Beygairat Brigade and Other Similar Music Groups in Pakistan

Worldwide, the prevailing opinion on how best to counter terrorists in Pakistan is to smoke them out from their hideouts and annihilate them while perhaps simultaneously imparting to its corrupt ruling class a few basic lessons in the grammar of governance. A refreshing alternative, though, may be the one spawned by a clutch of music [...]

Did Jigna Vora Get J.Dey Killed with Help of Chota Rajan?

Jigna Vora, a woman journalist, has been arrested and charged under the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA). Vora, 38, deputy bureau chief of The Asian Age, was arrested on November 25 in connection with the murder of veteran crime reporter J. Dey on June 11 this year. Ten people, including sharpshooter Rohit Thankkapan [...]

Baby Born to Muslim Girl After Affair Ordered to be Given for Adoption

A baby born to a Muslim mother after an affair must be adopted to prevent the child becoming the victim of an honour killing, the Court of Appeal in England has ruled. The baby’s mother, who is not married, was so ‘terrified’ of how her family would react to her affair with a married man [...]

Conservative Republicans View Shariah as a Mortal Threat to America

Long before he announced his presidential run this year, Newt Gingrich had become the most prominent American politician to embrace an alarming premise: that Shariah, or Islamic law, poses a threat to the United States as grave as or graver than terrorism. “I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in theUnited Statesand [...]

Benazir Was Colluding with Musharraf as She Appreciated the American Pressure on Him

by Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq Professor Amin Mughal, in his remarkable paper, After Benazir Bhutto: Some reflections, read at a meet organised by the Campaign against Martial Law, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS,London commented: “I confess, in the least uncharitable terms, that I was never fond of Benazir Bhutto. In fact, I was inimical [...]

Man Punches Nurse When She Lifted His Wife’s Veil

A Muslim man in France has been jailed after he punched a nurse who tried to remove his wife’s veil during childbirth. Nassim Mimoune, 24, had already been expelled from the delivery room for branding the midwife a ‘rapist’ as she carried out an intimate examination of his wife. But just as he spotted the [...]

20 Girls Raped & Filmed & Later Blackmailed by the Guesthouse in Peshawar

The busting of a gang, members of which belonged to respectable families but were involved in rape and blackmailing of young boys and girls, was made possible when a female student of the University of  Peshawar approached the local police following her rape and blackmailing by the management of a guesthouse on the University Road. [...]

Where is Bhanwari Devi, the Rajasthani Nurse?

Bhanwari Devi, a nurse said to have been in sexual relationships with some Rajasthan politicians, has disappeared mysteriously and nobody can find any trace of her. Bhanwari was making stealthily videos of herself in compromising positions with ministers and other powerful figures to blackmail them. Investigators believe this is what led to her disappearance. Mahipal [...]

Prostitution Continues to Thrive in Heera Mandi

During the daytime, Heera Mandi just another street inLahore, with shops selling cheap shoes, hats, jewellery and other trinkets. But when the sun and the shutters go down, very different wares go on sale. At night, as the grand and beautiful Badshahi Mosque looms in the backdrop, men bustle up and down the dusty street, [...]

Female Circumcision, Also Referred to as Female Genital Mutilation Thrives Among Bohris

A Cutting Tradition Dawoodi Bohra Muslims are Ismaili Shias and trace their origins to the region in and around Egypt, from where they might have adopted the practice besides other local customs. In certain cafés close to medical colleges in Pakistan, and within the institutions themselves, students studying gynaecology speak of some unexpected sights they [...]