Strategic goals
According to Daily Dunya (27 November 2017), senior religious figure Swami Govind Dev Giri from India is of the view that Hindus must produce at least four children each, so as to avoid losing territory in places where Hindus are no longer a majority.
Gullu non grata
Daily Dunya (27 November 2017) reported that Gullu Butt and his brother tried to attend the recent dharna protests in Lahore, but at Mall Road, he was set upon by the protesters. Gullu and his brother were able to get away only with the help of some of the religious leaders present, whose intervention allowed them the opportunity to make good their escape.
On conspiracies
According to Daily Jang (27 November 2017), Jamshed Dasti is of the view that the team of disqualified Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was playing a dangerous game, and that calling upon armed forces to handle the protesters was a conspiracy (saazish). He went on to say that Nawaz Sharif’s gang (tola) were engaged in propaganda due to their friendship with India’s Prime Minister Modi.
View from Jakarta
Daily Jang (27 November 2017) described the response from Indonesian electronic and print media to turmoil in Pakistan. Indonesian media sources were quoted saying that the spread of religious extremism would be even more dangerous for Pakistan than terrorism.
Lucrative operations?
Daily Dunya (28 November 2017) reported that search operations in Punjab’s provincial capital of Lahore had become a source of earning for the police, which had conducted 677 search operations without netting any terrorist in the past 10 months. The report stated that search operations targeting low income areas and slums had become a way of extorting bribes – even from people whose documents were in order. The report also mentioned that police informants (touts) had benefitted from the proceedings.
Honest broker?
Daily Jang (28 November 2017) quoted Captain (retd.) Safdar as saying that if he had been involved in dharna-related negotiations, matters would not have reached such a place.
Tea Party?
According to Daily Jang (28 November 2017), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, lashing out at the Congress party, stated that he had indeed sold tea, but that he had never sold the country.
Ameer Muqam’s analysis
Daily Jang (28 November 2017) quoted PML-N’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa leader Ameer Muqam as saying that Imran Khan was the one who initiated dirty politics (siyasat mein gund phailanay ke bani).
Matters requiring attention
According to Daily Jang (28 November 2017), federal ministers were commenting on matters of public interest in the Senate. In this context, the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb stated that ‘Black Friday’ had hurt religious sentiments and so a petition had accordingly been submitted to the Court.
Not good enough
It was reported by Daily Jang (28 November 2017) that Tahir-ul-Qadri expressed his view that the resignation of just one minister as a result of the dharna protest was a mere sacrifice to save the mother of the goat (bakray ki ma ko bachanay ke liay).
Nawaz Sharif’s arithmetic
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was quoted by Daily Express (03 December 2017) as saying that those who had been considered ‘plus’ by the people could never be ‘minus’.