Pervaiz Munir Alvi

Mohammad Tufail Baloch has twelve children. The oldest one is 26 and the youngest one 6. For generations his tribe has lived at Dera Bugti till trouble came to the area few years ago. Nawab Akbar Bugti had demanded more royalty money for the gas fields and unless given promised trouble for the government. Military government responded in negative and the Nawab chose to fight back.

Caught in this cross fire were Mohammad Tufail and his family.

No longer able to provide food for his family off his meager income from making and repairing wooden sleeping cots, Tufail decided to leave the area and move to some other parts of the country. He and his family became what have come to be known as internal refugees. After tracking through the hills and mountains of Balochistan and Frontier provinces the family finally reached the banks of Indus River near Attock and set their tents outside the city.

Adil Najam

Flying in from London to Islamabad, I bumped into Imran Khan on the plane. There he was, sitting a couple of rows ahead of me, reading The News, with his own picture on its front page (meeting Nawaz Sharif in London). I had not yet seen the paper, nor followed that days events in London (I was flying in from Amsterdam where I had been in meetings all day). We exchanged a few pleasantries, said nice things about what we had been up to since we had last met in Chicago just about a year ago (I had reported in detail on that here).

I must say, I did not fully grasp everything he said until later after I landed in Islamabad and first saw his supporters and TV cameras lined up at the airport, and then every news channel covering his press conference in London, and its political implications. In our short conversation he pretty much covered the exact same points I saw him presenting on TV,with pretty much the same passion. I guess he had come fresh from the press conference. Since all of that is now in the news already, I will not repeat it. The one thing I did ask him about were rumors about his ‘patch up’ with the MQM leading to the lifting of the ban on his entry into Sindh. Readers would remember those rumors surfacing everywhere, including on ATP, a few days ago. He shrugged those away as nonsense and just rumors.

Owais Mughal

Clicking on the photos in this post will take you to their host websites and larger image sizes

A friend recently sent me few photos of Khewra area and that got me interested in finding more about the famous Khewra Salt Mines and Tourist Resort. Following is a combination plate of what I already knew and what I learnt new about Khewra.

History:

Geologists put the age of rock-salt found in Khewra at about 600 million years. In geological timescale this time period is called Precambrian. It is said that discovery of rock salt in Khewra area dates back to as early as circa 326 BC. According to a legend, the army of Alexander the great was resting in Khewra area after a battle with Raja Porus. Some horses of Alexander‘s army were then seen licking rock salt in the area. Somebody from Alexander‘s army noted down the incident in his ledger or diary and hence?we came to know that salt was discovered?here circa 326 BC.?History is however silent?on which language this incident was recorded in (Greek?) or where is that diary now. But since those days people in the area continued to collect salt from the out crops of salt seams that were exposed at the hill surface.