Abbas Zaidi

No individual, party, or group (excepting Jamaat-e-Islami) has tried to read deeper into the Supreme Court’s verdict on Karachi’s law and order problem. It seems politically correct to shower praise on the verdict and express the desire to implement the guidelines given therein. The verdict, however, fails to address the real causes of intense violence the residents of Karachi have been subjected to for years. The Supreme Court held a suo motu hearing on the Karachi violence because the judges had been worried over the matter. They should be praised for it. This writer believes that any constructive criticism of the Karachi verdict will be taken in good faith by the judges.

The verdict says that the violence in Karachi is not ethnic but a result of conflict between groups over economic, social and political interests. This is a tricky observation. In Karachi, there are no economic or social no-go areas. There are, for instance, Pathan or Mohajir no-go areas, i.e. ethnic no-go areas. Ethnicity and political economy in Karachi are so deeply intertwined that they cannot be isolated. The Supreme Court verdict has referred to economic, social, and political interests. However, it did not put the right perspective — i.e. the ethnic perspective — on it.

A glaring omission from the verdict is the Court’s failure to mention the purely religious-sectarian factor in Karachi violence. One is puzzled to note that the verdict makes no significant mention of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Taliban. What about the hundreds of Shias killed by these outfits? What economic, social, or political interests were responsible for their deaths? The notorious bombings and suicide bombings on Shia mourning processions were done by these terrorist organisations who proudly claimed responsibility for their wicked acts, but these facts did not find favour with the judges. A number of Taliban leaders and suicide bombers have been nabbed in Karachi recently. A few months before, the Karachi police caught terrorists who confessed killing hundreds of innocent Shias only because they were Shias (a local TV channel even showed those confessions in its daily news round-up). These terrorists, however, were given no reference in the verdict.

The Talibanisation of Karachi is obvious and the coming months will evidence a great deal of sectarian violence in which in addition to the Shias, communities like Agha Khanis, Christians, Ahmedis, and even Barelvis will be targeted. But no discussion exists on it. Strangely enough, you can smell the coming violence, but you cannot talk about it!

The question is: why has the Karachi verdict failed to include sectarian violence, which has claimed far more lives than ethnic violence? The answer is found in the verdict itself. LeJ does not appear in the verdict at all. The Taliban and the SSP appear only once each and in a context where Shias can only pull their hair in frustration and disbelief. About the Taliban, the verdict says: “Karachi’s ethnic wars have claimed some 1,000 lives this year, with more than 100 in the past week alone. By contrast the Taliban and other religious extremists kill tiny numbers in Karachi” (page 137).

One would like to ask: how tiny is a tiny number? The verdict has simply not mentioned hundreds of Shias killed in the past few years. What is the point of enumerating the number of people killed in just one year and blot out hundreds of people killed in the previous years?

On page 16, the verdict refers to the Shia-Sunni conflict. This is plain wrong because it is not a Shia-versus-Sunni conflict. It is Deobandis declaring jihad against the Shias whom they call kafirs (infidels). The very verdict of the Supreme Court contradicts its own Shia-versus-Sunni claim: on page 27 the verdict refers to the feud between Sunni Tehreek and the SSP. If Karachi sectarian violence is between a Sunni monolith and the Shias, then what is the problem between Sunni Tehreek and the SSP, both being Sunni outfits? It is in fact a sectarian one: Sunni Tehreek (Barelvi) versus the SSP (Deobandi). The Taliban, the SSP, and the LeJ are expressions of the same Deobandi ideology. This also reflects on the Supreme Court’s claim that Karachi’s violence is based upon economic, social, and political interests. Sectarianism is more dangerous, because it is more real than an ethnic or any other factor.

Why did the Supreme Court not discuss the sectarian issues — the real issues indeed — of the Karachi quagmire? The answer is very simple. As identified by the verdict itself, the judges relied on the information provided by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the ISI. It was the judges’ task to ask these agencies about the role of the sectarian outfits in the Karachi violence. Did the agencies tell the judges that there are a number of Deobandi mosques in Karachi that are financed and controlled by members of the House of Saud, and which are beyond the control of the state of Pakistan? Where do these terrorist outfits get their finances? What sort of venom is preached from those mosques?

It is no secret that these Talibanic sectarian outfits are managed by the intelligence agencies. Did the judges asked the agency bosses questions to this effect?

One can go on and on, but the point is: justice should be available to all whether they are Shia, Sunni, or others. You cannot hope for peace while you do not even make a feeble reference to murderers, assassins, and criminals of the highest order. For those Shias who had been hoping for the Supreme Court to give them some relief, this verdict is an unfortunate, demoralising blow.

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\10\12\story_12-10-2011_pg3_3

Until the beginning of the 8th century CE, Baltistan was a country inhabited by the Indo-European Shin tribe. This was a time when the superpowers of the region were China and Tibet, both vying for supremacy in High Asia. Only shortly before, the Chinese had ousted the Tibetans from what is now the Chinese province of Xinjiang. But then the T’ang Dynasty was briefly interrupted by the New Zhou Dynasty (690-705) and Chinese imperial aspirations were laid low for the time being.
Emboldened by the situation, the Tibetans began to expand westward. They annexed Ladakh and following the Sindhu River reached Baltistan. For the next five decades this country remained under their firm control. Intermarriages between the new comers and the original tribes were common to such an extent in the next fifty years that there arose a race of a fine mix of Aryan and Tibetan blood — the current people of Baltistan. It was for this reason that an anthropologist of the mid-twentieth century called Baltistan ‘a living anthropological museum’.
The original Shina, the language of the Shins that sounds so very like Kashmiri and Punjabi, was almost completely swamped out of existence by Tibetan. Modern Balti, spoken over most of Baltistan, is therefore an archaic form of Tibetan. Shina continues to hold out in pockets across the country, however.
Aside: until some years ago Balti was under threat. Then one proud Balti — and he has my deepest gratitude — Hussain Singghe, worked very hard to revive the old Tibetan script. It is now coming back into vogue and signs in the streets of Skardu and Khaplu are frequently written in the old script.
Not content with holding Baltistan alone, the Tibetans expanded westward. They took Gilgit and advancing along the Ghizer River, went up the Yasin valley. The head of this valley, north of the little village of Darkot, is blocked by a huge mass of snowy mountains. In their midst there hangs a glacier among several others which can be traversed due north to reach what we now know as Upper Chitral.
The icy grip of the Darkot Glacier gives way in the north to an area that suddenly reminds one of the title Bam-e-Dunya — Roof of the World — that the high Pamirs are known by. Here on the fringe of the Pamirs, the landscape consists of rolling downs, lakes and peaks which, after the jagged towering crags of the Yasin valley, seem deceptively low giving one the impression of being on the roof. The rock wall to the north is cleaved by a saddle that has for a very long time been known as the Broghal Pass.
It was to this country that the Tibetans came by way of Yasin and Darkot. Then across the 3,800-metres-high saddle of Broghal, they reached Wakhan, the home of Tajik and Kirghiz herdsmen. Here in the bleak and wind-scoured landscape where the Oxus River is but a piddling stream, the Tibetans established a large garrison to stake out their claim to the land.
Time went by and far away in the east, China was once again peaceful under the brilliant new T’ang king Xuanzong. Turkestan was in control and the Chinese knew that their adversaries, the Tibetans, had annexed Baltistan and maintained a garrison in the high Pamirs. If they were permitted to remain in this region, the hardy warriors of the Tibetan highlands were very likely to attempt to sneak into Turkestan by, in a manner of speaking, the back door.
That was not acceptable. And so in the winter of 746-747 the capital of Chang’an (Xian on modern maps) saw a flurry of meetings between the emperor and one of his most able generals, Kao Hsin-Chih. Interestingly, the general was not Chinese but Korean. If the western border was to be secured, the Tibetans, it was resolved, needed to be routed from their Wakhan strongholds. General Kao, so the emperor ordained, was to lead a cavalry division, ten thousand strong, mounted to the man, into the vast tundra of the Pamirs to overthrow the Tibetans.
And as the snows of winter gave way to the verdure of spring in the year 747, the emperor’s army gathered under the watchful eye of General Kao Hsin-Chih in the fortress of Chang’an.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/260848/tibetans-in-baltistan/

As the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) predicts more monsoon rains in the coming days, low caste Hindus in Sindh’s flood affected areas face discrimination when it comes to getting relief, says a report released by Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission.
The worst victims of rains and breaches in a monsoon-swollen Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in Badin district — the Pakistani low caste Hindus (Dalits) of the districts were denied to get in to relief camps for being ‘untouchables.’
In the last five weeks when monsoon-swollen drains and LBOD burst its banks and led to massive flooding, religious discrimination continued to run deeper than the floodwaters.
Despite torrential rains, majority of these Hindu Dalits in Badin district continue to live in open sky as they were not allowed accommodation in the private/self-built relief camps of Muslims.
What added to the tragedy was the federal government’s ban on NGOs and international donors to work in these areas for ‘security reasons.’ As the government itself initiated relief operation much later, the many religious organisations that started relief operation in Badin have completely ignored these Dalits or Harijan (Children of God).
Chanesar Bheel, a Dalit farmer and resident of Goth Gomando Bheel, Taluka Golarchi [Shaheed Fazil Rahu] is one of around 700 Dalits of his village who have no choice but to live in their submerged village with his nine children.
“Our village is between the two drains and during rains both burst and inundated our village from either side, so we rushed to a nearby relief camps set inside a government school. The tenants did not allow us to live inside the camp, so we came here and started living under open sky,” Bheel told media.
Bheel said the people living inside the camps had told them that they are outcastes, so they are not allowed to live with Muslims. His village comprises on 80 households with 700 population and all are Dalits.
A civil society activist, Ameer Mandhro sharing his views said, “This is not the only village of Dalits in the district that have no roof on their heads but there are countless other Dalit villages including villages on Khoski road, Seerani, Lonwari Shrief and other areas where Dalits are living this way because they are not allowed a place in the relief camps.”
Same happened with Pirbhu Kolhi and 50 other residents of his village, who rushed to a relief camp set inside a government school in Tando Bagho, were not allowed to live in the camp after heavy rains.
However, some nice folks allowed them to live inside a camp and allotted one isolated class room to a few Dalit flood victims. As Kolhi said, ”The isolated class room is away from the main building where only two families are living while the rest of the village is living in open despite continued heavy rains.” He said some philanthropists came to provide food in the relief camp, “but we are not given the food.”
In the emergency situation the role of the minister for minorities affairs Mohan Lal Kohistani seeks attention. The situation remains tough for the PPP-led government, which not only hails from Sindh but always claim to work indiscriminately as well.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/16/no-relief-for-sindh%E2%80%99s-untouchables.html

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2011.

LAHORE: The Pakistan Army on Monday confirmed the arrest of a serving Major in Pakistan Railway’s (PR) copper stealing scam.
PR authorities said a train with copper wire was sent from Khanewal to Lahore where the wire was to be stored at Mughalpura Workshop, however the train, was sent to Kharian where the copper wire worth millions of rupees was stolen.
The army said that Major Ayub was arrested for his alleged involvement in the scam and a complete investigation will be conducted in the case.
Five other people, including a PR officer, were also arrested in the scam.
Earlier, in a similar case, the parliamentary sub committee for PR land had pointed the finger at the Lahore divisional superintendent (DS) and other officers over the theft of copper from a freight coach where in the coach was found abandoned and empty of copper at Kharian a few hours after it was stolen from a station in Lahore.
The federal government had announced an assistance package worth Rs11 billion to rescue the PR, that has come under fire for incurring losses worth billions due to mismanagement and corruption.
Earlier addressing a news conference after presiding over a meeting of PR officials on Saturday, Federal Minister for Railways Ghulam Ahmed Bilour had said that the main cause of the crisis was PR’s diminishing income from its cargo service, as the income from the passenger service was not its main source of revenue.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/250715/pakistan-railways-arrests-major-in-copper-heist-case/

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah was still using Viagra pills at the grand old age of 92, according to a classified US State Department document published by WikiLeaks this week.

According to a telegram sent from the American embassy in Riyadh on July 13, 2008, the king is also about 10 years older than what was previously assumed.

The telegram was based on information provided by a Western medical source that had frequent contact with members of the Saudi royal family. According to the telegram, this source arrived in Saudi Arabia in order to examine one of King Abdullah’s four wives, but received the king’s medical file by mistake.

According to the file, King Abdullah was born in 1916. Even though he was 92 at the time, the report noted that he was still a heavy smoker, received hormone shots regularly, and was using Viagra.

The telegram noted that the Saudi royal family always made sure not to provide information about the king’s medical condition or age. The US embassy added that according to past estimates, King Abdullah’s age was in the 82-87 range. However, if the newly released figures are correct, he is much older than previously assumed.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4119277,00.html#.TmiSACJ32Ko.facebook

By Omar Khattab in Lahore

Nadia Khan, Pakistan’s dirtiest bimbo is the latest addition

If you were a human being with a modicum of decency and compassion, the 10th of Muharram which fell on the 28th of December 2008, left you very, very sad. It was on this fateful day that Saudi Arabia’s Wahabi-Deobandi-ISI hatchet men blew up the main Shia annual mourning procession in Karachi killing dozens and injuring hundreds. Those who lost their fathers, husbands, brothers, friends, and relatives still feel immense pain for the loss. Even those who had never had any direct connection with the dead, like this author who happened to be a Sunni, feel pain in their hearts for the innocent mourners who were cut down only because Saudi Arabia wants to turn Pakistan into a client Wahabi state.

The following day on 29 December—and 11th of Muharram—Nadia Khan, then hosting The Nadia Khan Show on GEO, began her show by dancing on a romantic tune. She looked very excited. After a few moments, when phone-in lines were opened, someone called her and asked: “Is it fair to play such music and dance when only yesterday so many Pakistanis were killed in Karachi?” Nadia Khan answered without losing her excited posture: “I do not care!”

Yes, this is what she said. It was so hurtful to people that the following day Sana Tariq in her Hum channel talk show condemned her in very, very clear terms. But for Nadia Khan, a daughter of an army officer notorious for his love for General Zia ul Haq the Shia-hater, it is business as usual as long as Shia blood is spilled.

In a few months’ time, GEO kicked her out because the government of Dubai, an anti-Shia state like Saudi Arabia, banned her from staying on for reasons unknown (She was based in Dubai at the time).

Nadia Khan remained in journalistic wilderness for a couple of years till Dunya channel, usually referred to as “the ISI channel” for glorifying the Pakistan Army, hired her at a high salary of 3.5 million rupees a month. Since its inception, Dunya has been competing with GEO to be more loyal than the king in pleasing the Army, which is Pakistan’s most corrupt and morally bankrupt institution. It even began a program “Hum Sab Sipahi” (We are all soldiers) when Army’s incompetence and corruption was pointed out by some blogs like Let Us Build Pakistan.

Dunya has hired an Islamofascist bimbo which will please it masters in the Army and the ISI. The owner of Dunya, Mian Amir, is a former Jamaat-e-Islami operator and an ardent supporter of General Musharraf’s martial law. He has a penchant for hiring weirdoes. One of his best faces is Rahman Azhar who in May this year killed Safdar Ali in the Defense area in Lahore. Safdar Ali was a driver for a woman on whom Rahman Azhar tried to molest. Azhar was drunk at the time. Safdar Ali was a very poor man and had nine children. Later Rahman Azhar with the help from his accomplices and the local police forced the family, against its wish, of the guard into accepting blood money. Only Express News ran a short strip on this affair (Rahman ditched Express News and joined Dunya). Of course, he is untouchable because his father lawyer Rana Muhamamd Azhar is close Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and Punjabi Law Minister Rana Sana Ullah. His elder brother is a major in the Pakistan Army. It was reported in the press that all these influential people helped Azhar get off the hook.

Rahman Azhar’s moral standing can be judged from the fact that he has repeatedly been accused of harassing women. But given his family clout, he is above and beyond the law. (See: http://www.pakindiascandals.com/pakistani-scandals/dunya-tv-anchor-rehman-azhar-sex-scandal-with-lahore-girl.html). By the way, in this murder, Azhar was given a helping hand by two executive producers of Dunya: Zeeshan and Zaigham Abbas

There are many more characters at Dunya. They will be dealt with at a later time.

On the contrary, all the good people who once joined Dunya have left. Those include Amir Ghauri, Absar Alam, Nusrat Javeed, and Mushtaq Minhas. Hence, every right-minded Pakistani should boycott Dunya.

And what to do?

By Omar Khattab in Lahore

Immediately after the suicide bomber struck the Hazara Shia worshippers in the mosque in Quetta this morning, the highly partisan channels of Pakistan, especially GEO and ARY, relayed “Breaking News” by claiming that the attack took place in a market. Once again falsehood replaced facts. The suicide bombing took place in a mosque where Shias had gone pray to Allah, which the Wahabis and Deobandis also claim to pray (In a separate column I will try to prove that Wahabis and Deobandis in fact pray to Lah, the moon-god of Jahilia, so let us set it aside for a moment).

It was reported that six cars and one motor cycle were destroyed, and 5 people killed. After a couple of runnings, the suicide bombing was relegated to the last section of the news items. So much for the fairness of the media. But the media like the ISI has sold out to Saudi petrodollars. Besides, journalists in Pakistan work under the instruction of the ISI. The head of the ISI has recently claimed that 90 percent of Pakistani journalists are on ISI’s pay role, which needs no further comments. The point is: Will the Shias of Pakistan ever get respite from the nonstop Saudi-financed and ISI-sponsored genocide? Who was Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan? A Shia. So, you can rest assured that if he was alive today, the ISI would have had him killed through suicide bombing.

Pakistan’s misfortune is that the Army has never allowed political leadership to grow. Only handpicked, shameless, and corrupt politicians like Yusof Raza Gillani, Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif, and the Chaudhries are allowed to rise to power who are but puppets of the Army. From the very beginning of their careers, they are handled by the ISI, and if they try to rear their heads, they are either consigned to oblivion, or are eliminated. Nawaz Shairf is on his way to anonymity, and Taliban Khan aka Imran Khan is on his way to glory (but he will fail; he is too much of a dummy).

Thus there is no politician who can bring peace and security to Ahmedi and Shia Muslims, and non-Muslims like Christians and Hindus. Saudi Arabia wants to destroy Iran by destroying Shia Islam. The Saudi Royals and the thinkers of the world have one thing in common: All of them know that the rule of the Wahabi Royal Family of Saudi Arabia is illegal and illegitimate. The only credible threat to the Saudi-Wahabi tyranny comes from the Shias who have been reduced to subhuman conditions whether they are in majority (Bahrain and Yemen), or minority (Egypt and Jordan): No threat should come from the Shias wherever they maybe. Over 30 percent of Shias are Saudi citizens, but they have no human rights. In order to crush the perceived or real Shia threat, Saudi Arabia in the past ten year has pumped in 75 billion American dollars to spread Wahabism and crush Shia Islam all over the world. Pakistan’s corrupt Army and its intelligence wing, the ISI, have long been taking money from Saudi-Wahabi Royals and in the process have destroyed the very fabric of the country’s society. Thus, the Quetta bombing on the Eid of 2011 should be seen in this perspective. Even on the most auspicious day, there is no respite for the Shias. It appears that there is no way to help the Shias. But a way can be found. The Shias should get involved with other persecuted minorities and highlight Wahabi-ISI fitna the world over. They should create blogs, write to different national and international human rights and political organizations, and try to engage those serving and retired generals who still have some wisdom left in them. Otherwise, the Wahabi-ISI fitna will continue to celebrate a religions festival like Eid by shedding innocent Shia blood.

Related post: Petition: Silence of Human Rights Organizations on Shia Genocide in Pakistan

Saleem Shahzad’s family should nominate General Kiyani and General Pasha as prime suspects

Yesterday the representative of the Pakistan Human Rights Commission said that Saleem Shahzad was in the custody of the ISI. He added: “The ISI is the major human rights abuser in Pakistan and it frequently keeps abusing and torturing those journalists it disagrees with.”

And now Saleem Shahzad is no more than a corpse. The ISI remains above the law. Pakistan’s Islamo-fascist media led by the Geo mafia will point the finger at “the foreign hands” which means India and the United States. But no one will say a word about the ISI. World’s most incompetent and yet most murderous outfit, the ISI, has every legal and illegal immunity to kill people in the name of national security. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a threat to the national security; later Benazir was a security risk, and now Saleem Shahzad has been given his due for reporting on the attack on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi. The pro-ISI and pro-Taliban media led by Geo has been criticizing those handful of journalists who have tried to identify our military’s complicity with the Taliban. These brave journalists have been called traitors who are not helping the military “in the hour of need”.

And now a horrible example has been made of Saleem Shahzad. The message is very clear: glorify the generals, support their illegal pillage of Pakistan, or get ready to be killed. If only Saleem Shahzad had a gun, the ISI kidnappers would have run away like rats. It is a matter of record that if you are an unarmed “bloody civilian,” our “armed forces” deal with you with an iron hand. But once you take up the arms against them, they chicken out and pee in their pants just like they have routinely done whenever confronted by Indian soldiers.

We at Let Us Build Pakistan sympathize with the family of Saleem Shahzad. We urge them to file the FIR and nominate General Kiyani and General Pasha as the main suspects.

Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry has been an active member of Jamaat-e-Islami
By Omar Khattab in Lahore

former CPO Saud Aziz and former SP Rawal Town Khurram Shahzad helped the military establishment in covering up BB’s murder

The Lahore High Court headed by its boss Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry has granted bail to former Rawalpindi police chief Saud Aziz and his number two Shahzad Khurram. Both of them are the main accused in the cover-up of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, which the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis believes was planned and executed by the notorious ISI.

It must be noted here that the special judge who has been trying Saud Aziz and Shahzad Khurram refused to set them free because of their non-cooperative behavior. Saud Aziz refused to hand over the mobile he had been using on the day of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Later he told the court that he had lost it. This is the very mobile on which he had been receiving orders from an ISI brigadier about Benazir. It was this very mobile on which he received orders that Benazir’s corpse must not be sent for autopsy. Besides, it was obvious that once he was out of jail, he would use his influence to have himself “proved” innocent.

But rescue was at hand. The Lahore High Court, which is notorious for being infested with Islamofascist, proto- and pro-Taliban judges since the earliest days of General Zia-ul-Haq has released these police officers on bail. It must be remembered that Z.A. Bhutto was originally sentenced to death by the Lahore High Court headed by Justice Maulvi Mushtaq who was a member of Jamaat-e-Islami. The rest of the judges were either former members of the Jamaat or blatantly Jamaat sympathizers.

The present Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry during his days as a lawyer was a high profile member of Jamaat-e-Islami. Till he was elevated to the post of judge, he had been involved in Lahore’s legal-Islamofascist politics, which saw a prolonged witch-hunt and thrashing of liberal lawyers. And now as a judge, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry has violated all norms of justice by releasing Saud Aziz and Shahzad Khurram on bail. Proof? Here are a few proofs of the shameless dispensation of “justice”:
1. Saud Aziz was supposed to provide security to Benazir at Liaqat Bagh, but he left Liaqat Bagh leaving the entire venue insecure.
2. By leaving Liaqat Bagh, he made it easy for assassins to move freely and strike her at will.
3. Saud Aziz ensured that Benazir was driven on an insecure route. He had the secure route (on which she was supposed to drive as per security arrangements) blocked.
4. Saud Aziz produced a forged letter attributed to President Asif Ali Zardari for stopping the autopsy of Benazir.

All the above four points were raised by the public prosecutor before Justice Ijaz Chaudhry, but he ignored them and bailed Saud Aziz and his junior out.

Now history has repeated itself, and Islamofascism has struck Z.A. Bhutto one more time. Whether he is alive or dead, Bhutto the Martyr will always be an object of hatred of the Judges Lynches. The likes of Justice Ijaz Chaudhry (a Punjabi) just like his boss Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry (a fellow Punjabi) are paean to the cause of the Taliban and Saudi Arabia who wish to cleanse Pakistan of any shred of humanistic values. Add an “i” and Saud Aziz (a fellow Punjabi) becomes Saudi Aziz, the meaning of Aziz being “cherished”.