High Security in Karachi

[arsalan660]

There is high security in and I think the big reason is that this is first non-asian team to play karachi since 2000. the other reason is the bomb blast near England visit's Hotel.

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[Mongoose]

Arsalan / Zainub / anyone else who knows ...

What is the reason for the bombings in Karachi? The unrest in Pakistan doesn't get much coverage in the UK, as our media are taken up with Iraq, and sometimes Afghanistan. Who is responsible for the bombings? Are they campaigning against the government? Any info would be interesting to know.

[Zainub]

This Mang would answer your question. And did get coverage in the west, the media would never waste an opportunity like this, to dent our repos, to jump up to their own convinient conclusions, etc.

On the securiy situation right now, all roads leading up to the NSK will be sealed from 8 AM PST tomorrow. Spectators of different enclosures have been asked to get together at different places in close vicinity to the ground where parking facilities are available, they will then be escorted to the ground in private buses from there.

The papers this morning also has a list of substances spectators would not be allowed to take inside, which had me really red faced. The list is as follows:

1)Flags of any other country or organisation other then Pakistan, England or Great Britain

2)Any kind of Banners, Stickers etc.

3)Radios, Walkmans etc.

4)Binoculars

5)Cameras

6)All kinds of fruits and vegetables

7)All kind of bottles

8)Lunch boxes or other any hard food containers such as thermoses etc.

9)Plastic plates or other utensils

10)Fireworks and firecrackers

11)Any weapons of any sort, including toy weapons

12)Any other solid items

You just have to be relieved they're allowing human beings in

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

Fruit or Vegetables ! If somebody lobbed an orange at me I wouldnt know whether to laugh or cry ! Jones wouldnt catch though..........sorry, couldnt resist.

I do worry about the situation though, worry about you as well Zainub.

[smickel]

There's not really that much that you can take in by the sounds of it. Kind of like the MCG a few years ago where they had the problem of people throwing items on the field except this sounds as though it is on a much larger scale.

[Zainub]

Who would be mad enough to want to throw their expensive digi cams on the players! Banning cameras is ridiculous! I'll get to see many of these lads for the first time, and I can't even be allowed to take some proof so that I can brag about it with my great grand kids many years down the line! What an injustice of the highest order! I protest!

And most of the items on that list were allowed during the first two games and the test series, I take it as an insult that the police here should think we are less civilized then the rest of the Pakistan population and thus must be curtailed using such means. What pathetic-ness!

[Occasional Fan]

I think we are all getting used to the idea of not being allowed to take certain things into cricket grounds nowadays - but banning binoculars really is unbelievable. Presumably whoever wrote that particular line is not a cricket watcher.

What about this "high security" business, though? It seems to me that the world is a dangerous place, and we all know it and we have to deal with it. I personally resent anything which the authorities do which prevents or hinders me in making my own assessment of the risks of a particular course of action and then doing what I think is reasonably safe for me.

We are, IMO, hearing far too many comments from world leaders (Bush and Blair have both said them repeatedly in the last year) to the effect that the primary or paramount or over-riding duty of government is to ensure the safety of its citizens. I'd like to know: who asked them to do this and how long ago? If looking after my safety means:

• building concrete barriers around the Houses of Parliament;
• banning commercial flights by UK airlines to Kenya;
• building exclusion fences around the Washington Monument;
• requiring me to carry a national identity card at a cost of £300 and to provide 49 separate pieces of information to the government in connection with the national identity database, including my fingerprints;
• arming even 10% of the Metropolitan Police force;
• making it an offence to speak my mind in an organised manner anywhere within a kilometre of Westminster unless the Police Commissioner says I can;
• banging up anyone indefinitely without trial;
• making anyone subject to a "control order" in the UK which, to all intents and purposes, is the same as apartheid South Africa's banning orders;
• having my elected representatives apparently turn a blind eye to the US's scandalous "extraordinary renditions" and Guantanamo Bay;
• putting 3,000 security people in a cricket ground in Pakistan
• etc.

then thanks all the same: you get on with something else and I'll look after my own safety.

[Zainub]

Your post OF reminded me of (yet another) "security measure" I forgot to mention earlier. All spectators are also required to "prove their identity". And we're also expected to get checked physically on reaching the ground. And yeah, there's also this bit of news that several secret security cameras have been installed inside the NSK at vantage points known only to the law enforcing agencies (the police, the rangers, and some army officials as well). I find this very up setting, doesn't all of this account to blatant invasion of privacy?

The report in Jang does say spectators can take their own food inside, but they must to do in soft containers, such as transparent plastic or polythene bag.

And speaking of security measures that make day to day life a major hindrance, just ask anyone who lives in Clifton, Bath Island, Cant, or Defense. How many roads are blocked because some XYZ country's embassy is just around the corner, sometimes these roads are major roads, like the road in front of the US Embassy here, which for the record, is not even functional, and all official work is carried out from the one in Islamabad, but yet, to protect just the lousy old empty building every other month or so the main Abdullah Haroon Road is closed.

It's closed for all public transport (taxis, rickshaws and public buses permanently, and no form of high roof cars, trucks or tanker are allowed either), and only private cars can go through. I imagine this is quite a hindrance for the other buildings on that road, the Marriot Hotels for instance, which are adjacent the consulate, as well as the Standard Charted Bank Building.

And only God knows how much loss it causes us in terms of potential tourists lost, the Ferreir Hall is opposite the consulate and there was a time when the surrounding Jinnah Gardens use to be a hub of activity with locals from all across this city relaxing in the wonderful gardens, or sight seeing the glorious Ferreir Hall building and the Sadequain gallery inside. But now, it remains deserted mostly. But obviously, because we have to safeguard the non-functional consulate building, all this must be forgotton. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

ps for Richie: Just noticed you said you wore worried about me, I appreciate that sentiment, but don't feel worried. Unlike some who like to first demand that they be given presidential level security all the time, and then like complaining that it makes them mentally jaded, I don't make a fuss about this, I don't see the reason to, because for me something is just as likely to happen in PLS (presidential level security) as in zero level security. There is no security against death.

I have lived in this city for 18 years, and dealt with this, and I have loved my life here all the way through, I will not exchange living here for any where else in the world. The bomb blasts don't scare or worry me now, they did when I was younger, like 6 or 7 year old, and we had school cancelled every 7th day because of a stupid strike, but now those dirty, bloody days of secretarial or other forms violence are more or less behind us. And even though when we do occasionally get something of that nature, it doesn't "scare" me, it doesn't make me feel less inclined to go out to shop, meet my friends or family or just have fun, but it does make angry, sorry and frustrated.

[Occasional Fan]

Careful, Zainub, or you might provoke me into making a comment which is not charitable to our American cousins.

[Zainub]

The Czech and Americans are each others cousins, when did that happen?