We have been hijacked. An audience of 169 million has become enslaved to the news and views from Islamabad. As ‘the showdown at Lal Masjid’ enters its sixth day, all happenings in the country take a back seat with the media lights maintaining its glare on the doings and sayings of the Maulanas Aziz and Rasheed Ghazi (and Mudira Umme Hassan).

What happened to the spotlight that should have been on Balochistan where millions are still struggling for survival after the storm? What about the bleak power situation in Karachi? And, most importantly, what is happening at the Multi-Party Conference convened by the PML-N in London?

With theatrics becoming every man’s occupation in the country, TV channel anchors are outdoing each other to get a piece of the glory (or shame?) and have taken to becoming ‘The Negotiator’. Last I checked an anchor’s job was to take an interview, not mediate between two warring parties.

And as the plot thickens, so does the play of buffoonery. Media ethics has been consigned to the devil and the bill of rights lies missing. While we grew up listening to the rights of convicts being read out to them on mystery shows on TV — ‘you have the right to remain silent; anything you say or do will be held against you in a court of law’…so on and so forth — our state-owned TV channel in a bid to cash in on the scoop, violated every law in the book. The interviewer became an adjudicator. And whatever the maulana said or did (including the never-to-be-forgotten grand sweep to remove the veil) after ‘re-dressing’ himself in the burqa, is now part of our ‘glorious’ history.

One repeatedly goes around in circles. Where has logic gone a begging?

How can one digest the contorting facts that emerge? In the country’s seat of power a standoff continues for nearly a week, whereas in Karachi in a matter of hours over 50 civilians are slain without much ado. And what fools us that we actually form the numbers of the audience glibly lapping up all that is dished out.

Well, if the success of a government is measured by the attention it grabs then the present regime has surely won hands down. It has diverted our attention from all major events that may shape the country/regime’s future and it has taken the edge off all calamities natural or man-made.

At present, Balochistan is crying out for help but all that the nation gets to see on its national TV are revolting pictures of men with their shirt up and burqa down!

In the aftermath of Balochistan, hundreds of people are still untraceable and taluka governments have no way of ascertaining the number of deaths. It is being said that if there were trained rescue teams available to deal with the aftermath, the death toll would have been less.

So for the government, the Lal Masjid stand-off has been multi-purpose. It covered their ground in the case of their inefficiency (or was it disinterest?) in providing an immediate respite to the flood victims; it has totally diverted focus from PML-N’s political high point where most definitely sparks will fly and an agenda of sorts to rock Musharraf’s boat will formulate; it has of course veered attention from the CJ issue and the imbroglio that the state machinery found itself in after the May 12 bloodshed in Karachi; it definitely got power rioters off the streets and into TV watching, giving Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz enough space to say that there is no discrepancy in the KESC’s privatisation and, finally, it took the edge off the wrath directed towards Rushdie’s knighthood. And, most unwittingly, it also got a former MQM minister off the hook for his offer of being a willing assassin for Mr Rushdie. Though I wonder if Mr Aamir Liaquat is happy about being sidelined from the media glare as being the centre of a controversy is after all his only forte!

The death of a schoolteacher on June 28 in Gujranwala has left many questions. Police have yet to ascertain if her death is a tit-for-tat murder or a suicide or murder by her own family to implicate their rivals in a case.

It was on June 27 when 23-year-old schoolteacher Rashida of Qabristan Garjakh locality was brought to the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital in a critical condition. Doctors referred her to Mayo Hospital where she died at 1:30am on June 28.

The same day, Rashida’s mother Shamshad lodged a complaint with the Garjakh police, saying her daughter was going to school at 7am when Mukhtaran, her son Shahid and two unidentified men stopped her and poured acid into her mouth.

She said she was witness to this incident because she was habitual of watching her daughter until she reached her school.

She said when she saw all this, she along with her other daughter, Sajida, reached the scene and saw the accused fleeing.

She said she took Rashida to the DHQ hospital and later informed the police. She said the police registered a first information report (FIR) against Mukhtaran, Shahid and two unidentified men.

Garjakh SHO Faisal Chadhar told Dawn the FIR was the result of an old enmity between the two families (of Zubair and Munir Ijaz) who were relatives and had been living in Hameedpura peacefully for the last many years before a petty dispute tore them apart.

According to the police record, Mukhtaran’s husband Zubair lodged an FIR with the Garjakh police on Sept 24, 2006, saying Rashida’s brother Muhammad Abid quarrelled with Shahid after he allegedly spit on him. A few hours later, her father Munir Ijaz, brother Khalid, cousin Ahsanullah and three unidentified people barged into his house and abused his family, Zubair said, adding an argument ensued and ‘attackers’ beat his son, Tahir, with rods. He was taken to Mayo Hospital where he died.

Ijaz and Khalid are now in the central jail, while Ahsanullah has been declared a proclaimed offender.

The SHO said the Tahir murder case was pending with the court, and the defendant party had accused the plaintiff party of killing their girl, Rashida.

The SHO said according to Shamshad, the acid was poured into Rashida’s mouth at 7am. He said if she was true, there should be some witnesses to the incident. He said Shamshad did not mention the cause of a clash between the two families in the FIR despite police request because it could have ‘exposed’ her intentions.

He said the police were investigating if Rashida was killed by the accused or she committed suicide after a domestic row.

He said the police had to wait for a medico-legal report for a final observation on the case, which was expected within 15 days. He claimed that Rashida did not record any statement to the police after the incident.

Garjakh police station ASI Malik Hanif, who was duty officer on the day of incident and visited Rashida at the hospital, said there were bruises on her right cheek, throat and arms and her stomach was badly damaged. He said the inner side of her lips was burnt, but there were no acid burns on her face, which made her mother’s claim doubtful.

He said when she was referred to Mayo Hospital she told him that Mukhtaran and Shahid had poured acid into her mouth.

Shamshad told Dawn that Shahid had been calling her on cell phone and using abusive language about her daughters, which forced her to leave Hameedpura and take shelter at her daughter Sajida’s house in Qabristan locality.

She said Rashida recorded her statement to the police against the accused, and added that her (Shamshad’s) sister, Riaz Begum, was a witness to this.

Sajida said Rashida was not able to speak during her stay at the hospital because her mouth was completely burnt. She said she was not present when Rashida recorded her statement to the police against the accused.

According to the medical certificate register of the DHQ hospital’s trauma centre, only a final autopsy report from a Lahore laboratory would determine the cause of Rashida’s death.

Accused Mukhtaran’s brother Mukhtar Ansari said a business jealousy was the cause of a clash between the two families. He said both families were associated with the embroidery business and Zubair’s family was earning more than the Ijaz’s. He said a “petty” dispute provoked a fight between the two families and Tahir was killed accidentally, otherwise Ijaz’s family did not want to kill him.

Ansari said Rashida was a “sentimental” girl and had tried twice in the past to commit suicide by jumping from her roof to lodge a case against Zubair’s family and help her father and brother get out of jail. He said Shamshad had been trying for long to stop Rashida from taking such a step, but she succeeded in her ‘mission’ in the third attempt.

Zubair rejected Shamshad’s allegations, saying it was an attempt by her to counter the Tahir murder case and get her son and husband out of the jail.

AROUND 647 tons of solid waste and garbage are being generated in the Sialkot district every day while tehsil municipal administrations have the capacity to dump only 392 tons. The rest of the solid waste, which is thrown away on streets and along the roads, is causing a real health hazards.

According to the fresh statistics provided by the Sialkot district administration, the improper dumping of the solid waste is also creating environmental pollution in the entire district, posing a serious threat to human beings and aquatic life.

Official sources say that the unscientific way of the solid waste dumping has been continuing since long owing to the negligence of TMAs. Virtually, all the four tehsils - Sialkot, Daska, Sambrial and Pasrur - have no proper dumping grounds.

In Sialkot tehsil, the TMA lifts only 300 tons of waste daily with the help of tractor-trolleys while 200 tons are left in the open places due to shortage of resources.

The people in Daska tehsil generate some 80 tons of solid waste every day, but the TMA has the resources to dump only 60 tons of garbage.

The situation in Sambrial tehsil is more pitiable as the TMA there can lift only 20 tons of garbage out of 50 tons produced by the residents.

The condition prevailing in Pasrur tehsil is no different from other tehsils, as the TMA is able to lift only 12 tons of garbage out of 17 tons.