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“Patriotism demands national unity to avoid perils and grasp opportunities.” |
ISLAMABAD,
August 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Pakistani police have
arrested some 15 people implicated in a chain of bloody attacks on
Christians and Westerners, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said
Wednesday, August 14.
“Just
before entering the hall the interior minister told me that there were
about 15 terrorists who were involved in terrorist acts and planning
more such incidents,” Musharraf said at a morning ceremony to mark
Pakistan’s Independence Day, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“All
of them have been arrested now.”
Musharraf
was addressing army brass, diplomats, ministers, civil servants and
schoolchildren who had gathered to watch him raise the green and white
national flag in Islamabad’s Jinnah Convention Center.
All
the attackers behind two deadly strikes last week on a Christian
missionary-run school and a hospital “were either killed or
arrested,” he said.
The
government on Monday, August 12, blamed a faction of the outlawed
Lashar-i-Jhangvi network of Islamic “militants” for the two
attacks, reported AFP.
Six
Pakistanis were killed when masked gunmen stormed the Murree Christian
School for the children of Western aid workers northeast of Islamabad
on August 5.
Last
Friday four Pakistani nurses were killed in a grenade attack as they
emerged from a morning prayer service in the chapel of the Taxila
Christian Hospital. One of the attackers succumbed to suspected
shrapnel wound.
Three
of the Murree school attackers blew themselves up with grenades on
Tuesday when they were cornered by police and villagers in hills
further north of Murree, near the border with Indian-controlled
Kashmir.
Musharraf
urged Pakistanis to overcome perils threatening the Islamic state of
145 million people as it celebrated 55 years as a nation.
“Today
Pakistan is faced with multiple challenges, offering both
opportunities and perils,” the military ruler said. “Patriotism
demands national unity to avoid perils and grasp opportunities.”
The
country is under the thumb of its fourth military dictatorship. It has
now been ruled by the military for 27 years, or half of its existence,
said AFP.
Musharraf’s
efforts to modernize Pakistan through its 10,000 religious schools and
turn it away from extremism appear to be making little headway, with
officials backing down on a draft law seeking to register the schools
and expand their curricula beyond Qur’anic learning.
He
accused what he called an insignificant minority of holding Pakistan
to ransom with their misconceived view of Islam, reported the BBC’s
online news service.
He
said a string of attacks on foreigners and Christians this year were
both despicable and shameful and the death of innocent people served
only to tarnish the image of Pakistan, it added.
Musharraf
told his compatriots in his national message to look to history, which
was “replete with examples when nations have turned adversity into
strength,” AFP said.
Elections
approaching in October, the first since he ousted an elected civilian
government in 1999, would be a chance to elect “honest, efficient,
and dedicated persons of integrity who would lead Pakistan in the 21st
century,” he said.
The
military ruler vowed “free and fair elections,” omitting any
reference to his controversial restrictions on candidates which, among
others, rule out non-university graduates - which critics say means
more than 90 percent of the population.
“With
the grace of Allah (God) Almighty, Pakistan is soundly poised to march
ahead as a genuine, democratic, and progressive Islamic state,”
Musharraf declared.
“We
have earned global respect for our contributions in making the world a
better place to live in.”
Meanwhile,
Musharraf also used the speech to dismiss planned elections in
Indian-controlled Kashmir next month as a farce which denied the
people of the disputed region a real choice, reported BBC.
“The
announcement by India to hold elections in Indian-occupied Kashmir is
yet another effort to give a mask of legitimacy to India’s illegal
occupation of Jammu and Kashmir,” Musharraf said, BBC
reported.
"The
government of India has organized such farcical elections in the past
as well. These so-called elections have invariably been rigged and
have always been boycotted by the Kashmiri people," he added.
In
another development, Musharraf told Russian newspaper Izvestia that
Osama Bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar could already
be dead.
“At
this point no one has any precise information on the whereabouts of
Omar and bin Laden and what they are doing. It is possible that they
are already dead,” Musharraf told the daily newspaper.
