By Afshain Afzal
To kill three not two birds with one stone; this time it was sectarian poster that took life of another innocent person in Pakistan. An attempt to ruin Pakistan Sri Lanka growing relationship. The sectarian posters pasted inside the Rajco Industry, a private sportswear manufacturer and exporter industrial concern located at Naul at Wazirabad Road in Pakistani city of Sialkot become a source of regrettable 3rd December incident. Senior factory manager, a Sri Lankan national namely Priyantha Kumara was ruthlessly killed on Friday over alleged blasphemy charges for removing sectarian posters. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa condemned the brutal killing of national in Pakistan and demanded justice. This is not the first incident of the nature as it has become important ingredient of crimes, where sometimes state sponsors them in the name of interfaith harmony to crate a balance between sects and faiths. The incident was a planned one to reach three objectives; firstly to badly damage growing Pakistan Sri Lanka relations; secondly to allow state machinery to formulate tougher laws on religious organizations and lastly to create international hatred against Islam and Pakistan. 
The printed poster on the wall inside the factory bore written slogans, "Labbaik Ya Hussain" and an advisory to recite "Darood Shareef" in the morning. According to eyewitnesses present during the incident inside the factory, "The Ahle Tassiah Shia workers decided to teach Priyantha Kumara a lesson for removing the poster so that no body should ever dare try to insult Prophets again and started beating him". No body allowed Priyantha Kumara to explain and resorted to blows and kicks. Priyantha Kumara fled upstairs to the roof to save his life. Workers chased him and threw him from roof to ground. Despite serious injuries and requests by some workers, they kept beating him until his death and later dragged his dead body outside the factory before setting it on fire by angry mob at GT Road Chowk.
Where three main groups; Tehreek-e-Fiqah Jaffaria Pakistan, Majlis Wadhat-e-Muslimeen and Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan are being blamed for the incident, however, official statement to media did not come except Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan whose spokesman termed it unfortunate that the incident had been attributed to the Tehreek Labbaik and demanded that conspiracy should be investigated impartially, keeping in view all aspects including background actors." The fact cannot be denied that such posters are not permitted to be displayed on private and public walls, billboards, road side signs, bridges and wall chalking everywhere. Leader of the Deobandi school of thought and Special Representative to Prime Minister on Religious Harmony, Maulana Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi, while condemning the incident termed it as an act of terrorism and demanded case be registered under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. He said, “Those who killed the Sri Lankan manager in Sialkot have committed an un-Islamic, inhumane act and I believe such an act have brought disrepute to Islam and to Pakistan. In fact, they have opposed the teachings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and his code of conduct.”
Police officials from Uggoki police station said, "The manager had torn down a religious poster and thrown it in the dustbin.” The video clip has showed many persons including two identified as Farhan Idrees and Usman Rashid seen in a video clip thrashing the deceased on the equal provocation of other factory workers. The witnesses said, "The foreigner, while inspecting the workers in a hall of the factory, asked the supervisor to remove the posters on reluctance, he removed some posters from a wall bearing slogan, "Labbaik Ya Hussain Alhe Salam" and put them into a dustbin, which infuriated the factory workers who attacked him." The witnesses added, "At no point of time any element of the Police, district management or law enforcement agencies tried to intervene to save the life of Sri Lankan manager."
The official mouthpiece of Pakistan Army, Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said, "The cold blooded murder of Sri Lankan citizen by a mob at Sialkot is extremely condemnable and shameful. Such extra judicial vigilantism cannot be condoned at any cost. COAS directs all out support to civil administration to arrest perpetrators of this heinous crime and bring them to justice." Concerned District Police Officer Omar Saeed Malik said the workers of the factory severely beat up the foreigner, leading to his death instantly. Later on his body was also set on fire by the angry mob." He added, "Upon receiving a report about the incident, a heavy contingent of police reached the spot and tried to control the situation and after successful talks with the angry group of protesters, traffic was restored on the road.”
There is no doubt that it was a display of bigotry and intolerance. One wonders what is the responsibility of state machinery in Islamic Republic of Pakistan, should it allow the general masses to interpret Islam and take justice system in their hands. Article 2 A of the constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan states, "Wherein the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated by Islam, shall be fully observed." This means that it is the responsibility of the state machinery to enforce Islamic principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice in Pakistan. Why so far code of democracy and religious freedom has not been announced. Can any Muslim citizen or member of minority allowed to exhibit his religion in the manner he or she deem fit? Sri and Pakistan have centuries long relations, which is recorded even before Muhammad Bin Qasim in 712 AD, when Arabs save Sri Lanka from Indian invasion. The people of Sri Lanka are very dear to Pakistani and the cold blooded murder by factory workers should not only be fully compensated but the sectarian group behind the posters and murder should be banned and punished. Legal frame work for handling such situation through district magistrate, Police and nearby military unit as provided under the law should investigated for not being enforced.

MALE, 30 November 2021, TON: The Supreme Court freed former president Abdulla Yameen from house arrest today after the court overturned a money-laundering and embezzlement conviction pronouncing that there was insufficient evidence in the original case and allowed him to potentially make a return to politics.
In November 2019, the Criminal Court sentenced that Yameen was guilty of laundering USD 1 million of the government through MMPRC by leasing GA. Vodamula. An appeal was made before High Court which announced that they will be upholding the verdict of the Criminal Court.
Former President Yameen made an appeal before Supreme Court and the case was being heard by a three-member bench, composed of Presiding Justice Mahaz, Justice Azmiralda Zahir and Justice Mohamed Ibrahim.
On 25 November 2021, the Supreme Court (SC) of Maldives scheduled the judgement hearing for the appeal trial of former President Yameen Abdul Gayyoom for 30 November 2021.
The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) has filed money laundering charges against the former President on 24 November at the Criminal Court regarding the lease of V. Aarah. The PGO also has another ongoing case against the Former President of accepting bribes worth MVR 117,000 during the lease of R. Fuggiri for the development of a tourist resort.
Hundreds of supporters of Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives gathered outside his residence in the capital Male after the verdict which allow him contest the next presidential election.

By TON Research Section
Hundreds of laborers are working to finish India's longest and highest tunnel connecting Kashmir Valley with Ladakh, which shares de facto borders with Pakistan and China. The tunnel is anticipated to open to the public on January 25, the eve of India's Republic Day, in 2024. India is stepping up efforts to make the strategic Zojila tunnel in Indian-administered Kashmir, aiming to reduce travel time to Ladakh, where China is increasingly pushing its territorial claims with the so-called Line of Actual Control (LAC).
High in a rocky Himalayan mountain range in the Indian-administered Kashmir, hundreds of people are racing on this strategically important project, drilling tunnels and constructing bridges to connect the Kashmir Valley with Ladakh, a cold, desert region isolated for half of the year because of a huge snowstorm. India currently rests on air supplies for about six months of the year. A 6.5-km (four-mile) tunnel, the first among the four, is already complete and will make the resort town of Sonamarg accessible during the winter months for the first time.
Indian and Chinese soldiers have been engaged in a sometimes violent standoff in the Karakoram Mountains in Ladakh for more than 16 months along their de facto border, called the Line of Actual Control. China and the Indian sides have deployed tens of thousands of soldiers there, backed by artillery, tanks, and fighter jets. Indian military architects vision the tunnel project as tremendously significant for Ladakh. It will provide logistics flexibility to the military and give it operational and strategic movement.
India has built a setup of tunnels, bridges, and roads in Ladakh to permit for quick deployment of troops in the antagonistic high-altitude region — where temperatures dip as low as -45 degrees Celsius (-49 F). The tunnel, the mass infrastructure project's last, will pass through Zojila in Indian-occupied Kashmir to Sonamarg, which marks the end of conifer-clad mountains before Ladakh begins across the rocky Zojila Mountain pass. The Zojila subway, estimated to cost $932 million (€815 million), will be India’s longest and highest tunnel, at 11,500 feet (3,485 meters).
The passageway would not only allow the Indian Army more elasticity in handling logistics — but it would also decrease the travel time on Zojila Pass from 3.5 hours to 15 minutes. The horseshoe-shaped, single-tube bidirectional tunnel would also short the space from Baltal to Minamarg from 40 kilometers (25 miles) to 13 kilometers. The time for the completion of the tunnel has been reduced by almost three years, to December 2023.
The Zojila Pass, which joins Kashmir's capital city, Srinagar, to Ladakh, is an international disputed territory that constitutes part of the larger Kashmir region. India forges ahead with the tunnel between Kashmir and Ladakh as it depends on Kashmir valley for most basic necessities, from vegetables to fuel to medicine and other essentials come through the Zojila pass, making life difficult for locals, who are forced to stockpile items for half of the year. The Zojila tunnel might open up Ladakh to tourists year-round and help facilitate the easier delivery of health care products and other basic amenities for the locals.
India looks to revamp Ladakh with an infrastructure overhaul to counter China and Pakistan. The Zojila tunnel will have inordinate prominence to India's security, as military activities increase at the borders in the Ladakh, Gilgit, and Baltistan regions. As both India and China have positioned tens of thousands of soldiers in those areas, backed by artillery, tanks, and fighter jets.
The tunnel will provide logistics flexibility to the military and give it operational and strategic mobility in case of emergencies and would make the movement of troops and weaponry to Ladakh through the tunnel. As India-China tensions have spiked in recent years as New Delhi accused Beijing of sending troops to the borders. In June last year, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces in Ladakh, marking the deadly clash in the border area in at least 45 years. The 13th round of talks between Beijing and Delhi in October to resolve the disputed Himalayan border broke down, with the sides blaming each other for the failure to make progress. Instead of take-out of troops from the border over the chilly winter, as many as 50,000 Indian soldiers will stay on the line for a second successive year.
The substitute routes between Srinagar and Leh are not only lengthy and hazardous in winters, but situated close to India's borders with Pakistan and China. The want for such a tunnel was first sensed during the 1999 India-Pakistan Kargil war. With China-Pakistan military collaboration becoming stronger in the region, India wants to speed up work on the tunnel to make Ladakh accessible to the Indian Army by road. India forms tunnels to connect Kashmir Valley with strategic Ladakh as it shares de facto borders with Pakistan and China and depends on air supplies for about six months of the year. Such a project will definitely increase the climate of war in the already tense South Asia regions due to India every now and then interferences into the internal matters of its neighboring countries besides working for its hegemonic designs in South Asia.

By TON Research Section

The upswing of regional impact in the post-unipolar world has changed the orientation of world politics overall. India’s regional desires are derived from the rise of right-wing Hindutva (radical Hinduism) at the start of this century and its political aspiration to regain its lost prestige after British colonial masters in the subcontinent. The religious and cultural extremist Hindutva forces have challenged and threatened the very fabric of India's secular state system. The minorities, chiefly Muslims were intimidated by the radical militant Hindutva forces to eliminate other religious beliefs and make India exclusively a Hindu state.

Peace and prosperity at home and having a peaceful neighborhood are the major features contributing to acquiring a place across the globe. Any country with disturbing neighborhoods would not be able to achieve the dream of stable growth at home as sharing borders is much more than sharing terrestrial borders. It involves socio-political contact with the neighboring countries. India has continuously been thoughtful longing to launch its predominance in South Asia and since its independence from British in 1947; the main objective of Indian foreign policy is to act upon the goal of becoming a regional force and wants that it should be acknowledged by other states in the region as a whole.

In the South region's geography and demography, most inter-state disputes reflect a series of bilateral disagreements with India.  The phenomenon of internal polarizations into international disputes is not confined to Pakistan and India only but the whole south Asian region. India intimidated all its neighbors in one or another way regarding its controversial territorial issues since independence. After the partition of British India in 1947 India illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan claimed the entirety of the former Muslim majority princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Since then it is a deadly dispute over the region that escalated into three wars between India and Pakistan and several other armed skirmishes.

Over the years, it has had boundary issues with Banglades, un-demarcated boundaries with Myanmar, the dispute between the land in Kabaw Valley near Hollenphai village, Moreh of Manipur state, India and Namphalong village, Tamu of Sagaing Region and border issue with Bhutan, and lately with China, Aksai Chin area in the northwestern part of the Tibetan Plateau, it is approximately 35,241 sq. km in size, administered by China and part of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. India considers it a part of its union territory of Ladakh. 

The ethnic divide in Sri Lanka has long had an Indian dimension and its maritime boundary dispute with Sri Lanka on Katchatheevu an uninhabited island of 235 acres. Nepal has often flared up into tensions with India; Kala Pani is an area under territorial dispute in Darchula District of Sudurpashchim Pradesh, Nepal, and Pithoragarh District of Uttarakhand, India, area 400 square km. The story of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan agreement, leading to a rather unsuccessful campaign by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) for suppressing the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, is well known. Indeed it is a complex ongoing story, the issue is nevertheless explosive, both in its domestic and international dimensions, in both countries. The leading events in Tamil Nadu became the reason for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and changes in the electoral fortunes of several Tamil Nadu parties among them; illustrate the strained relations of both countries.

 Bangladesh has also internal issues likely to figure on the bilateral agenda with India, except the hardy perennial of the Hindu—Muslim divide, common to all states in the Indo-Gangetic—Brahmputra valleys and more recently the influx of Chakma refugees to India. There are territorial disputes between Bangladesh and India, the center of the disputes on of territory in the Berubari Union, a tiny new island thrown up by physical changes and the delimitation of economic zones in the Bay of Bengal. The dividing waters of the River Ganges between India and Bangladesh after the completion of the Farrakha barrage are one of the main disputes among both countries.

The common benefit of the peoples of the entire valleys in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan has been affected by Indian conflicting and controversial roles. So far as Indo Bhutan and Indo-Nepal relations are concerned, crises-cross. It is a pattern that obtains throughout the region. In theory, this could be turned into an advantage by adopting a regional approach. The fact, however, is that regional identity is strangely conspicuous by its weakness. The most peripheral areas of historical India worked loose from the center. Inheritors of the center are wary of those who broke away and fear their ganging up against themselves—an unhappy possibility implied in a regional approach. Hence India's preferred bilateral methodology seems to emphasize divisions rather than unities. For the rest, old India's frontiers have moved in all directions. What is directly related is the interaction of two forces a series of felt internal disunities among ethnic identities in each successor state of the British Indian Empire are getting mixed up in intra-regional disputes. This threatens modern state structures as well as regional harmony in south Asia. Ensuring stable regional peace requires much hard work to resolve these polarities. The other element is the intellectual appreciation of the benefits of regional amity and cooperation. The example of the EC has inspired so many regional cooperation experiments.

However, in the case of SAARC, India is also using this platform for getting its nefarious designs obsessed with its quest to control the region and uphold the hegemony in many ways. The surviving economic and military force is not an assurance to attain the status of regional or global power, principally in a condition where neighboring countries are not ready to approve the influence and legitimacy of the major power holder. Despite India’s phenomenal economic growth and military development, the rise of china and the growing hold on South Asia is providing a much required significant balance of power in the region.

On 20th September 2021, the United Nations Organization confirmed complete diplomatic withdrawal from Afghanistan. As a follow-up, UN General Assembly high-level debate begins from 21 September 2021, the Taliban are expecting the UN to remove the names of their leadership from the blacklist as the name of acting government cannot be announced if the names Taliban figures on UN and US sanction list or group. All Western nations, neighbouring countries and those which have invested including India and China have distanced from Taliban.US authorities have taken a step further and linked Taliban with the reemergence of international terrorist threats like the group Islamic State (IS) or its local affiliate, Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), which claimed responsibility for a deadly attack with crowds massed outside Kabul airport on 26 August. The Western propaganda has crossed all previous limits, not to allow Taliban to form a Government and efforts are being made to reach to a broad-based government as the only viable option.

Connecting events, Brookings reported on 6 August 2021, "Pakistan’s official stance is that it would prefer a peaceful outcome in Afghanistan, some sort of a power-sharing arrangement reached after an intra-Afghan peace deal. Many are skeptical of this given Pakistan’s support of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and the sanctuary the group later found in Pakistan. But Pakistan argues that a protracted civil war in Afghanistan would be disastrous for it, on three dimensions: First, insecurity from Afghanistan would spill over into Pakistan. Second, Pakistan fears that this would set up space for the resurgence of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a group responsible for killing tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians and attacking the country’s army, security forces, and politicians. Third, this would increase the amount of refugee flows to Pakistan (which has hosted millions of Afghan refugees since the 1990s, including 3 million at present), which it can’t afford. These are well-founded fears."

Masshal Radio reported at the National Security and Defense Standing Committee, Pakistan's Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, head of the military’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), issued the warning during an off-the-record meeting on the security situation in Pakistan and the region after the withdrawal of U.S.-led international forces from neighboring Afghanistan that an army crackdown against militants of the Afghan Taliban group inside Pakistan could result in blowback and Afghan Taliban and the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, were “two faces of the same coin.” Another entity, The James Town Foundation published on its website, "Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s Latest Merger Enables Renewed Attacks in Pakistan.

In the same regard, in a latest development in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, a case was registered with the Aabpara police station under section 7 of the ATA, 124-A (sedition) and 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) after flags representing the Afghan Taliban were found hoisted on the rooftop of Jamia in G-7/3. Pakistan's Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on 20 September 2021 said in a statement that the government resolved issues with Maulana Abdul Aziz through dialogue despite there were several cases against Maulana Aziz but the government wanted the situation in the capital to remain normal so "That's why we keep talking to them." He added that there were 511 Madrassahs and 1,000 mosques in the capital. He said, "Out of 511, we have issues with only one which we resolve through dialogue." In June 2020, under an agreement with the Government, Maulana Aziz and his wife shifted from Lal Masjid to their house located on the premises of JamiaHafsa at G-7.

Aftermath the withdrawal, UN conference last week, the Secretary General asked for $600 million but more than the expectations, $1.2 billion were pledged. It is interesting to note that many countries in the past pledged millions of dollars but failed to fulfill even small portion of their commitment.

As per the OCHA data on 15 September 2021, 634,000 people have been internally displaced by conflict around the country between 1 January and 15 September 202. IOM data recorded that between 1 January and 15 September, 890,726 undocumented Afghan returnees from Iran (881,582) and Pakistan (9,144).UNHCR figures recorded, there are 47% are Pashtun, 41% are Hazara and smaller numbers of those who are Tajik (9%) and Turkmen (1%). The data confirm that a selected portion of Afghan population on the basis of sectarian linkage was migrated to neighbouring countries to extend all facilities even as in refugee status. It will interest many that the generally those who approached UNHCR were ethnic Shitte or Persian speaking from Kunduz,Balkh and Kandahar, mostly Hazara applied for registration from Quetta, Balochistan and Faisalabad, Punjab in Pakistan while applicants, those who migrated from Nangarhar, Kabul and Kunar and settled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The picture seems gloomy as Western nations along with the United Nations would continue patronizing Afghan sectarian minorities so that despite general amnesty by Taliban, they do not settle in Afghanistan and game of blood and fire continues in unstable Afghanistan while neighbouring Pakistan would be destabilized in hunt against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

By Afshain Afzal

Top Kashmiri-Pakistan leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani died at Srinagar after a prolonged illness at the age of 92. He was the main voice who did not bow before Indian coercive forces and demanded right of self determination for the Kashmiri State-Citizens; free and impartial plebiscite as per the United Nations Security Council Resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir dispute. His funeral is scheduled on 3 September as per orthodox Muslim referred as Deobandi Hanfi traditions. As he belonged to Jamaat-e-Isami so large number of members of Jamaat attended his funeral while in Pakistan Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami party, urged people to offer funeral prayers in absentia for Geelani on Thursday. 

During his education in Lahore before partition he was linked with Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah for struggle for partition and Independence, Since the establishment of Jamaat-e-Islami in Jammu and Kashmir in 1946, Syed Ali Geelani remained deeply connected to Maulana Saad-uddin, the first chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, Jammu and Kashmir. Later on returning to Jammu and Kashmir after attaining degree from Lahore he joined public school as a teacher. He resigned from his government job in 1959 to devote himself full time to the party's activities and soon rose to become the district chief of Kupwara and Baramulla. In 1992, when All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was founded as a platform of at least 30 pro-independence parties to pursue Kashmir's fight for right of self, Syed Ali Shah Geelani resented Jamaat-e-Islami. He resigned from the chairperson as many Kashmiri leaders had sold their conscience.

Syed Ali Geelani was deeply connected with Pakistan but in 2006, when ex General President Pervez offered India his Four-Point Formula and partition of Jammu and Kashmir State between India n and Pakistan, he not only opposed it but voiced against the nefarious design of the then Pakistani leadership running the Government. On 5 August 2019, the Indian government revoked Article 370 and 35 A and other related provisions from its Constitution, scrapping the country's only Muslim-majority state with its autonomy, Syed Ali Geelani exposed India;s plans to bring demographic changes in Kashmir to defeat the Islamic ideology in Jammu and Kashmir. He was also highly critical about Shia Central Waqf Board chairperson, Syed Waseem Rizvi blasphemous attempt in which he approached the Supreme Court to seek removal of 26 verses of the Quran on the ground that these are “teaching hatred, violence and terrorism” and that “These verses were added to the Quran, by the first three Caliphs, to aid the expansion of Islam by war”.

Few month back reacting over conference at New Delhi on 24 June 2021, in which all the prominent pro-India compromised Kashmiri leadership participated, Syed Ali Geelani made quite clear that holding talks with "so-called politicians" and giving the impression that the situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir is returning to normalcy, is wrong, "The Indian government has always betrayed the people of Kashmir. So there is no other option less than right to self-determination.” New Delhi should be clear that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh will never be accepted as separate union territories.” Syed Ali Geelani’s enemies were not only the Indian military and intelligence but also the Kashmiris who sold their conscience to the Indian for pity favors. Leaders like Sheikh Omar, Mehbooba Mufti and other distance themselves from Syed Ali Geelani due to fear of coercive tactics and extra judicial killing by the Indian security forces.

Where the death of such a great leader has strengthened the Kashmiri struggle for the right of self determination, Indian agencies are trying to tarnish the image of Syed Ali Geelani (late). In a recent attempt Jammu and Kashmir State Police chief Dilbagh Singh had in an interview to NDTV, “A letter was initiated by Syed Ali Geelani which was an eye-opener and he admitted his path was wrong and he used Kashmir for personal gains." Sons and daughters of Syed Ali Geelani including Naeem and Naseem have vowed to carry forward the great struggle by the father and other Kashmiris. Indian occupying authorities have imposed restrictions, including suspension of internet services, deployment of additional military and para-military forces as well as restriction on vehicular movement but despite this hundred and thousands of Kashmiris announced attending the funeral. The Kashmiris not only in India occupied Jammu and Kashmir but throughout the world have wowed to join hands to fulfill the dreams of Syed Ali Geelani to attain right of self-determination on the basis of UNSC Resolutions.