PIA strike continued since last three days

The protest by Pakistan Airlines (PIA) employees continued for third day as they are demanding from the Government to end its agreement to give air routes to Turkish Airlines and the resignation of Managing Director of PIA Aijaz Haroon. The Government also taken notice for it started discussion with Joint Action Committee (JAC), which ended without any evident progress and divergence accounts from both ends.

Mr. Rehman Malik (Interior Minister of Pakistan) has assured JAC to resolve the issue within 2 – 3 days and the Government would accept their demands, he also ordered to remove rangers from the Airport but still these are in planned not implemented. The negotiations were held at the Rawal Lounge of Benazir Bhutto Airport.  Labor Minister Khurshid Ahmad Shah and Manzoor Ahmad represented the government, while Sohail Baloch, Kamran Chaudhry, Safdar Anjum, Shamim Akmal and Hadiatullah participated in the meeting on behalf of the JAC. The government team did not admit the demand to remove the PIA Managing Director.

Managing Director Haroon reached Islamabad along with seven to eight members of the Technical Ground Support (TGS) department from Karachi. While the MD left the airport immediately by driving out through a separate gate, the TGS staff set to work to repair the PIA stair vans and tug-masters which had been damaged by the protesters.

During the day (Wednesday), PIA flights were cancelled and disrupted. In fact, according to some accounts, more flights were disrupted on Wednesday than the day before; at least 25 to 30 PIA flights scheduled to take off from Benazir Bhutto International Airport were said to have been cancelled. Private airliners cashed in on the situation by raising fares for the stranded passengers on Wednesday.

 Since last three days, PIA has faced a huge loss as near about 810 million Pakistani rupees because they will have to refund the payments to passengers.

The Rangers, who had been called to assist police and Airport Security Force on Tuesday, were deployed at the exit and entry gates and along the compound walls of the airport premises as nobody, except passengers with valid air tickets, was allowed inside. However, the local police were withdrawn from the airport premises on Wednesday.

The situation at the other main airports of the country was as similar. In Lahore, protesters blocked a road leading to the main entrance of Allama Iqbal International Airport for an hour or so, forcing passengers to walk to the airport, carrying their luggage with them. The passengers are facing the music as all PIA flights cancelled till a indefinite period, they moved to crowed Railway stations, and some are paying extra fare to other airlines for their accommodations.

The protest, which disrupted PIA flights across the country’s airports, began on Monday night on the call of JAC. The situation worsened on Tuesday after the PIA management sacked eight pilots who had refused to work.

An American Consulate killed two Pakistani in Lahore!

A US Consulate employee named Raymond Davis allegedly shot at two young motorcyclists in Lahore and killed them while another motorcyclist was crushed by his colleagues riding another car. He told police that he had opened fire in self-defense. Police said the car that crushed the motorcyclists, had come to Qurtaba Chowk, Jail Road (the place of incident) in order to rescue accused American Davis.

A witness said that the rashly driven Prado crossed the median on Jail Road, crushed the young motorcyclist and vanished in a flash, Mr. Davis also escaped the scene, but two traffic wardens chased and routed him in Old Anarkali Food Street (Lahore) and handed him over to police. More than 100 people blocked the road after the incident by blazing tyres to protest the killings. Police recovered from his possession a 9mm Glock pistol he had used to shoot the youngsters and shifted him to the South Cantonment police station. The accused was not carrying any license for weapons recovered from his custody.

A senior police officer told that Raymond Davis was among four people who were detained by security personnel near Lahore Sherpao Bridge on Dec 9, 2009, when they were trying to enter the Cantonment area in a vehicle with tinted glasses. They were armed with sophisticated weapons. The intervention of the US consulate led to their release, the officer recalled. Preliminarily investigation suggested that as the motorcyclists wanted to assault the foreigner, he killed them in self-defense.

A salesman at a shop on Jail Road told that he saw a foreigner leaving his Honda car in a hurry and with a pistol in his hand. Within seconds he trained his gun at two motorcyclists standing at the Qurtaba Chowk traffic signal and opened fire. Both the youngsters suffered multiple injuries and fell on the road. The foreigner immediately drove away his car towards Mozang Chowk. One of the motorcyclists died on the spot while the other in Services Hospital. The other motorcyclist, who was run over by the colleagues of Davis, was also identified, as he was a salesman. The police sent the bodies of three men to the city morgue for autopsy. Mr. Davis, a technical officer of the US consulate in Lahore, had spent two years in Afghanistan and was well trained to conflict any critical situation. Police registered a murder case against Davis. US Consulate employee was produced in court Friday on double murder charges. The US citizen was appeared before the Senior Judge Zafar Iqbal who handed over the accused to the police on six-day remand.

Two major terror blows in major cities of Pakistan!

A teenage boy blew himself up in Lahore near a religious procession which killed 11 people and wounded more than 70, The Pakistani Taliban alleged responsibility for the attack and they said that they had targeted army & police. After 90 minutes later, a motorcycle bomb blasted in Malir area in Karachi caused one passerby and three policemen.

In Lahore, bomber appeared to be aged about 15. He was wearing a suicide jacket and holding a black bag. He blew himself up when he was being frisked. The Lahore bombing took place near a very famous books bazaar named Urdu Bazaar, The blast damaged windowpanes of dozens of buildings and 15 vehicles, including three police vans. The bombing also caused three feet deep crater. The bombing site was littered with human flesh and blood with scores of injured people crying for help, an eyewitness said.

But in Karachi, the bomber was riding a motorbike and carrying a bag in his hand, which had explosives in it. He struck one of our police mobile vans. The police were the target. Although police initially described the bombing as a suicide attack, it later turned out to be wrong. It was a totally negligence of security authorities who did not care on a suspicious motorbike and it was blasted as CCTV footage released after the incident which cleared the picture whether it was a suicide bombing or bomb blast.  The bomb was rigged to a motorcycle, which was first initially spotted by several policemen who then called the area mobile for assistance. As soon as the van reached the spot, the bomb went off.

After one day of bomb blast in Lahore, a terror spread all over the city and many shops closed due to panic and some shops which are opened, their owners were waiting for customers for all the day, business losses and fear in people was the aftermath of suicide bombing in Lahore.

What would be the future of Pakistan? Is this continued for ever or somebody will do for its remedy, but when that time will come? Every Pakistan citizen is waiting for that person or that moment when his country, which was based on Islam religion and Islam gives us a message of Peace and strictly condemns the terrorism and suicide bombing, will be free from these kinds of terrible incidents.