NOOR MUKADDAM MURDER: MISOGYNY, PSYCHOSIS, ILLICIT AFFAIR, OR UNINVOLVED PARENTING?

* US embassy distances itself from Noor Mukaddam murder
* Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed says “had he the powers, he would have killed the suspect of Noor Mukadam”

There is a very strong and very urgent need for the state to finally put its foot down and deal with such matters with an iron fist. There are clearly far too many sick degenerates roaming among us and the days when they could kill, rape and/or maim at will need to come to an end right now. Let us hope that the government understands that it needs to go the extra mile to deal with this issue, and that it will not be found wanting in its efforts.

The murder of Noor Mukaddam in Islamabad (on July 20, 2021) did not capture the attention of the public because of the prominence of the parents (her father was a former ambassador, the accused is the scion of a well-known business family), or the brutality of the killing (which included a beheading), but the garish light it threw on a society where a toxic misogyny combined with a social penchant to violence is not so much condoned as expected. A new factor in the mixture is the sense of entitlement of the accused, who loudly proclaimed at his initial magisterial appearance that he was a US citizen, as if that made any difference. Another problem is that the accused’s mental problems have been highlighted.

Some problems have been inadvertently highlighted. First is the role of social media in bringing such cases to the fore. It is almost as if the police has decided not to respond until the social media galvanizes it. Secondly there is the distinct impression that Islamabad is not a safe city. This is not the first incident involving an ambassador’s daughter. Only recently the disappearance of the Afghhna mbassador’s daughter caused a major diplomatic row. Interior Minister Sh Rashid Ahmad tried to deflect attention by claiming that it had been an Indian conspiracy, but has so far not made any claims trying to dismiss the present incident. Perhaps someone has told him that his efforts harm the police more than they help. Earlier, there had been the weird case of Usman Mirza and his entrapment ring. Things are happening in the federal capital because a loose governmental grip has meant that Islamabad is becoming a place to try it on. Criminals are pushing limits and are being left alone.

TIMELINE TILL THE MURDER

July 7 — Zahir books ticket to US
Zahir Jaffer had planned to leave the country.
Zahir had booked a one-way flight for New York on July 7.
The flight was scheduled for 3:50am on July 19.

July 18 — Zahir arranges taxi to go to airport later that night, Noor arrives at house
1:00pm
On the afternoon of July 18, Zahir made arrangements for a taxi service to take him to the airport the following night, when his flight was scheduled for departure.
The booking was made at 12:59pm. He was told he would be charged Rs2,000 for the trip.

9:05pm
Later that day, while Noor was at her home in Naval Anchorage, Islamabad, she received a call from Zahir. Phone records show he was in the surroundings of the Ali Plaza in Islamabad’s Blue Area at the time. Noor left her home at around 9:05pm for Zakir's house. She sent him two text messages enquiring about his whereabouts while she was crossing Abbas Plaza in Islamabad at 9:45pm.

10:00pm
Noor arrived at Jaffer House, situated in Sector F-7/4, Islamabad, at around 10pm on July 18, 2021.
Investigation team sources reveal that around or after her arrival, Zahir made multiple contacts with the travel agency which had booked his ticket. The sources quoted Zahir as asking the agent: "What will happen if I don't travel on the booking date?" Zahir was told that his ticket will be "wasted". At this, Zahir asked: "I am informing you three hours in advance. Why would it be wasted?"The travel agent responded saying that three hours ahead of the flight, "all control goes to the airport", but he will "try to get it cancelled". Zahir then asked how his booking would be impacted if he were to travel 10 days later. "With your ticket cancelled, you will have to pay the difference in rates that are sure to occur by then," the agent replied. Upon being told this, Zahir told the agent he would get back to them in a while. Zahir contacted the travel agent a further five times, the sources said, and later sent an SMS saying that he has decided to travel to the US.

11:00pm
The taxi for the airport arrived at 11pm, July 18, and the driver subsequently called Zahir at 11:15pm, upon which he was told to wait. The driver called Zahir again at 11:36pm and was once more told to wait a bit.

July 19 — Zahir leaves for airport with 'barefooted' Noor, only to return home shortly
12:07am
Zahir told the taxi driver to return as he no longer plans on going to the airport.
He also paid Rs1,000 to the taxi driver through his gatekeeper.

1:40am
The driver called Zahir again at 1:40am saying that since he had been paid Rs1,000, he can come pick him up later in case he changes his mind. Zahir told him he may come, the sources said. They said that the taxi returned at 2am to take Zahir to the airport.

2:15am
Zahir came out of his house with Noor, who was barefooted.
According to the sources, both got into the taxi and the vehicle left at 2:20am.
It was headed for the airport when, all of a sudden, at the Kulsoom underpass, Zahir instructed the driver to turn back home. When the driver asked what the matter was, Zahir said that they are "late" and "will not be able to reach on time".

2:35am
Sources said that the taxi driver turned the car around and dropped them both back home at around 2:35am. The driver said he saw Zahir taking Noor inside the house, along with his luggage, the sources added. The sources said that the driver had noticed that Noor was silent throughout the entire trip while Zahir continued to speak to her.

3:58am
Zahir made another call at 3:58am to his travel agent, which was not received, the sources said.

11:00pm
Nearly 17 hours later, there were signs of trouble at Jaffer House around 11pm on the night of July 19. Police’s preliminary findings suggest Zahir had a fight with Noor soon after she received a series of texts from her parents.

July 20 — The day Noor was murdered and Zahir was arrested
Retired ambassador Shaukat Mukadam, Noor's father, sent her three text messages past midnight asking her her "whereabouts and wellbeing". Noor never responded to these texts. Police believe Zahir had withheld the phone from Noor and she was not allowed to use the device. Her mother sent her a text after 1am, to which she did not respond either. The father sent her two texts again but Noor never replied to her parents' texts the whole night.

5:48am
Noor's mother tried to contact her through voice/text messages. Meanwhile, two of her family friends tried to call her but received no response till 5:48am in the morning.

10:43am
Noor managed to send a voice message to her mother from Zahir's house at 10:43am. This was to be the last message she sent before her murder. The contents of this message have not been revealed yet.

10:56am
Soon after she managed to send the message, Zahir reportedly snatched her phone and called her mother three times at around 10:56am using his own phone. Zahir reportedly spoke to Noor's mother for some 20 minutes, telling her that "Noor is not here at my house".

11:00am
From 11am to 7:30pm on July 20, Noor was held in captivity.

1:44pm
Zahir spoke to his father at 1:44pm for around 30 minutes.

2:14pm
He once more called his father at 2:14pm, only to speak for nine seconds this time.
He did not make any more calls, until 6:35pm.

6:35pm
Zahir again called his father for roughly two minutes.

6:37pm
He once more called his father, this time speaking to him for around a minute-and-a-half.

6:42pm
Zahir spoke to his father for a third time that evening, for just over four minutes.

6:53pm
A few minutes later, at 6:53pm, he called a friend and spoke to him for just over a minute.

7:09pm
He called his friend again at 7:09pm and spoke to him for just under a minute.
He did not make any other calls until 7:29pm.

7:10pm – 7:35pm
Noor Mukadam jumped off a balcony on the first floor and rushed towards the main gate. Meanwhile, Zahir Jaffer also came out from the house and locked her in the guard's cabin, snatched her mobile phone and dragged her inside the bungalow.

It is believed by police investigators that Noor was murdered after this encounter, between 7:10 and 7:30pm. What is known is that she was brutally tortured and finally beheaded.

It is not just a matter of obtaining justice for the dead woman. It is no longer a matter of punishing the perpetrator. The killer must be tried and punished to prove that society can handle such events. More than any consciousness-raising events, it must be made clear that punishment is inevitable, no matter whose son one is, and no matter which country one is a citizen of.

Timeline courtesy: Ayaz Akbar Yousufzai (Geo News)

THE SPY WHO (NEVER) LOVED ME

Pakistan seeks U.N. probe of India's use of Pegasus spyware

Digital espionage has become the stuff of modern conspiracy theories for many reasons. Just as scientific progress turned society around completely, it has also revolutionized the old game of international spying. And it turns out, quite interestingly, that those with the biggest military muscle are not necessarily the best equipped when it comes to cyber warfare.

News that the Indian government used an Israeli software to spy on Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan by hacking his phone is disturbing and paints New Delhi in a bad light, but it’s also an established and accepted fact that all countries have intelligence agencies that are expected to do whatever they need to do to conduct effective espionage in other countries. And since we’ve hardly been best friends with India practically since forever, there’s no reason for us to throw our toys around just because this time the Indians got their hands caught in the cookie jar. We should, instead, find out all the reasons that one unfriendly country was able to leverage another unfriendly country’s technology to bypass or security systems and make sure that such a thing never happens again.

NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders- is an Israeli technology firm whose spyware called Pegasus enables the remote surveillance of smartphones. The NSO maintains that the Pegasus is only intended for use against criminals and terrorists.

The Pegasus also violates peoples’ privacy, making it easy to blackmail important individuals who can be forced to act upon directives that are illegal or against national interest.

As such the close partnership between Delhi and Tel Aviv should ring loud alarm bells in Islamabad. It seems that while our military has been as good as any in not just conventional but also guerrilla warfare, our security apparatus as a whole might need to take a bigger leap into the digital realm. The future, which is going to be very different from the past, is almost already upon us. Hopefully this episode about India and Israel colluding against our interests will trigger the change that is needed to make our physical and digital boundaries completely impenetrable.

The PTI government is reportedly meditating to develop a new software for the federal ministers as a firewall against the Pegasus. This is a costly enterprise with doubtful outcome. It needs to be accompanied by raising the issue at world forums with like-minded countries for a global moratorium on the international spyware trade.

“JUST THE BEGINNING”: UAE OPENS EMBASSY IN ISRAEL

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become the first Gulf state to open an embassy in Israel, as its envoy hailed the trade and investment opportunities that closer ties would bring at a flag-raising ceremony also attended by Israel's president. That is not to say that everybody has abandoned the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia, despite all the predictions in the international press, hasn’t yet gone the way of the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. And Pakistan, the self-professed Fort of Islam and the only Muslim nuclear power, has also refused to entertain such thoughts till the Palestinians get their stolen lands back.

The formal opening of the UAE embassy in Israel, which they did on Wednesday (July 14, 2021), is a tacit acceptance of the fact, if one was still needed, that the dispossessed Palestinians are no longer the conscience of the Arab world. And also that the Star of David fluttering over the Mosque of Omar no longer evokes visceral passions among Bedouin statesmen whose oil bonanza catapulted them to the top of the hierarchy of Muslim nations. It also drives the final nail in the coffin of the so called two-state solution and pretty much leaves the Palestinians on their own if they still wish to pursue the dream of return. It was, after all, the Gulf states’ petrodollars, along with generous dole outs from the European Union (EU), that made Chairman Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) the world’s best funded revolutionary movement.

To say that things have changed a little over the years would most probably be the biggest understatement of this entire freedom struggle. The Arabs didn’t like it at all when Hamas won the election and took over the Gaza Strip in 2006, because of its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, and they liked it even less when Hamas and Fatah (PLO’s political offspring) descended into internecine warfare in 2007 and not only insulted and embarrassed sixty years of blood and tears but also shattered the myth of Palestinian unity forever. The Gulf sheikhs still fund Fatah, but not in the way their money made Arafat and his comrades grow rich in exile in Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s. Now, though, with Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas publically fuming about the Arab-Israeli handshake, the flow of that money in future might not be as certain as it was in the past.

That is not to say that everybody has abandoned the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia, despite all the predictions in the international press, hasn’t yet gone the way of the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. And Pakistan, the self-professed Fort of Islam and the only Muslim nuclear power, has also refused to entertain such thoughts till the Palestinians get their stolen lands back. But how such assurances, without hard cash, are supposed to help a refugee population spread over at least a dozen countries isn’t immediately clear. What is crystal clear, however, is the fact that the Palestinians were never as distant from their dream of one day reclaiming their homes as they are now. How hollow Arafat’s calls, “O Haifa, O Jerusalem, we are returning, we are returning,” sounds now.

Courtesy Daily Times

NEGOTIATIONS: THE ONLY REMEDY OF PEACEFUL AFGHANISTAN

MAHTAB BASHIR
mahtabbashir@gmail.com
0333 53 63 248
ISLAMABAD

 

Without going into debate whether US troops forcefully vacated the Bagram air base or it’s a voluntarily pullout effort, it is, however, said that US troops vacated Bagram air base overnight without coordination with the Afghan Army. The evacuation marked the policy shift which aims at managing the situation in Afghanistan from outside the country. So the question is: US troops has evacuated Afghanistan but does it mean that US administration has also quit wholeheartedly?

 

All U.S. and NATO troops on Friday (July,2) left Bagram Air Base - one of the biggest military bases in Afghanistan - after nearly two decades of continuous presence, in a move that serves as a precursor to the imminent exit of the American military from Afghanistan.

 

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Afghan forces has lost 112 districts to the Taliban in just few days time. Now the panic-stricken residents are under tremendous confusion and fear while the majority of Afghan forces top slot officers and soldiers have been moved to Tajikistan.

 

However, Pakistan is in no condition to welcome those Afghan residents heading our way with open arms. With around 2.8 million Afghan refugees, it has done playing the good host, especially, when terrorists in the guise of its guests want to blow them apart.

 

The Taliban’s assumption of power will embolden the extremist groups in Pakistan. Terrorist networks like the TTP, that presently face difficulties to target Pakistan from safe havens in Afghanistan, are likely to send their operatives in the guise of refugees to launch terror attacks.

 

Meanwhile the Afghan Taliban continued to advance and capture the countryside. This enables them to block the highways leading to Kabul. Once major cities are surrounded, it would be easier to capture them. The battle for Kabul can wait meanwhile.

The foreign affairs expert and former Dean Social Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad,  Dr. Nazir Hussain while talking about challenges and opportunities for Paksitan under this situation, says that Pakistan can have devastating security implications if civil war breaks out , but opportunity as all regional states, Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey would like to have peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Faisal Raza Khan, a senior defense reporter believes "Afghanistan’s future depends upon all stakeholders’ within, how much they are sincere to the long-term peace and stability in the country. On the contrary, repeating the past mistakes and irresponsible draw-down of foreign forces lead Afghanistan to a vacuum, either that would be filled through a well framed legitimate government through peaceful political negotiations between Afghan stakeholders including Taliban or it would result into a civil war. All regional countries and global powers must have to strengthen and encourage on-going negotiation process between Afghan entities to have a peaceful settlement, thinking otherwise would be huge disaster, not only for Afghanistan but for the neighbouring countries and region at large, he concludes. 

 

It is only a matter of time before the situation gets tense at the border with Pakistan. Prime Minister Imran Khan said just the other day that border crossings would be closed if the Taliban forced their way into Kabul. Thus, Islamabad will be watching all developments in Afghanistan very closely. It will do whatever it can to keep the insurgents from getting ahead of themselves at this sensitive time. From the looks of things, though, it doesn’t seem as if the Taliban are in any mood of backing down just yet: not exactly good news for the whole region.

 

True peace prospects can only be realised if the people of Afghanistan are handed the steering wheel. Those with vested interests in Kabul would do better than dragging Pakistan through the mud. Why not act against warlordism and rampant corruption? However, whether the corrupt political elite crippling the peace process is dealt with, Pakistan is not ready to be anyone’s punching bag.

Almas Haider Naqvi, an Islamabad based senior journalist covering foreign affairs opines that, “under the circumstances, Pakistan has to exert pressure on the Taliban to support a broad-based and inclusive government in Kabul. Only an inclusive government will receive the international financial support needed to run and develop a devastated Afghanistan. Also, Pakistan will have to strengthen its borders and ensure there will not be anymore influx of Afghan people towards Pakistan.