DarkTimes - 24Hr Global News Blog

Funerals have been held in Pakistan for the victims of a suicide bomb attack in the capital, Islamabad.

Yusuf Reza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, on Monday denounced the bombing that killed at least 20 people - mostly police - near a police station.

Sunday's attack was carried out just several hundred metres from the site of a rally marking one year since a deadly government raid on the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque).

After visiting some of the 50 people wounded by the blast, Gilani said: "This is against humanity. The law will take the culprits in its grip."

Police continued to investigate at the scene, discovering a severed head in bushes beside the road where the attack took place, according to Reuters news agency.

The heads of suicide bombers are often severed by the explosives strapped to their torsos.

Rehman Malik, the interior ministry chief, said a teenage boy was the suspected attacker.

Speaking to Geo TV hours after the explosion, he said: "All witnesses say that a 15- or 16-year-old boy, who had a light beard and wore a white shalwar kameez ... he came walking toward our police and blasted himself."

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said that the explosion happened on the edge of the security cordon.

People were leaving the mosque after the mostly peaceful rally when the attack targeting the police occurred, he said.

Rally marred

Thousands of police had been deployed across the capital for Sunday's memorial and a tight ring of security was in place around the gathering in front of the mosque.

Barbed wire and fences had been put up to prevent vehicles from entering the area while pedestrians had to pass through metal detectors.

Hyder said the bombing was likely to jeopardise the government's attempts to engage the leaders of armed groups carrying out attacks in the country.

There was some evidence to suggest that there were splinter groups that were not in favour of rapprochement with the government, he said.

Imtiaz Gul, a political analyst in Islamabad, told Al Jazeera that the attack came after threats from the Pakistani Taliban in northwest regions bordering Afghanistan.

"Baitullah Mehsud had indicated and threatened that if his people, with whom the government was talking ... if their prisoners are not released ... they would take revenge," he said.

"They clearly indicated it would be in Islamabad, Lahore or another big Pakistani city."

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the blast.

Pakistani troops surrounded the mosque last July, clashing with pro-Taliban and alleged al-Qaeda members who were holed up inside before storming the building.

More than 100 people were killed in the military operation.

'Rooting out terrorism'

Pervez Musharraf, the president who ordered last year's assault, reiterated the government's "commitment to root-out terrorism in all its forms and manifestations", the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency said.

He urged Gilani's government to do more to combat anti-government groups, warning that otherwise there would be "Red Mosques everywhere".

The level of violence in Pakistan has fallen since last year, but attacks are still relatively frequent.

In June, a suicide car bomber killed at least six people near the Danish embassy in Islamabad.

A statement attributed to al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for that blast, which was believed to have targeted Denmark over the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

A BOMB attached to a motorcycle exploded at a crowded market in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, killing a girl and injuring 11 others, police said.

The blast at the busy Mannan Chowk also injured four policemen, one of them seriously, as well as seven other people, police official Raja Ishtiaq told AFP.

"The blast killed an eight-year-old girl and injured her beggar mother who were sitting near the motorcycle parked by some unknown man," another police official Abdul Ghafoor said, adding that no group had claimed responsibility for the attack.

The impoverished province of Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital and which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has been wracked by an insurgency waged by ethnic Baluch tribes seeking more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.

Hundreds of people have died in violence in the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004.

The province has also been hit by attacks blamed on Taliban militants.

Life began limping back to normalcy today in most parts of violence-hit Pakistan barring the volatile southern Sindh province where sporadic clashes continued in the aftermath of the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

In many cities and towns, people made a beeline to stock up on food and other essentials as some shops reopened after being closed for Two days since the killing of Bhutto in Rawalpindi on Thursday.

Shortage of food and fuel were reported from many places. Most petrol and CNG pumps across the country remained closed.

Sporadic violence continued in Sindh, a stronghold of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, despite the deployment of army in 16 districts of the province.

A PPP worker was shot dead today in violence-wrecked Larkana, the home town of Bhutto, as party members roamed through the streets carrying flags and shouting slogans.

Life continued to be hit in the provincial capital of Karachi, which witnessed the fiercest protests. Around 10,000 people chanted anti-government slogans while holding prayers for Bhutto in Lahore.

Seven workers of a garment factory, including a woman, on the outskirts of Karachi were burnt alive when an armed mob torched the unit yesterday. The dead workers were trapped inside the factory by the blaze, the police said.

More than a dozen people, including policemen, were killed in incidents of firing and over 425 vehicles were burnt by the protestors in the southern port city alone.

Six persons were injured today in firing in Lyari, a locality in Karachi.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan indicated Saturday it would delay January elections because of turmoil caused by the death of Benazir Bhutto, as a bitter dispute erupted over how the opposition leader was killed.

Violent protests and looting which have left at least 38 people dead and 53 injured have rocked the nation of 160 million Muslims since Bhutto was killed at a campaign rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi on Thursday.

The United States and Western powers have urged Pakistan to commit to the democratic process in the aftermath of her death, but leading opposition figure Nawaz Sharif has already said his party would boycott the polls.

Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, which has accused the government of trying to cover up her death, has said it will take a decision on Sunday on whether to take part in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January 8.

Pakistan's interior ministry Saturday moved to quash the cover-up claims saying its account of how Bhutto died was 'nothing but facts' and offered to exhume her body for inquiry.

The crisis-hit country's election commission said it would hold an urgent meeting on Monday to decide the election's fate, but it indicated a delay could be on the cards.

"All activities pertaining to pre-poll arrangements, including printing of ballot papers and logistics as well as training of polling personnel, have been adversely affected," it said in a statement.

In some places, the commission said, the security situation was "not conducive" to holding the elections which Bhutto had come home from exile in October to contest.

It cited the death of an election candidate in a bomb blast and said election commission offices in nine districts had been set on fire and that voter lists had been "reduced to ashes".

The polls would lack credibility without the participation of Bhutto's PPP, which has been infuriated by the government's official account of their leader's death.

Bhutto died after a suicide attack targetted her vehicle at a campaign rally in the northern city of Rawalpindi. Early reports and witnesses said she had been shot before a bomb exploded nearby.

However the government said she had no gunshot or shrapnel wounds. It said the opposition leader died after smashing her head on her car's sunroof as she tried to duck.

The ministry also blamed Al-Qaeda, saying intelligence services had intercepted a call from Baitullah Mehsud, considered the extremist group's top leader for Pakistan.

Senior members of Bhutto's party dismissed the government's version of events as "lies".

"There was a bullet wound I saw that went in from the back of her head and came out the other side," Bhutto's spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who was involved in washing her body for burial, told AFP.

"This is ridiculous, dangerous nonsense because it is a cover-up of what actually happened," said Rehman.

Bhutto was an outspoken critic of Al-Qaeda-linked militants blamed for scores of bombings in Pakistan and had received threats.

But she had also accused elements from the intelligence services of involvement in a suicide attack on a Bhutto rally in October that left 139 dead and which she only narrowly escaped.

Maulana Omar, a spokesman for alleged Al-Qaeda kingpin Mehsud, denied involvement in the attack and expressed grief over Bhutto's death.

"This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies," said the spokesman from Waziristan, a lawless tribal region where Al-Qaeda leaders, including possibly Osama bin Laden, are alleged to be hiding.

One day after Bhutto was laid to rest at her family's mausoleum in southern Sindh province, Pakistan was virtually paralysed with most people unable to buy food or petrol, with all shops, fuel stations, banks and offices closed down.

The streets of the country's main cities -- Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Peshawar -- were largely empty, and in many places there was evidence of violence and looting.

President Pervez Musharraf ordered security chiefs to take firm action against rioters, as the interior ministry estimated that damage ran into tens of millions of dollars.

"Elements who wish to exploit the situation by looting and plundering must be dealt with firmly," the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency quoted Musharraf as saying.

Analysts warned that Pakistan was facing its biggest crisis since Bangladesh split from the country more than 35 years ago.

"We are heading towards a very uncertain phase of politics which has the potential to plunge the country into a state of anarchy," Hasan Askari, former head of political science at Lahore's Punjab University, told AFP.

The assassination has also thrust security concerns and foreign policy back into the US political spotlight less than a week before Americans start voting to decide their Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.

Leading democratic candidate Hillary Clinton called for an independent, international probe into Bhutto's murder, saying Musharraf's government had no credibility.

But Pakistan's interior ministry rejected the need for external help, saying the international community "does not understand the environment" in Pakistan.

Bhutto was buried on Friday with hundreds of thousands of grief-stricken mourners following her coffin on the final journey to the family's mausoleum in the village of Ghari Khuda Bakhsh.

Educated at Harvard and Oxford, Bhutto first took the helm of Pakistan in 1988. She was ousted in 1990 amid corruption allegations but was premier again from 1993 to 1996.

She has been buried next to her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former premier who was hanged by the military government in 1979.

Pakistan is in state of emergency. People are terribly hurt due to Benazir's Death. All the markets were immediately closed after the news of her death. Here are some of the incidents occured due to her death:

1. Larkana Railway Station Burnt
2. Karachi PTCL Exchange Burnt
3. Arbab Gulam Rahim's House Burnt
4. Liaqat Jatoi's Nephew's Home Burnt
5. National Hospital Karachi Burnt
6. National Bank Karachi Burnt
7. And Many Offices And Franchises in all the cities are burnt

3 Banks Burnt in Hyderabad, Highways and Roads are blocked. Vehicles are being burnt, from shops to police stations, Patrol Pumps and even a train was blazed

8 BANKS BURNT IN LARKANA. VEHICLES, SHOPS, HOMES BEING BURNT AND CITY IS IN FLAMES, IN MOURN OF BHUTTO'S DEATH

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has dismissed various complaints regarding violation of election code of conduct, misuse of power and transfers.

The ECP dismissed the majority of complaints out of total 698 complaints lodged with the ECP; however, the concerned authorities clarified the position against 58 complaints, the sources said.

The ECP investigated the said complaints and issued the directives to the concerned DROs and Police to give details about the complaints made by various political parties.

KARACHI: A graceful ceremony of the change of guards was held here at the mausoleum of the Father of the Nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mouhammed Ali Jinnah, whose 131st birth anniversary is being celebrated today.

A smartly turned out 15-member contingent of the cadets from Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), Kakul took over the duties at the mausoleum of the Quaid from the Pakistan Air Force guards at a dignified ceremony held here this morning at 8.00 A. M. sharp.

Major General Zahid Hussain, the guest of honour on this occasion laid floral wreaths at the mausoleum, offered ‘Fateha’ and recorded his tributes to the Founder of the Nation in the guest book.

Later, Major General Zahid Hussain took salute from the contingent of PMA cadets and inspected the parade.

KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader Mian Nawaz Sharif Sunday called on former president of the Supreme Court Bar Munir A. Malik at his residence here and paid tribute to him for his role in the lawyers’ movement.

Presidents of Sindh High Court Bar and Karachi Bar Association Justice (Rtd) Rasheed Rizvi and Mehmood-ul-Hassan Advocate were also present during the meeting.

Nawaz Sharif lauded the role of lawyers’ movement adding that his party and the lawyers are struggling for the same cause.

Pakistan's political upheaval is unlikely to affect a USD284-million deal for acquiring 700 air-to-air missiles from a US company, the manufacturer has said.

Raytheon Missile Systems, which is based in Arizona, signed its biggest-ever international deal with Pakistan under which it will supply 500 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, or AMRAAMs, and 200 AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles.

Paul Nisbet, a Raytheon analyst with JSA Research Inc, said action against US arms sales to Pakistan was unlikely. "Politics very seldom has anything to do with changing the contract," he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

Raytheon's deal with Pakistan marks the largest single international AMRAAM sale. The deal will be completed in 2008. The US government will buy the missiles from Raytheon and then supply them to Pakistan under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.

Any defence purchases by foreign governments, such as Pakistan's, have to be cleared by the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency.

The FMS programme, Nisbet said, is intended "to partly shield the company from the politics" and to help countries that don't have the "capability of monitoring these very complex contracts".

TANK, Dec 17: Local Taliban militants on Monday denied that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden might be hiding inside or near the tribal areas of the country.

A spokesman for the recently-formed United Taliban Movement of Pakistan (UTMP) in a statement accused President Pervez Musharraf of making false claims to please the ‘Americans’ in order to make money.

President Musharraf had claimed in an interview to The Washington Post that Bin Laden might be hiding in the area that borders Bajaur tribal agency and Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

“No one except Osama knows where he is. Musharraf is making such statements to make more money,” the spokesman, Maulavi Omar, said.

He alleged that such statements were tantamount to inviting US forces to invade the country.

He added that the tribal militants would welcome and protect the Al Qaeda leader if he ever came to their area.

He denied that the Afghan Taliban had formed the UTMP, but acknowledged that they shared the same ideals and goals.

“Of course, our mission is the same and we believe that Mullah Omar is our caliph but, at the same time, we have our own separate struggle which is limited to Pakistan.”

He reiterated his threat to the government that if military operations in tribal areas and Swat were not halted within 10 days, militants would launch attacks on security forces throughout the country.“We have given a 10-day deadline to the government of Pakistan to withdraw troops from tribal areas and Swat.”

He demanded release of all Taliban prisoners, including the Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz.

“If the demands are not met there were will be large-scale attacks on security forces throughout the country,” he warned.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A British suspect in an alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners slipped out the back door of a mosque after two police officers stopped en route to jail so he could say prayers, police said Monday.

New details of Rashid Rauf's escape, a major embarrassment for President Pervez Musharraf's government, emerged two days after he got away following a court appearance in Islamabad on Britain's request for his extradition.

A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue, said Rauf was being taken back to Adiala Jail — a high-security prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi — when he asked his guards to let him say afternoon prayers at a roadside mosque.

"The policemen accepted his request," the official said. "Rashid Rauf went inside the mosque with handcuffs on, but he slipped out from a rear door."

The official said officers had raided homes of Rauf's relatives with no success. The two police officers acknowledged they were waiting in a car outside the mosque when Rauf went inside, the official said.

The official said police had taken one of Rauf's uncles into custody to determine whether he played any role in the escape.

Rauf's lawyer, Hashmat Habib, identified the uncle as Mohammed Rafique.

But Habib said Rafique had been in the Kashmir region on Saturday and that he doubted his client had fled.

"I know Rashid Rauf was prepared to go to London," he told The Associated Press.

Habib said police commandos had escorted Rauf on earlier trips to court. "How can it happen that only two policemen were traveling with him on Saturday?"

Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz assured Ambassador Robert Brinkely that the suspect's capture was a "priority," British High Commission spokeswoman Laura Davies said Sunday.

Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said security teams were searching the country and would report back within three days.

Rauf, who is of Pakistani origin, was arrested here in August 2006 on a tip from British investigators. Pakistan described him as a key suspect in a purported plot to blow up airplanes flying from Britain to the United States, prompting a major security alert at airports worldwide and increased restrictions on carry-on items.

He was charged with possessing chemicals that could be used in making explosives and with carrying forged travel documents.

Rauf denied involvement in the plot and prosecutors later withdrew the case against him, though he remained in jail awaiting a decision on a British extradition request.

Britain asked Pakistan to hand him over in connection with a separate 2002 murder inquiry. The two countries do not have an extradition treaty.

Members of Rauf's family have appealed for his release, saying he is innocent and desperate to remain with his wife and two daughters.

Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan and Zarar Khan contributed to this report.

KARACHI - President Pervez Musharraf's lifting of emergency rule over Pakistan and restoration of the constitution is insufficient to put the country on the path to democracy, say civil-rights activists.

For one thing, there is the unprecedented situation created by most of the country's higher judiciary refusing to take an oath under Musharraf's Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) of



November 3 that imposed the state of emergency. Anti-press laws and restrictions on the electronic media remain. And last, but not least, is Musharraf himself, elected as president for the next five years while still in army uniform, by an outgoing assembly.

The judges who refused to take oath under the PCO may "have ceased to be judges" according to caretaker Law Minister Afzal Haider, but many of them refuse to accept this position. For the first time in Pakistan's history, the majority of judges of the Supreme Court and the four provincial High Courts refused to legitimize a PCO. The stance of these "non-PCO judges" is also unprecedented: they still consider themselves to be the rightful judges.

Ordinary citizens have taken the lead from the "peaceful defiance" of the judges, symbolized by the deposed chief justice of the supreme court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, who has been under house arrest in his official residence since November 3.

Many lawyers support this position. The day after the imposition of martial law, lawyers in Karachi began sending out cell phone text messages proclaiming that non-PCO chief justice Sabihuddin Ahmed of the Sindh High Court "is our chief justice. All judges continue to hold office. We do not recognize [the new chief justice sworn in that day]".

Several of the deposed judges are still in their official residences. When Justice M A Shahid Siddiqui of the Lahore High Court on November 30 received a letter from the Lahore High Court Registrar dated November 16, requesting him to vacate his official residence, he issued a notice to the registrar. Terming the letter "an attempt to intimidate and over-awe judges who have not surrendered to the chief of army staff [Musharraf]," he wrote: "I, therefore, as a sitting judge of the Lahore High Court direct the registrar of this court to explain as to why and at whose instance he issued this letter asking me to vacate my official residence. The reply shall be submitted within a month."

The exchange triggered another chain of events that proved most embarrassing to the government. Students and lawyers began holding vigil outside Siddiqui's residence. Many stayed outside all night in the chill of the Lahore winter, including the well-known activists and lawyers Asma Jahangir and Hina Jillani, along with a host of other high-profile advocates.

"We will continue to hold vigil outside Justice Siddiqui's house," said Hamid Khan, former president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association. Despite threats from police, activists and lawyers rotated shifts around the clock for several days to prevent Siddiqui's eviction.

The saga ended when Siddiqui, a heart patient, had to be rushed to hospital with chest pains. Late that night, police arrested about a dozen lawyers and students holding vigil outside his residence. They were released from prison after a few days and charges against them withdrawn. Siddiqui is still in the hospital, and his family is still in their official residence.

On December 10 - International Human Rights Day, observed by Pakistani lawyers, civil-society organizations and human-rights groups as a "black day" - deposed Sindh High Court chief justice Sabihuddin Ahmed took the position that he could not comment on the PCO because his comments might be misconstrued as a judicial pronouncement "because I am still the chief justice of the high court".

Meanwhile, journalists hold that the lifting of emergency rule is meaningless for the media unless the government withdraws the amended Registration of Printing and Publication Ordinance, 2002 and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority that continue to be used against the independent media.

Mazhar Abbas, general secretary of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, noted that the closure of even one or two private television channels (Geo and Royal TV) is a "violation of Article 19 of the constitution, which provides freedom of speech and expression and freedom of the press. If this article has been restored then why have these channels not been allowed to resume transmission?"

"The continued ban on TV anchors, talk shows and live call-ins has restricted TV channels from free coverage of elections," he said. "It is also a violation of citizens' rights to speech as provided in the constitution."

Musharraf pushed through six more amendments in the constitution through executive orders on Friday, a day before lifting the emergency, revoking the PCO and restoring the constitution. His first act after restoring the constitution was to swear in new members of the Supreme Court.

For many in Pakistan, the fact that Musharraf was elected as president "while still in army uniform by an assembly that had completed its term and had no mandate to elect him for another five years", as one activist put it, de-legitimizes his office.

A Lahore High Court advocate, Asad Jamal, questioned his restoration of the constitution, terming it meaningless, given the over a dozen amendments that Musharraf has pushed through over the past month that provide immunity to himself and his actions. "He has destroyed the character of the constitution," said Jamal. "He will make sure that there is no need to ratify these amendments in Parliament, unless he is sure of the requisite two-thirds majority."

But getting Musharraf out of the equation will not dent the military-backed system he represents. "As long as the military continues to run the show, bankrolled and supported by Washington for its own short-term interests in 'the war on terror', and as long as Pakistani politicians continue to collude with the system without addressing the real issues of poverty, unemployment and education, Pakistan will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis," one analyst said, requesting anonymity.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — At least nine members of a local Pakistan army football team were killed and four wounded in a suicide attack in the country's restive northwest on Monday, the military said.

The attack took place in a high security area of the garrison city of Kohat in North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said on state television.

The players were on a public road in the area when they were blown up, he said.

"They were coming back from a match," said Arshad, adding that the area had been cordoned off.

It was the third suicide attack apparently aimed at the military since Friday, and came two days after President Pervez Musharraf lifted a state of emergency, saying a wave of militant violence had been stopped.

"The wave of terrorism and militancy has been stopped under the emergency and there has been considerable improvement in overall situation," Musharraf said in an address to the nation Saturday.

Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror", has been facing a surge in Islamist violence.

Around 700 people have been killed in militant attacks this year and more than half that number since July, when the army killed around 100 people in a raid on a radical, pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad.

Earlier Monday, the military announced that 17 pro-Taliban rebels had been taken into custody in the northwestern valley of Swat, another flashpoint in the battles against rebels.

According to government reports, around 330 militants have been killed in the area during the recent campaign to clear the valley of fighters.

The latest men captured were all said to be followers of Fazlullah, a local pro-Taliban cleric known as "Mullah Radio" for broadcasting fiery speeches over his private FM radio station.

He has called for a holy war against the Pakistan government.

LAWYERS, students, civil society activists and citizens held a candle-light protest in front of the residence of the jailed SCBA President Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan. The protesters condemned the government for not restoring judges and for not releasing Aitzaz, Tariq Mehmood, Munir A Malik and Ali Ahmed Kurd.

Lawyers started the protest by holding a sit-in in front of Aitzaz’s residence which continued for around 30 minutes. The protest continued for one hour and protestors dispersed at Canal Road after holding a protest march. Most of the protesters held candles and shouted slogans at the beat of drums. They called for the release of Aitzaz and lawyers detained in the countrywide.

Prominent among the protesters were human rights activist Faryal Gohar, Supreme Court Bar Association vice president Ghulam Nabi Bhatti, secretary Amin Javed, Lahore High Court Bar Association Vice President Firdous Butt, Lahore Bar Association President Sayed Muhammad Shah, joint secretary Chanda Jamil, activists of Women Action Forum, Shirkatgah Women Resource Centre, LUMS students, Khaksar Tehrik president Hamidudin Mashraqi. Lawyers, women and children were also present on the occasion. Bushra Aitzaz welcomed the participants of the vigil and thanked them for joining the protest.

Protesters lit candles on the main gate of Aitzaz’s residence which had been declared sub-jail by the government.

Lawyers had also hired two drumbeaters and the many people stopped and inquired as to what was happening.

LAHORE: The participants of a seminar have called to end violence against women and urged the government and civil society cooperation to this end.

Participants of the seminar included Coordinator National MNCH Program Sabiha Khurshid, Additional Secretary (Home) Amir Khan Khattak of Home Department, Shamshad Qureshi, Program Officer UNICEF, Ayesha Qazi, Deputy Director (Coordination) of Gender Reform Action Plan GRAP.

Speaking on the occasion, Coordinator National MNCH Program Sabiha Khurshid, who was also presiding over the seminar, emphasised the need to work at the grassroots level for elimination of violence against women. She said a mother died of preventable complications during pregnancy after every 20 minutes.

Additional Secretary (Home) Amir Khan Khattak stressed on developing a plan of action for eliminating violence against women. He said women themselves would have to take the lead in making such efforts. Shamshad Qureshi, Program Officer UNICEF, on the occasion committed that he would launch an advocacy and awareness campaign on family counselling and child counselling in collaboration with GRAP.

Ayesha Qazi, Deputy Director (Coordination) of Gender Reform Action Plan (GRAP), said GRAP had made the process of change towards gender sensitivity more effective. The violence against women could be ended with the cooperation of the government and civil society. Dr Aslam Bajwa, Dr Aftab Anjum, Ammar Naqvi, Umar Malik, Shazia Siraj, Syed Nasir Kazmi and Waheed Iqbal were among those who spoke on the occasion.