‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’
KARACHI: The global powers are playing the Great Game in Balochistan, said Shahzeb Khanzada on Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’ on Thursday. He said the recent incidents show that the challenge for Pakistan in Balochistan is getting even tougher.
He said that an agent of the Indian secret service (RAW), Kulbhushan Yadav, was arrested in March, and today six people of the Afghan security agency were arrested.
Shahzeb said that secret agencies of India, Afghanistan and some other countries were actively pursuing their agendas in Balochistan. The disclosure about the presence of the network of the Afghan secret agency, the NDS, besides that of a RAW network, is a matter of deep anguish for the country.
The army chief, General Raheel Sharif, has commended the efforts of security agencies for having unearthed the foreign network.
Shahzeb Khanzada, while commenting on the TORs committee, said that there has been an important development in the meeting between the TORs committees of the government and the opposition. The opposition has agreed on removing Nawaz Sharif’s name from the TORs, and it has also agreed on leaving aside the matter of gifts given in Saudi Arabia.
In a different segment of the programme, Shahzeb Khanzada said that the Council of Islamic Ideology has once again been in the news due to its recent suggestions. It seems as if the Council of Islamic Ideology is not ready to accept man and woman as equals. It has prepared an alternative bill to the protection of women bill, which shows that the CII is bent upon declaring women as second class citizens. The recommendations of the Council of Islamic Ideology give an impression that the council is not willing to grant even constitutional rights to women.
In a yet different segment of the programme, Shahzeb Khanzada said that US President Barack Obama had given a policy statement in front of thousands of people of the Czech Republic just after having assumed the office of the president that USA is the only country that used an atomic bomb, and that the USA is going to be the first country to initiate elimination of atomic bombs. Now President Obama, 2,610 days after having expressed his resolve to rid the world of nuclear weapons, is about to tell the people of Hiroshima, which was the target of an atomic bomb during the Second World War, that his yearning for ridding the world of nuclear weapons is still alive.
Meanwhile, the Home Minister of Balochistan, Sarfraz Bugti, while talking to Shahzeb Khanzada on the programme,said two networks of Afghan intelligence were busted in Balochistan. One of the networks was involved in carrying out bomb attacks while the other in targeted killings. "There is a likelihood of more people of Afghan intelligence being active in Balochistan. We must take those people to task."
Sarfraz Bugti praised the performance of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in nabbing foreign agents in Balochistan.
The minister said that he was overcome by emotions while talking about the Afghan refugees. He acknowledged that his choice of words was wrong and that he should have used a better diction. He said it is difficult for him to control his emotions because the image of innocent people and personnel of law-enforcement agencies who became victims of terrorism is ever present in his mind.
Former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar told Shahzeb Khanzada on the programme that Pakistan did commit strategic and operational mistakes in Afghanistan. Pakistan should have no role in the formation of a government in Afghanistan. The Afghan refugees must be repatriated. The former foreign minister said that the US had crossed the red line by launching a drone attack in Balochistan.
A leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, Qamar Zaman Kaira, said on the programme that all those whose names appeared in the Panama Papers must be investigated. He said that the opposition would not compromise on basic principles while framing the TORs.
Religious scholar Javed Ghamdi said that the Council of Islamic Ideology was formed at the state level to give advice on legislation. The day-to-day affairs of women do not concern the state, and so the recommendations of the Council of Islamic Ideology trespass the boundary. Even if parliament frames any law in this context, then parliament too would be violating the limit within which it is supposed to function.
Former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association Asma Jehangir said that she does not want to even discuss the recommendations of the Council of Islamic Ideology. She said that those who call themselves Ulema should not have made such recommendations. She said the recommendations were an insult to the women of the country.
