see various foreign powers pressuring Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif into formulating a working relationship with President Musharraf. The people are fed up with foreign interference; they need a democratic government which doesn't accept diktat from international power brokers. The foreign delegations as well as the leaders of the major political parties who are being called upon by the former are acting against the sovereignty of the country. These politicians have earned the mandate to run a democratic government but such kind of attitude on their part will prove counter-productive. They should keep in mind that these foreign forces always remained supportive of dictatorships in Pakistan.
Bashir Hussain Azad
Chitral
(2)
The US president should stop interfering in Pakistan's internal affairs. He is trying to influence the future coalition government. The PPP and the PML-N are the winning parties. They have been elected by the people to follow Pakistan's own agenda, not the one followed by President Musharraf during the last nine years.
Joseph Pere Mousavie
New York, US
(3)
The people of Pakistan have rejected Pervez Musharraf's allies and their policies in the general election. However, the US president and other senior American officials are insisting that Mr Musharraf should remain president. I am unable to understand their concept of democracy. Why is the champion of democracy supporting President Musharraf even after the people have voted against him in great numbers?
Mahabat Khan Bangash
Peshawar
Poll results
I cannot understand why the people have trusted the PPP and the PML-N once again. It is strange because one of them is allegedly the most corrupt politician of Pakistan while the other fled the country to escape life imprisonment. The PPP which did not elect even its party chairperson democratically cannot bring democracy in the country. If Nawaz Sharif was a true patriot, he wouldn't have left the country in the first place. These politicians have nothing to do with democratic principles.
Ifrah Imam
Karachi
A gem of a man
The 70-year-old Khurshid Begum was alone looking for someone to hold her hand and take her upstairs in the Military Hospital's ophthalmology department. Her eyesight was too weak to walk without anybody's help. Her daughter was out to get her receipt registered. Realizing, she had left her mother waiting, she rushed to the stairs but got surprised seeing a tall uniformed officer holding her mother's arm with his arm around her shoulders, helping her to go upstairs. It added more to her surprise when the officer took her to the surgeon-general's room and himself started checking her eyes. It was her daughter's first visit to the hospital. She never knew the angelic looking bearded helper was no other than Lt-Gen Mushtaq Baig, who was not only a doctor of great repute but also a human being of great stature.
Today when he is no more amongst us, there is pain and grief in the heart and tears in the eyes of those thousands of patients whom the kindhearted top doctor of the Pakistan army treated.
I have witnessed many friends and colleagues, subordinates and personal staff of the compassionate Mushtaq Baig bitterly weeping as if they had lost their own kin. Those who knew that the surgeon-general of the Pakistan army was also a Hafiz-e-Quran and a regular five-time namazi were seemingly flabbergasted as to why the militants who claim to be torch-bearers of Islam had killed such a precious man. They may boast of his only 'sin' being the man in uniform, but they are not aware that their act of terror has elevated a true patriotic soldier to the heights of martyrdom.
He had topped the Sargodha Board and won gold medal in the matriculation. The entitlement to scholarship and offers from various colleges paved his way for the FSc studies without getting any monetary help from parents. Again the gold medal in the intermediate exams got him the admission in King Edward's Medical College, Lahore. After MBBS, he joined the Pakistan army's medical corps in January 1976. He was promoted as lieutenant-general and appointed surgeon-general of the Pakistan army and director general of the medical services (inter-services) on February 8, 2007. He was the country's most experienced eye specialist and a number of publications on ophthalmology are to his credit. He attended many national and international workshops, and at present he was serving as principal of the prestigious Army Medical College, Rawalpindi.
One wonders as to what objectives the terrorists have gained by victimizing this innocent soul, a practicing Muslim. No patriotic Pakistani living in whatever part of the country can think of getting involved in such a dastardly act. There is a state of mourning everywhere over the death of Lt-Gen Mushtaq Baig. It has raised many questions about the masterminds of such bombings who appeared to have turned blind to achieve their ambitions and agenda. The incident also proves that terrorism has no religion, no boundary and is a faceless enemy. The incident leaves every Pakistani thinking that by joining hands with the army we have to extirpate this menace once and for all, no matter whatever the cost may be.
Despite her deteriorated health the elderly Khurshid Begum was at Dr Baig's home, wailing. Her two daughters, holding her hands from sides, brought her near to the coffin of Gen Mushtaq. She leaned and kissed it, saying "farewell my son, the son of soil, farewell."
Dr Faryal Farooq
Rawalpindi
PTCL's 'package'
It seems PTCL has a package of its own. I believed the charges for shifting one's telephone were quite nominal. However, I was mistaken. Recently I had to shift homes -- within the same neighbourhood in fact -- and thought that transferring the telephone connection would be a straightforward affair: fill out a form, deposit it at the exchange and hope to get the transfer done within a reasonable period of time. I was wrong. The lineman flatly told me it would "take Rs2,500" to do the needful and that try as I may nothing else would work. He was right -- after waiting for an inordinately wrong period of time I had to dish out the money.
The phone was transferred by the next day. Truly a great 'package' for the people. Well done, PTCL.
A subscriber
Karachi
Plagiarism in PU
This refers to a recent news report published in your newspaper on February 24 under the headline "PU teachers to protest sackings". It is shocking to see the attitude of the university teachers, who are supposed to be the role models for the new generation. According to the news report, the teachers had already confessed to doing plagiarism in their research papers.
It is a matter of grave concern that the charge of plagiarism has been proved and still they are making a fuss over disciplinary action being taken against them. Those who have been found involved should be punished to discourage others from doing the dishonest deed. Their behaviour reminds me of the proverb in Urdu: "Chori, upper say seena zori."
Abdul Rauf Chaudhry
Lahore
Cost of living
As the head of a middle class family, I find it frustrating that most necessities of life are going beyond my reach. I am perturbed at the way every thing is being utilized for revenue generation in Pakistan. On the one hand we have region's fastest growing auto market but on the other we are constantly short of basic commodities like flour, sugar and edible oil.
In addition to an increased cost of living, inflation and currency devaluation, we are also made to indirectly pay the huge taxes imposed on industrialists and manufacturers which they pass onto their customers by increasing their products' prices. With the new government in Islamabad soon, I hope the authorities concerned will adopt consumer-oriented policies to improve the economy in real terms.
Talibul Haq
Karachi
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
