Cantt Station on candid camera

By Asadullah


The Pakistan Railways has introduced a much-needed security feature to the Karachi Cantonment Railway Station, and the close circuit television (CCTV) network has been made functional with the proper installation of 26 cameras.

The Karachi Cantonment Railway Station, which also enjoys heritage status, has been equipped with a CCTV network after having a control room established within the police help centre at the station. The Railway Police have been tasked with monitoring the eight platforms of the station, hosting arrival and departure of 48 trains every 24 hours.

“The CCTV franchise operation has been under way since January 17 under railway police supervision,” a senior railway police officer told The News. “We are now monitoring the station with 26 cameras, including a high-speed dome camera installed in the parking lot of the station.”

Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, Railway Minister, had told the media that CCTV cameras would be installed at the Karachi, Rohri and Lahore railway stations in the first phase.

Pakistan Railway authorities, however, took time to come up with an authentic answer to the CCTV project when they finalised the bids for installing cameras. They managed to fit cameras at different points, but these remained idle due to the paucity of trained hands in the control room.

Sources said that twelve police constables and six female constables have undergone a six-month training period to work in the CCTV control room in eight-hour shifts round the clock. “We have enough memory for 25 days of video footage,” explained a police officer. “The 26th day will automatically erase the first day’s memory and record over it.”

Sources said that the installation of CCTV cameras in Karachi, Lahore and Rohri at an accumulative cost of Rs10.5 million is part of a greater security and surveillance project, which will also cover railway workshops, to have a check on theft and employees’ presence. Walk-through security gates have already been installed at the Karachi Cantonment Railway Station.

Sources informed The News that the Pakistan Railway headquarters in Lahore have finalised the CCTV Network at three railway stations, including Karachi Cantonment, in the first phase of the security measures to be taken at railway stations and trains across the country. Lahore-based Champions Traders has installed the cameras at Karachi, too.

“The high-speed dome camera installed at the parking lot of Karachi Cantonment Railway Station is unique amongst the cameras installed to cover eight platforms,” observed a police officer. “This particular camera can be rotated as per your requirement, enabling you to keep a watchful eye on the huge open space around the parking area.”

According to Baqar Gilani, the Station House Officer of the Karachi Cantonment Railway Police Station, the establishment of CCTV control room under the railway police’s supervision is indeed a right step toward improved policing at the century-old railway station where 90 percent of the up-country railroading originates.

Within the Cantonment Railway Police Station’s limits, the theft of railway material and property tops the incidents of crime, followed by pick pocketing and luggage-lifting.

“Another most serious crime that we deal with is poisoning of people in a bid to rob them,” said Gilani.

No official, including Muzzafar Ali Sheikh, Railway Police SP, could confirm the cost of the cameras and other necessary arrangements that have been made to finalise the CCTV network. Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, Divisional Superintendent Railway Karachi, appeared ignorant as far as the actual cost of the CCTV Network at Karachi alone was concerned. (The News)

Obama says Pakistan must not be destabilised

WASHINGTON, Feb 3: Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are the main cause of concern for US President Barack Obama and his military chiefs who have vowed not to allow the destabilisation of Pakistan because that will allow the militants access to weapons of mass destruction.

“What we can do is make sure that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for Al Qaeda. What we can do is make sure that it is not destabilising neighbouring Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons,” said Mr Obama in an interview to NBC television.

His military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, went a step ahead and pledged not to allow Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas either.

“We cannot accept that Al Qaeda leadership which continues to plan against us every single day — and I mean us, here in America — to have that safe haven in Pakistan nor could resume one in Afghanistan,” Admiral Mullen said.

The two statements coincided with a Pentagon report, partly made available to the media on Tuesday, which recommended a broader effort to train and equip Pakistani security forces to conduct counter-insurgency operations in the tribal areas.

The report also urges the Obama administration to lower its goals in Afghanistan. The report by the joint services chiefs seeks to apply pressure on Pakistan’s military and intelligence services to sever their ties with militants.

Amid growing concern about the stability of Pakistan, the report calls for putting renewed focus by the US government on ensuring that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons remain under its government’s control. Though that has long been a US aim, the report suggests a way to focus new attention on the problem in case militant groups threaten Pakistan’s stability.

The report concedes that the United States cannot establish a “lasting democracy” and a “thriving economy” in Afghanistan — the two objectives touted vociferously by the Bush administration. Instead, the Pentagon urges the Obama administration to focus on ensuring regional stability and eliminating Taliban and Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan.

The recommendations will soon be shown to President Obama as part of a review of Afghanistan strategy announced by the new administration. The report is one of several that Mr Obama is expected to review before finalising his strategy.

Gen David Petraeus, Commander US Central Command, and Richard Holbrooke, special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, are also preparing similar reports.

The chiefs’ recommendations have been approved by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and seen by Defence Secretary Robert Gates. The report reflects the Pentagon’s concern that sending thousands of additional American troops to fight could lead to a lengthy conflict in Afghanistan.

While Mr Obama is sending three additional brigades, the chiefs’ report rejected the recommendation for an even larger “surge” for Afghanistan.

In their report, the chiefs concluded that the existing American goals in Afghanistan, established by the Bush administration, were overly broad and ambitious.

With insurgent violence in Afghanistan worsening significantly during the last year, the report argues for setting more concrete objectives that are achievable and realistic in the short-term.

In a separate quarterly report to Congress on security conditions in Afghanistan, the Pentagon reports that “the spring and summer of 2008 saw the highest levels of violence” since the US invasion in 2001. “The Taliban regrouped after its fall from power and has coalesced into a resilient and evolving insurgency.”

Between January and December 10, 2008, 132 US personnel in Afghanistan died as the result of hostile action, up from 82 in 2007.

Dozens killed in Pakistan army raid

At least 35 opposition fighters have been killed in a fresh raid by the Pakistani military in the Swat valley, the army has said in a statement.

The military operation on several hideouts took place in the Khawazakhela district overnight, according to the statement released on Tuesday.

The Pakistani military has been battling fighters loyal to Maulana Fazlullah, a religious leader considered to be close to the Taliban, in recent months.

More than 20,000 people across the Swat valley are believed to have fled their homes to escape the fighting.

Targeted attacks

Wajid Ali Khan, a provincial minister, has said "the fighting in the valley has made it almost impossible for civilians to stay there".

Government forces and other state employees are bearing the brunt of many attacks by Fazlullah loyalists, Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Pakistan, said.

The decapitated bodies of policemen - complete with notes warning the authorities of further such attacks - have become a common sight on streets in Swat, Hyder said.

The raids came after Yusuf Reza Giliani, the Pakistani prime minister, pledged to restore peace to the Swat valley.

"We are finding a way out. We do not want to disclose the strategy right now, but soon Swat will be peaceful, like the rest of the country," Gilani said on Monday.

Bridge destroyed

Hours after the latest raids in Swat valley, suspected Taliban-linked fighters blew up a bridge in Pakistan's Khyber Pass, severing the main route for supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan, Pakistan government officials said.

The 30-metre iron bridge, which lies about 23km from the city of the northwestern city of Peshawar, was destroyed shortly after midnight, Rahat Gul, a government official, said.


"Militants blew up the bridge and it's going to take some time to fix it," he said on Tuesday.

There has been an increase over the last year in attacks on the Khyber Pass road, with most of them aimed at preventing international forces fighting the Taliban of receiving supplies.

The road through Pakistan's mountainous border territory into Afghanistan has been briefly closed twice since September due to attacks.

The US military and Nato's force in Afghanistan have tried to find alternative supply routes in the face of the attacks on the Khyber Pass.

About 75 per cent of supplies to the US military in Afghanistan come through or over Pakistan, including 40 per cent of the fuel for its troops.

The attacks on the Khyber Pass come as the US military prepares to send about 60,000 extra soldiers to Afghanistan in the next few months.

General David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command, said last month that agreements had been reached for new routes into northern Afghanistan through Central Asian states and Russia. (Al Jazeera. net)

Gunmen kidnap UN official in southwestern Pakistan

Militants in southwestern Pakistan kidnapped a UN official on Monday, killing his driver in the process, local police said.

Khalid Masood, a senior police official, identified the kidnapped man as John Solecki, an American who is the regional head of a United Nations refugee office — the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He was abducted as he headed to work in Quetta, Masood said.

"Solecki has been serving in Quetta for more than two years," Masood told the Associated Press. "We cannot speculate on the motive behind the crime."

Solecki did not have a police escort while he was travelling, Masood said.

"We have learned that he usually did not like to have an escort with him on his way to the office," Masood said.

A UN official in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, later confirmed Solecki had been abducted.

The gunmen reportedly opened fire on his vehicle, and the driver died later in hospital. Video footage from the scene showed a UNHCR vehicle crumpled into a brick wall and with at least one bullet hole in it.

No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Kidnappings in southwest rare
Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan, a province that shares a border with Afghanistan. Southwestern Pakistan is the scene of a low-level insurgency driven by nationalist groups wanting more autonomy for Baluchistan province.

But unlike Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in the northwest, the Baluch groups are not known to target foreigners, and three police officials said they could not recall another foreigner being kidnapped in Quetta.

Abductions are more common in northwest tribal areas that border Afghanistan.

In November, web publisher Khadija Abdul Qahaar of West Vancouver was kidnapped in the northwest Bannu district. Her kidnappers have reportedly asked for a $150,000 ransom and the release of Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are believed to be responsible for the abduction months ago of two Afghan diplomats and two engineers, one Chinese and the other Polish. They were all kidnapped in the northwest and are still believed to be in custody. (CBC News)

3 women ‘dupe, kidnap, rape’ man in Karachi

* Case registered, police looking for alleged rapists
* Police say man sexually assaulted over four days

KARACHI: Karachi police have registered a case against three unidentified women who allegedly kidnapped a man and raped him over four consecutive days and then threw him near Qayyumabad River in an unconscious state. The case has been registered on a complaint by the victim, identified only as Khalil (23) – who recently arrived in Karachi from Rahimyar Khan and works as a waiter at a restaurant in Neelum Colony, Clifton.

On the night of January 27, an identified man ordered Khalil to deliver food to women sitting in a car parked outside the restaurant where he works. “After giving me the order, the man went towards the car. I took the order to the car where the women – two of whom were young and the third was middle-aged – told me that they had recently shifted to the area,” said Khalil. He said the women asked him to deliver food to their house every day, and he agreed. “They asked me to go along with them in the car ... they said they wanted to show me where their house was.” Khalil said the women gave him a ‘glazed sweet’ and once they got to the house, “they gave me milk that had some drug mixed in it ... I fell unconscious after drinking it”. Khalil said when he gained consciousness, he found that the women had undressed him, “and they were forcing themselves onto me”.

ASP Asad Raza said the women assaulted Khalil sexually for the next four days, and then threw him near Qayyumabad River. Khalil managed to stop a passing motorist – who took him to Civil Hospital. “His condition is really bad ... his genitals are bleeding and he cannot walk properly,” said Raza. Raza said the women belonged to rich families of Karachi’s Clifton area. “It’s a complicated case ... but we are hoping that we will solve it soon,” he added. faraz khan