Behind the headlines
Breakdown of certainty
By Dr Mehdi Hasan
It took a countrywide power breakdown for a few hours to expose the political uncertainty prevailing in Pakistan. Though there was no logical connection between a technical fault in the power transmission lines and a coup against the sitting government of General Pervez Musharraf, rumours gripped the whole nation. With no television or internet to provide authentic information, millions of mobile telephones did the needful in spreading rumours. In view of the absence of Gen. 

It was exactly a week ago when Pakistan faced a countrywide power breakdown that lasted for more than five hours. In many parts of the country, it extended to over ten hours. A breakdown of that extent proved, once again, that there are severe problems in Wapda's power generation as well as its transmission infrastructure that needs to be revamped on modern lines to manage the extra load. Wapda suffered a loss of Rs200 million in the shape of lost billing due to the shutdown.

According to Chairman Wapda Tariq Hamid, Wapda closed power transmission on one of the three main lines from Rawat to Faisalabad for maintenance and put the load on the other two. But one of the two lines developed a fault near Gatti and Faisalabad power station that caused a chain reaction in the entire transmission system of the Wapda. "When at around 1.30pm, one of the functional lines also developed a technical fault and collapsed. We tried to transfer its load to the other line that could not sustain it and tripped. The fault flew backwards to Tarbela dam, shutting down the generation work and starting the cascading process in the system," he said explaining the fault to journalists the very same day.

When around 3,400mw from Tarbela Dam went out of the system, according to Chairman Wapda, the entire load was transferred to Mangla dam, independent power projects (IPPs) and Wapda's thermal units. None of them could take the cumulative load and started shutting down one after the other. In 10 minutes, the entire generation and transmission system collapsed.

He said that after hectic efforts Wapda engineers succeeded in locating the problem. It occurred due to tripping in one of the generators at Tarbela's power house. He apologised to the nation for the massive collapse and regretted that Wapda had not learnt lessons from similar breakdowns in the past.

The breakdown that took just 10 minutes to erupt took 10 hours to be fixed. Federal Secretary Water and Power Ashfaq Mehmood tells TNS that after a power breakdown of that magnitude electricity should not be restored suddenly because it could cause damage to the system. "That is why a phased revival took place, segment-by-segment. Wapda is taking about 3,600mw of power from Tarbela and 1,100mw from Ghazi Barotha which meant that 45 per cent of total 11,000mw supply was cut off, adding pressure on the thermal system. Since the thermal system could not compensate for the shortage because of capacity constraints, it resulted in the massive breakdown."

It was the fourth such national-level breakdown during the last seven years. After each of them, the government had expressed determination to conduct inquiries, fix responsibility and take the culprits to task. But neither was any finding ever made public nor any official taken to task. "In all three previous reports, an overloaded transmission system was blamed and new projects were proposed to augment it. No individual was held responsible during the last three breakdowns, no Wapda official resigned from his office. The blame was put squarely on the weak system," says a Lahore-based Wapda official who does not want to be named.

Last Sunday's breakdown was also followed by similar announcements of inquiries -- by the prime minister and the minister of water and power -- asking Wapda to submit a report in the next 48 hours. A three member committee headed by Chaudhry Ghulam Rasool, ex-Member Power Wapda was constituted on Monday. Incidentally, Chaudhry Ghulam Rasool was Member Power in 2001, when a similar breakdown occurred that lasted for about six hours. He has already been working with the authority as an adviser to study transmission of the national grid.

According to a high official of Wapda, this committee has submitted its interim report and it has been found by the committee that nobody is responsible for the fault; it was stark technical fault.

"Report reveals that there was no fault found in the transmission line outgoing from Ghazi Barotha to Gitti. Instead, the two transformers placed in Islamabad's suburbs got some technical fault which resulted in overloading the transmission line from Ghazi Barotha to Gitti and the power supply system was shutdown," says the Wapda official.

National Power Control Centre also confirms the breakdown was caused by some technical fault in the two transformers installed at Rawat -- the suburban area of Islamabad.

According to power transmission experts, such countrywide breakdowns do not come out of the blue. They are a product of years of neglect. "In fact the whole problem was tackled by the authority in a non-technical way," says Syed Tanzeem Hussain Naqvi, former Member Power Wapda and Chairman Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC).

One main cause of the current breakdown, according to Tanzeem Naqvi, was that experts' opinion were never heard. "In the early 1990s when the IPPs were allowed into power generation, a series of transmission projects to be completed alongside IPPs were also suggested. The government and Wapda highups ignored the advice and refused to invest any money into the transmission system. This weakened the system almost beyond redemption. Of late, the authority has initiated some projects to lift the transmission system, but they are a case of too little too late. Presently, 12 transmission system projects worth Rs14 billion have been completed and another 18 projects worth Rs36 billion are underway which will be completed in June 2007.".

According to him these projects should have been completed in 2000. They are late by eight years while the power demand during this period has increased by, on an average, 8 per cent each year. It means when these projects will be completed, demand for electricity will have gone well beyond the load the new infrastructure will mean to manage.

Wapda's Member Power Anwar Khalid says that such breakdowns are a phenomenon associated with large integrated transmission systems and are very hard to stop but they can be restricted to a certain area. "For this we have decided to focus on developing an isolating capacity in the transmission system, which means that faulty lines can be quarantined and the rest of the system will be saved from collapse," he tells TNS.

According to Khalid, during the last fiscal year WAPDA spent Rs12 billion for the up-gradation of its transmission system and up-gradation of rest of the transmission system would be complete by June 2007. "For this purpose the authority will spend almost Rs25 billion more so that all the generation and consumption of electricity is maintained and properly transmitted throughout the country."

Federal Water and Power Minister Liaquat Jatoi dispels the rumours that the current power breakdown occurred due to some disruptive activities. "The incident was a result of some technical fault and all those responsible for it would be punished. For investigation, a second committee has been set up under the headship of Arshad Mehmood Joint Secretary of Water and Power," he tells TNS.

He admitted that the present power transmission system of WAPDA is outdated and old-fashioned and needs heavy financing to revamp. "I have asked the engineers of Wapda to develop a system that would be able to preempt such incidents in future."

He says agreements for 2000-megawatt powerhouses are in the offing to meet the growing energy needs.

Tanzeem Hussain Naqvi thinks that there could be more power crises in the country because the entire transmission system needed upgrading. "In future such breakdowns would be a regular phenomenon in Pakistan, as WAPDA did not add to the capacity of grid stations from the years 2000 to 2006."

Last few years have seen an ever-increasing number of Pakistani students opting for British examinations systems and faring well in exams conducted by their examination boards. The Cambridge University and London University are two such institutions whose affiliates conducts examinations in different countries of the world. In some Pakistani schools, having both matriculation and O level classes, students scoring higher percentages are allowed to study the curriculum offered by British examination bodies whereas the remaining have to take matriculation exams conducted by boards of intermediate and secondary education.

Just as the curricula offered by both the systems is different, the marking procedures also varies in respect that in O and A-level exams, students gets grades and in matriculation and intermediate exams they are awarded marks out of a total of 850 and 1100 respectively. There is no conflict as far as independent results are concerned but the problem does arise when it comes to the O and A level students' getting admission to professional colleges. The issue has recently become serious with more and more restrictions imposed on these students, who concerned quarters think get undue advantage over matriculation and intermediate students while contesting for admission to professional colleges.

To compete for the limited number of seats, the O and A level students have to get equivalence certificates from the concerned authorities. This equivalence certificate mentions marks worked out in a way that they exhibit the academic standing of an O or A level student viz-a-viz matriculation or intermediate students.

The task of issuing equivalence certificate has been assigned to the Intermediate Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) -- a body responsible for coordination among different boards of intermediate and secondary education in Pakistan and implementation of national education policies and plans. As per the charter given to it, the body deals with the equivalence of foreign educational qualifications with corresponding Pakistani qualifications at secondary and higher secondary levels of education and equivalent and attestation of local certificates and diplomas at secondary level of education.

In an unprecedented move, the IBCC has asked British boards to mention exact marks on the result cards instead of grades which do not give a true picture of where exactly a candidate stands. As an A denotes 85 per cent marks, B 75 per cent and C 65, the system does not differentiate between the students whose percentages differ by considerable margin, it contests. For example, IBCC says the student getting 85 per cent marks will be rated equivalent to the one getting 76 per cent as both will get A grade. But in the case of Pakistani students, even a difference of 1 mark means a lot.

The other conditions put by IBCC were that it put the condition for pre-engineering candidates the subjects should be Physics, Chemistry and Biology/Computer Science. Many schools do not offer Biology or Computer Science to O level students to pre-engineering students. The board has also declared that A levels students studying 'Human and Social Biology' as a subject will not be entitled to get admission to medical colleges. The IBCC believes this subject is not equivalent to conventional Biology.

Shahid Ghani, a foreign education consultant, tells The News on Sunday that many O and A level students who do not get admission in Pakistani professional colleges easily get admission abroad as the foreign universities have more efficient methods to evaluate these degrees. He says he is attending a large number of students for the last couple of weeks as they fear they will not be able to get admission to professional colleges in Pakistan. What they fear is that the IBCC can take even more drastic steps in the years to come. Though the IBCC has given interim relief to students and extended the deadlines for implementing their decisions, the issue is still there and will re-surface once the grace period will be over.

Shahid says it is not correct that O and A level students get undue benefit. In fact, they are made to suffer, he says adding: As per the IBCC policy, "the certificates/transcripts issued by the foreign institutions/schools/colleges are considered and their grades/marks are subjected to a deduction to maintain uniformity and range of scores with Pakistani system. As per conversion formula the marks/grades are first equated with Pak equivalent marks as given in the related context and then 10 per cent marks will be deducted from the total marks."

Shahid says in case the exact marks of each subject are available, deduction is made as per policy. For example, 10 per cent marks are deducted from scores in case the examination is taken by an external body and 20 per cent if the applicant has passed internal examinations conducted by the institutions from where he has studied. "Most of the time, such huge deductions have a bad impact on the candidate's score," he adds.

Suhail Zafar, head of Edexcel International, a UK-based examination board, says the issue is being discussed with the stakeholders but there is little hope that there can be any change in British paper marking and examination system in accordance with IBCC request. Though the problem is there, a whole system cannot be transformed to meet requirements of a single organisation.

Muhammad Ramzan Achakzai, Secretary IBCC, tells TNS that regardless of the limitations of foreign boards, the committee has suggested them to mention exact marks obtained by candidates on their educational certificates. He says the grading system is vague as compared to the one where even fractional percentages are considered while short-listing students. He goes on to say that the IBCC has not rolled back its decisions. In fact, it has given time frame to schools to introduce the required subjects just to save the currently enrolled students from any convenience. Explaining his point, he says that the A levels students are studying 'Human and Social Biology' as a subject that does not have the botany content. How can a student with zero knowledge of biology study medicine in a college, he questions.

There was a young boy in the house, and one day he came out in spots. Everyone in the family naturally assumed that it was the measles or Khasra in our lore. Except the old grandfather. Who kept insisting that it could be anything from heat-rash to Pitt to Lakra Kakra, which is the German Measles and which I haven't heard of in years, but it was Not Khasra!

The family finally got fed up of his tirade and asked him how he knew, and he told them "It was not Kharbooza season, and the ancient treatment for the measles was to feed the victim Kharboozas, so you could only get measles when there were Kharboozas around, and as there weren't any, it could not be the measles!"

Then the doctors were called in, and they ran all the tests and found that the old man was right! It wasn't the measles. Trouble is that that is the sort of wisdom they do not teach you in medical school. You either learn it at your grandmother's knee, or you grow up uncultured and ignorant and scoff at it as quaint and unscientific. Such unscientific lore did serve us for a few thousand years before the times of Harvey and Pasteur and the lot, and our scoffing will soon have robbed us of it.

Oddly enough measles were considered a dangerous disease in the West and scared the daylights out of parents; because in cold weather they could turn into pneumonia and kill. And of course they didn't know about the Kharboozas. Here they were a relatively harmless 'childhood illness' and the tradition was that if one of a brood of children got them, he was put to bed with the whole host so that they'd all catch them and get it over with. However if a child got a really virulent case, which meant he had little boils in his eyeballs, then one asked the neighbours to eat their Daal without the Tarrka! The sharp hissing sound when the hot oil was poured over the Daal was the right frequency to burst the boils and that was nasty.

**I have made the calculation and I must have been very young, less than four, but my memory of it is very clear. It must have been in Simla which was the nearest one came in close contact with wild flora, and among the unfamiliar plants one was taught to look our for the one called Bichhu Booti, which, I think, is what they call Poison Ivy in the West. If it touched you on your bare skin, on the ankles or knees, they got sore and stung like mad for hours.

What they didn't know in the West, was that the cure was always close at hand. Wherever there was the Booti among the plants, there was also bound to be a few sprigs of Podeena which was the antidote and quickly rubbed on to where the Booti had stung provided instant relief and also cure. The thing was to know the myth, to be able to recognise the antidote, and to be sure that if there was the one there was bound to be the other also!

And then there is the most useful tale of all. If you are the type who makes a fool of yourself eating all kinds of indigestible stuff and then roam around moaning and groaning and cursing your system, there is a known remedy -- whatever you eat, make sure that you munch a lot of radish with it. Not the fancy and ineffective red and round ones, the real he-man white horse-radish.

It is full of the stuff that makes digestive juices, and so it helps digest everything, but everything, so you'll never have to bother again. It does make your wee-wee smell a bit, but then what is a little stink between friends when what you get in return is good health. There is a catch though. The radish containing the digestive juices, is itself immune to them, so it just sits there -- and the only known antidote to that is a little bit of Gur! Funny thing is the two do not grow together, not even in the same season!

For long, the news from the district has come stained in blood. Journalists have been kidnapped from Larkana and they have fallen to 'unknown' assassins while struggling to write their copies in the line of duty in Wana and other parts of the tribal areas. Indeed, some areas like South Waziristan have been declared out of bounds for them and they have to be content with sending despatches sitting at a distance from the scene of the occurrence. But quite often it is when the 'muzzlers' grab the journalists in big cities like Karachi, Peshawar, Islamabad and Lahore that the danger is felt at its strongest, and written about.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao should know how painful it is to see a Hayat die a violent death. Hayatullah, a journalist working in the Tribal Areas, was murdered in June this year, after spending more than six months in captivity. Months on, we have still not gone beyond the 'inquiry-is-on' stage. The interior minister has given his assurances, the information minister has done his bit of pacifist talking and the prime minister has mumbled a few words of condolence. That is all, and the journalists say they will be surprised if this inquiry had a different fate than the undisclosed work of all the inquiry commissions and committees they have been writing about all these years.

The theory, which is not been dispelled on the official level, points to the involvement of some government agency behind the murder. Hayat's friend has been quoted as saying that the journalist had received serious threats before he went missing in December last year.

A probe into Hayatullah's murder carried out on the orders of the NWFP governor is said to be complete, but it is yet to be made public. A Peshawar High Court investigation is under way and may take time concluding. In the meanwhile representatives of journalist bodies, rights activists and some politicians are trying their best to at least keep the issue alive for as long as possible.

These men of duty and conscience have had a lot to do besides pursuing Hayatullah's unknown killers. In the past few months, amid reports of mysterious disappearances of journalists in the 'remote interior', particularly in Sindh, they have had a press club attacked (in Peshawar), a reporter picked up in Karachi and one implicated in a triple murder in Islamabad. Crew of a private channel has been lucky to get off with bruises and a few broken bones in Lahore, a city which has in recent days seen a young woman doctor and an old teacher savaged by those who represent the government.

If the journalists ever thought that they are 'untouchable', that notion of security has been blown away by the winds of change. With so much at stake in the state, no one is safe. There is no shortage of examples to illustrate that point, but real estate with all the charms that it has for money-grabbers, is as good as any.

A photo journalist was severely beaten up in Lahore some weeks ago as he tried to take pictures of a building with an illegal basement in the walled city. Not far from the scene a while later, the producer of a private television channel was given a thrashing by the toughs accompanying the local nazim. On the spot to cover the fall of a plaza -- only a storey of a plaza to be accurate -- he says he had asked the local nazim to stay out of the frame while he was interviewing another official, in return getting rudely pushed by he nazim. That was enough of a cue for the nazim's men who let loose a series of punches at the television producer. The case was reported to the police. All the producer has heard since then on this count is friendly reminders from some concerned quarters as to how these things should best be forgotten, if need be, on receipt of compensation.

The incident is reflective of one reaction to the rather abrupt media gaze the rich and the famous have come under. Another typical response to news reporters' queries is to duck. It seems everyone has something to hide in this mysterious land of ours. The intriguing part is that sometimes people do not even know what it is that they are hiding. This tendency, on the part of actors in and outside the state apparatus, makes easiest reporting jobs look impossible.

The state, can of course still find some curbing tools from its cupboard when necessary. Mazhar Abbas, secretary-general of Pakistan Federal Union Journalists (PFUJ) calls it "controlled freedom of the press". "The government still has laws to tackle media whenever required," he says, replying to TNS questions via e-mail. "As the flow of information cannot be stopped, the government now uses intelligence agencies rather than Information Departments as 'threats'."

Abbas's comments come in the wake of a three-day detention of Karachi-based journalist, Saeed Sarbazi. He should consider himself extremely lucky given what had happened to Hayatullah a few months earlier and given that Mehrdin Mari, working with Sindhi-language 'Kawish' is missing since July 2.

Sarbazi blamed his 'kidnapping' on the intelligence agencies. He said he had been picked up by some men on September 20 and whisked away to an unknown place where he was severely tortured before being allowed to go on September 23. The possible cause of arrest: Sarbazi says he had called someone in Balochistan in connection with a story. During his three-day interrogation he was asked about his 'links' with the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA).

As Sarbazi and his fellow professionals spoke out, there was again that familiar silence on the part of the state. There was no confirmation that Sarbazi had been taken away by any intelligence agency, there was no denial. The minister of state for interior did manage to make a somewhat delayed visit to a hospital in Lahore to inquire after the bruised television crew that had come under the hammer of the Punjab police in the third week of September. He was at his revealing best when he said that 'someone' had blocked the transmission of the television channel these journalists worked for, and all that was needed now was to find out who that someone was.

Maybe the next on the list will be someone who has been murdering journalists. Mazhar Abbas says as many as nine Pakistani journalists have been killed since 2002, including three in the space of two months. "Bashir, a 12-year-old brother of slain journalist Hayatullah was also killed as was Taimur Khan, brother of, Dilawar Khan, a BBC correspondent in Wana."

"During martial laws and other autocratic governments, newspapers were banned, journalists were arrested or convicted by courts. Today, journalists are abducted by intelligence agencies, they (journalists) disappear and in some cases are killed," says Abbas. He points out that, with the invasion of electronic media, journalists are perceived as more of a threat now than they were ever before. Consequently, "journalists today are more vulnerable and could become soft targets."

The peace accord in North Waziristan between the government and the Utmanzai tribal elders, Ulema and militants continues to draw fire from certain quarters. It has definitely silenced the guns but critics allege the truce came at a price.

The accord, concluded on September 5 in North Waziristan's headquarters, Miramshah, has been a hard sell for the government. President General Pervez Musharraf had to do lot of explaining while defending the deal during his visit to Afghanistan and later when he spent 18 days abroad in Belgium's capital Brussels and the US. On both occasions, he took along with him the Governor of NWFP, Lt Gen (Retd) Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, the architect of the agreement. Lt Gen Aurakzai, who belongs to Orakzai tribal agency and is the first tribesman to become the Governor since Pakistan's creation in 1947, was often pushed into the limelight and asked to explain the deal during the high-profile presidential visits.

As expected, the accord has already come under strain. Three developments have been particularly challenging and could affect the durability of the truce. One is the continued targeted killings in North Waziristan in violation of the clauses of the peace agreement. Four men, including three Afghan refugees and an old Pakistani tribesman, have been shot dead since the deal was signed after being accused of spying for the US military operating in neighbouring. Though the militants haven't claimed responsibility for the assassinations and they have never done so in the past, the murders had all the hallmarks of targeted killings being carried out by local Taliban in both North Waziristan and South Waziristan. Todate more than 200 pro-government tribal elders and 'spies' for the US and Pakistan Army have been eliminated and not a single case has been investigated or anyone arrested and punished for committing the crime. An end to targeted killings was one of the important clauses of the peace accord but there seems to be no end to the practice.

The militants who concluded the deal with the government are denying their involvement in these killings and have pledged to cooperate with the government to track down those behind it. They have been pointing out that Afghans paid by the US and the Afghan governments are involved in some acts of violence in Waziristan with the objective to destabilise the area and put the tribes and Pakistan military once more on the path of confrontation.

The opening of an office by the militants, who prefer calling themselves mujahideen, in Miramshah with the stated aim to curb crimes and settle local disputes have also alarmed opponents of the deal because they believe the local Taliban wanted to set up a parallel administration in North Waziristan. The militants also distributed leaflets asking the people to support the initiative and approach the Taliban office for settlement of their disputes. The leaflets said funds would be collected to raise a force to protect the people from masked gunmen involved in acts of lawlessness. In a similar move in neighbouring South Waziristan last year, local militants opened an office in Wana after concluding a peace deal with the government to assist the administration in maintaining peace and fighting crimes.

The third ominous development concerns allegations by an anonymous US military official in Kabul that American troops on Afghanistan's eastern border have seen a threefold increase in attacks since the three-week old truce. The official, talking to the Western wire service AP, claimed the agreement had also contributed to the Taliban's resurgence. "Since the truce, ethnic Pashtun rebels are no longer fighting Pakistani troops but are using the North Waziristan border region as a control hub for launching attacks in Afghanistan," the unnamed US Army officer alleged.

This is a serious charge and has come soon after the agreement went into effect. Talk of Taliban resurgence is being heard for more than a year but the Americans are now linking it with the recent peace deal in North Waziristan. One wonders as to why the US military official chose to remain anonymous in view of the fact that the threefold increase in cross-border raids in eastern Afghanistan was threatening the lives of American soldiers and their allies. Three weeks isn't a long period in drawing such a conclusion but it seems the Taliban attacks have risen so much that the US military decided to speak up. The truce was supposed to stop militants in North Waziristan from making cross-border raids but it is having the opposite effect if one were to believe the Americans. It is always difficult to believe the US government after having seen the way it piled up falsehoods about Iraq's non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to justify its attack against that country. The US has also been hiding and downplaying the widespread abuse of prisoners by its soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and in secret prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Still Pakistan would have to address US concerns with regard to violations of the North Waziristan peace accord to prove its contention that the deal would curb militancy and co-opt the tribes in a bid to curtail the activities of the pro-Taliban tribal militants in the region.

President George W Bush and other US government functionaries have made it clear they would be closely monitoring the peace deal in North Waziristan. The US has conditionally accepted the accord and was also able to prevail upon President Hamid Karzai to adopt 'a wait and see approach' and soften his opposition to it. It is obvious that the US military commanders in Afghanistan harbour serious reservations about making peace with Islamic militants committed to the cause of al-Qaeda and Taliban. US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has on more than one occasion in the past questioned the wisdom of talking and concluding peace with extremists, whom he conveniently labels as terrorists even if they are resisting foreign occupying forces in their own homelands.

Pakistan must also remember that its first peace deal with militants in South Waziristan signed in April 2004 in Shakai was sabotaged by the US when it eliminated the pro-Taliban commander Nek Mohammad by firing a missile from the CIA-owned pilotless Predator plane after tracking down his hideout through his satellite phone. It was Nek Mohammad who had concluded the peace accord with the Pakistan Army on behalf of the militants in South Waziristan. His death effectively destroyed the Shakai deal and triggered a new round of fighting before the militants and the military agreed to again talk peace and conclude two more peace accords in South Waziristan.

Another disturbing aspect of the armistice in North Waziristan is the role of Afghan Taliban in ensuring that the deal is signed. This would be seen as evidence of the linkages between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. Top Taliban military commander Mulla Dadullah has conceded that he visited North Waziristan and South Waziristan about four months ago to talk to Pakistani Taliban and advise them not to fight the Pakistan Army. The advice was certainly heeded as we all know. There were also reports that Taliban movement founder Mulla Mohammad Omar endorsed the North Waziristan peace deal. This is understandable in view of Mulla Dadullah's argument that fighting between the militants and Pakistan Army served the interest of the US. The Afghan Taliban, as well as their Pakistani counterparts, considered the US their biggest enemy and it is obvious that they would refrain from doing anything that benefited the Americans.

It took a countrywide power breakdown for a few hours to expose the political uncertainty prevailing in Pakistan. Though there was no logical connection between a technical fault in the power transmission lines and a coup against the sitting government of General Pervez Musharraf, rumours gripped the whole nation. With no television or internet to provide authentic information, millions of mobile telephones did the needful in spreading rumours. In view of the absence of Gen. Musharraf from the country on an unusually long foreign private-cum-official trip, anything appeared plausible (heads of states and the governments generally avoid such prolonged tours abroad). The people wanted to believe the news about the coup because it is all too familiar -- ever since the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951, all 22 governments in Pakistan have been changed in abnormal circumstances.

Pakistanis may be used to uncertain times but the uncertainty assumed a new level of seriousness once the president decided to have a cleansing campaign to wipe out al-Qaeda and Taliban militants from the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan. Despite a prolonged military campaign and repeated claims of success by the Pakistan army and Gen. Musharraf himself, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and the US military commanders in Afghanistan were not satisfied and Karzai openly criticized Pakistan's strategy to the annoyance of Gen. Musharraf.

The recent agreement between Pakistani administration and the 'local Taliban' -- which states that the Taliban would not provide any facilities to foreigners to launch attacks in neighbourly Afghanistan -- has also been resented by the Afghan government. The pro-United States political set-up expected more enthusiastic support from Pakistan against Taliban resistance in Afghanistan. Karzai, whose main political support is from the anti-Pakistan Northern Alliance, is complaining that Pakistan has a soft corner for Taliban who were the product of Pakistan's religious political parties and the intelligence agencies in Pakistan. The observation that there are Taliban sympathisers in Pakistan is not totally baseless. After Gen. Musharraf's decision to support US military action against Afghanistan in 2001 there is a steady upsurge in religious extremism in Pakistan, not quite helped by the US decision to invade Iraq.

After Waziristan, Musharraf administration launched a military campaign in Balochistan -- again without the involvement of the pro-Musharraf provincial government and without taking the parliament or the federal cabinet into confidence. The problem started from an ordinary criminal case of Dr. Shazia's rape who was serving as a doctor at Sui Gas Fields in Dera Bugti. The case after being mishandled by the military establishment and the civilian administration transformed into a political issue that soon developed into a regular armed insurgency (The military establishment kept denying there was any insurgency). But they failed to satisfy the Pakistani public and foreign media about the ever-increasing number of incidents of sabotage of public property and defense installations. This culminated in the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti along with a number of his armed supporters.

The establishment claimed they had recovered millions in foreign and local currency, besides large amounts of modern sophisticated weapons. Yet they insist it is not an insurgency. The public reaction to the incident all over the country was unexpected. Just then the establishment decided to amend Hudood laws enforced by military dictator, Gen. Ziaul Haq to divert attention from the political agitation on Balochistan. There was a longstanding demand by the civil society organisations working for monitoring human rights in the country for abolishing all such laws that are discriminatory. The decision to amend Hudood laws -- to make them acceptable to the liberals and enlightened sections of the society -- was welcomed by the majority. Expectedly, the religious political parties got an opportunity to attack Musharraf administration, alleging that these changes were being made on the behest of the US -- to transform the Islamic Republic of Pakistan into a secular state.

The government, under pressure from religious forces, started negotiations with them which ultimately failed. But the religious forces did succeed in stalling the amendments in the controversial law.

The Hudood Laws controversy cropped up when the president was already in Brussels and then in the US. The rumour of the coup against him may have been a result of wishful thinking of the anti-Musharraf forces. But it's a fact that communication experts hold lack of authentic information on important issues as a cause of rumours in any society. And this administration has been following a policy of secrecy on many important issues like action against Akbar Bugti, campaign in tribal areas, concessions offered to India on Kashmir and on many other political issues like cooperation with the United States. Therefore, it is only natural that people accept whatever information they get every from unauthentic sources.

Psychologists believe there are three types of rumours. Rumours showing wishful thinking of the people, rumours showing fear and anxiety of the public and rumours expressing hatred against some person, group, ideology or a country. The rumour of coup at the time of power breakdown may have been an expression of wishful thinking of the opposition but it was acceptable to the people because of the prevailing political uncertainty in the society.