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A video released last week demands a Taliban leader be set free in exchange for the safety of Asad Qureshi, a British journalist ,and two retired ISI officers. The missing men left for the North Waziristan region at the end of March. A second video featuring one of the captured the ex-ISI officers, Colonel Khalid Khawaja, was also sent to Asia Times Online. In it, Khawaja details his involvement in negotiations between militants and the army, as well as his part in the arrest of Muhammad Abdul Aziz during the Siege of Lal Masjid in 2007.
A British filmmaker is missing in Northern Waziristan, Asad Qureshi is one of the group of men who have vanished in the mountainous tribal region on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. On 26 March, two former ISI agents set off with Qureshi and another British filmmaker to conduct interviews with Taliban leaders. No other reports have surfaced regarding their whereabouts but a Pakistani army spokesperson has confirmed that they have not been detained by any intelligence agencies.
This is a guest post by Matt Malone
On 10 November, two journalists, Rab Nawaz Joya and Javed Chanwal Chandor were detained by police in the Okara district of the north-eastern province of Punjab. Although they were arrested on charges of theft and fraud, it has been alleged that the true reason behind their arrests is linked to their efforts to gather more information on Amjad Kasab, the only surviving participant in the November 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai.
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Authorities in the western Indian state of Gujarat state have banned a controversial book on Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The book has been written by Jaswant Singh, who was expelled as leader of the Hindu nationalist main opposition party BJP over the book. The BJP government in Gujarat said it banned the book for its “defamatory references” to Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first home minister who is a political icon in his home state. Jaswant Singh said “the day we start banning books, we are banning thinking.” Read more here