Gwadar Por t desilting operation geared up on PM’s direc tions

It will pave the way for the construction of additional berths from existing 602 meters length to 1500 meters Moreover, frequent dredging will help maintain original depth of the channel ” The total cost of dredging he said has been determined as per cubic meter considering the scale of operation and size of the area to be cleared from siltation Gwadar Port has been handling ship with a draught of 11 6 meters Last time dredging operation got underway in 2015 CHEC award-winner of dredging operation is an engineering contractor and a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), providing infrastructure construction, such as marine engineering, dredging and reclamation, road and bridge railways airports and plant construction

Par t y in disarray

Af ter deser tions galore, now splinters take centre stage

THE Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf is in the disarray of a party that is fast disintegrating The daily hemorrhaging seems to show no signs of letting up as those who strengthened the hands of the party ahead of the 2018 election by a fervent entry into the PTI complete with a mandatory appearance alongside PTI chairman Imran Khan while draped them in the party s distinctive colours, now part ways by holding a press conference in which they ritualistically invoke the May 19 mayhem, sometimes saying that they will leave politics entirely

However now there is a new phenomenon as splinter groups begin to come crawling out of the woodwork The PTI (Nazriati) which has been largely dormant even comatose since it registered itself with the Election Commission of Pakistan in 2018 has suddenly re-emerged, and its chief, Ahsan Iqbal Dar, has said that he will be supporting Jahangir Tareen s goup in the coming elections Mr Tareen s group, which is considered crucial in South Punjab, played a crucial role in having the PML(N) s Hamza Shehbaz elected Punjab CM last year He is considered to have played a key role in having Mr Khan elected Prime Minister by his having delivered the support of independent members He is a former Secretary General of the party and it is noteworthy that those who succeeded him former Health Minister Aamer Mehmood Kiani, and former Planning Minister Asad Umar, have left the party over the May 9 incidents, with only President Arif Alvi remaining loyal

Mr Khan may find it difficult, if not impossible, to put together his party The splinters may not split the party vote as much as they claim because it should be remembered that the PTI vote is cast for Imran Khan and unless the splinter group has his endorsement is unlikely to confuse the voter However, it should not be forgotten that the PTI’s 2018 success was based on support for Mr Khan being combined with that of electable personal vote bank Those personal vote banks will not be available to the PTI if their electables end up in a splinter group The struggle has clearly entered a new phase, one with no holds barred

Dedicated to the legac y of late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami (Late)

Founding Editor

Yousaf Nizami Editor

M A Niazi Joint Editor Umar Aziz Executive Editor

IT is disheartening to see a political party such as the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) facing the stress of disintegration– bordering on dissolution The violent incidents of May 9 are becoming the PTI’s undoing

On May 9 the PTI played naïve despite the fact that it had gathered in its ranks veteran politicians from multiple religio-political parties The PTI played immature in the sense that the party failed to differentiate between staging a demonstration to voice its protest and launching a physical manoeuver to assert its gripe Veteran politicians failed to perform in the sense that they took an emotionally charged mob to the streets but later on they left the crowd to its own devices which were surfaced as nothing else but vandalism and incendiarism Reportedly the sites of demonstration had been predecided It is unclear if physical attacks had been pre-planned

The Model Town incident of 2014 had made the Lahore Police cognizant of their vulnerability at the hands of human rights groups Further the antiriot police had experienced its inability to subdue PTI supporters to arrest the party chairman Imran Khan from his Zaman Park residence on March 14 this year when a police party arrived from Islamabad to arrest Khan On May 9 the anti-riot police were fewer in number and attenuated in response to resist any mass protest This is the point where a major deficiency in the governing system is noticeable verse with and calm down a rowdy mob The police used to be at his disposal He also acted as a cushion between brute (police) force and an uncontrolled frenzied mob

If this system had been extant on May 9, the Corps Commander Lahore would not have to negotiate himself with representatives of the mob at his house, aka Jinnah House It is a good idea to keep the judiciary separate from the executive but the cost of separation has been borne by those who were lynched and even burnt alive by mobs, on one allegation or the other, while the police stood as silent spectators Now, the uniform, whether it is of the Police or the Rangers, is face to face with a common man who wants to vent his feelings against any act of the state

What happened on March 14 at Zaman Park could have been avoided, if the magistracy system had been functional May 9 also taught that there should have been a cushion between a uniform-wearing force and a raucous mob Much has been voiced about military courts, tion 30 of CrPC

From a different perspective the future of the arrested offenders would be decided by the way designer Khadija Shah (daughter of a former federal minister grand-daughter of a former COAS) is treated by the law– or by the authorities Reportedly on May 9 she led the attack on Jinnah House She was conspicuously present Her case is bound to set the precedent for how retribution would work Her case would decide if the concept of Elite Capture could rescue her or not This is the same vile notion which was reviled by the PTI Let her pass through the rigours of military courts to be sentenced for life imprisonment The Army must make her an example before trying other civilians By the way where are other characters who made May 9 possible eventually? Where is Sheikh Rasheed who kept on inciting PTI workers by raising incendiary slogans such as Jalao Gherao; Aag laga doon ga (Burn Besifei I will set on fire) He uttered these words in Lahore and Islamabad on different occasions to inflame PTI workers into ransacking and scorching the country Is he being favoured just because he is a product of Gate Number Four of the General Head Quarters?

Similarly what about the anchorpersons and analysts such as Kamran Shahid Ajmal Jami Kashif Abbasi Habib Akram Amir Zia and Irshad Bhatti who supported jatha politics (gang politics) and kept on encouraging PTI workers who resorted to doing acts of disruption and disorder Oriya Maqbool Jan Hasan Nisar and Lt General (retd) Amjad Shoaib are already notorious for condoning spiteful acts of the PTI workers Just listen to Dr Moeed Pirzada Sami Ibrahim and Sabir Shakir how disappointed they are at the defeat of the aggressors These media personalities were the backbone of the PTI politicians who are now jumping off the PTI ship: hold a press conference condemn May 9 regret joining the PTI cast aspersions on the PTI Chairman and announce abandoning the party That is it; be drycleaned Nevertheless designer Khadija Shah is not a politician (a political representative) to adopt the same course to save her skin

Retrospectively, in the events of May 25, 2022, a prelude to May 9 was present On May 25, 2022, responding to the Azadi March call, PTI workers set on fire trees in Islamabad’s Blue Area The “like-minded bench” of the Supreme Court disregarded the torching event by saying that this might be a strategy of PTI workers to dampen down the smoke of tear gas fired by the police Pardon from state functionaries remained the prime nudge to bring the PTI workers to carry out May 9 Who can hold the “like-minded bench” answerable is yet to be seen

Before the advent of the era of the military dictator General Pervaiz Musharraf there was a magistracy system in place A Magistrate with the powers of Section 30 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) was available 24 hours to respond to any deteriorating law and order situation in the area of his jurisdiction On duty he was also a negotiator to con-