Asad Memon Blog

Rangers Kill Unarmed Boy, Karachi Pakistan

On 9th June 2011 a young boy attempts a robbery at boat basin Karachi (Well known as the Karachi food street in Clifton area) unfortunately(for the boy) the boy got caught during the act. And in a Pakistan with so many frustrated people, no electricity, not petrol, no CNG, prices going high, unemployment and much more, people take out their frustration where ever they can.  I feel they did the right thing they handed over the boy to people who are responsible to take care of law and order situation.

So this is what happened
1. The boy attempts a robbery

2. He gets caught

3. The public beats him up but lets him live in fact they were nice to him and let the authorities take care of it.

4. A person with a camera some how finds out about what is happening and was able to reach the spot on time ( HE is the most important person in this story)

5. The boys face is shown to the camera and the film is rolling.

6. The boy is handed over to the Rangers who i believe were near the Benazir park in Clifton, remember this place is less than a kilo meter away from where MR Zardari lives.

7. Immediately a Gun is pointer on his head by one of the Ranger, the boy says it was a fake gun, and I did what i did because of compulsion.

8. But they did not listen to him and he was shot twice in the leg. All on VIDEO all being recorded and the rangers knowing that everything is being recorded but still they did this.

9. The boy was loosing blood fast and was pleading for help but no one took him to the hospital. Even tyeing a belt around his leg would have helped buy more time but no one stepped up.

10. First of all the person who fired and then everything single person who saw this happened or were able to see what happened with in the next 30 min are responsible for MURDERING this boy collectively. The boy should have gone through the right process and punished according to the law.

I feel very unsafe after watching this video. Very hard to believe, YOU CAN NOT SHOOT AN UNARMED PERSON specially when you have the situation under control with more than four armed Rangers standing in front of the man.

DHA Karachi Real Estate Fraud

Have you ever rented an apartment, portion or villa in DHA Karachi? Well a lot of people have done that and mostly get what they want by contacting a real estate agent. For every rent deal there is a tenancy agreement that is filed but be very cautious while dealing with these real estate agents that are available in each and every commercial area in DHA.

Nine out of ten times you will be asked to sign a contract for no more than 11 months but did you know that all contracts with 12 months duration are to be registered with DHA and all the tenant information is to be given to DHA. But unfortunately people are easily deceived by the agents, me being one of them.

Remember by signing a contract under 12 months you also are at risk of the following

1. Get ready to kicked out any time without anyone giving a dam.
2. If you decide to go to the court the first think that will be asked is that why did you do a 11 months contract which in my view has no meaning.
3. You let the property owners Not pay any property tax and still make money over their property. Because to lease a property legally you need to clear taxes and get your completion registered with DHA, it then becomes DHA’s responsibility to enforce the agreement as well.
4. You pay more rent than the market rate.
5. You keep yourself at complete risk but don’t make it mutual with the property owner.

The owner of the property is required to conduct maintenance and repairs after a certain amount of time, the house need to be repainted after a given amount of time, you should get water in the line of from DHA all this and much more but yet we say yes to the agents, give them commissions, do whatever they ask us to do just to get a place that you can call home.

I am sure if you are looking for an apartment, you will first go and get the Sunday Newspaper , 95% or even more ads on the classified section are from agents who have only one objective ‘GET ONE MONTH COMISSION AND FORGET EVERYTHING ELSE’ , trust is hard or nearly impossible to find. Forget newspaper, even if you look at real estate portals like www.bastee.pk www.zameen.com etc are also flooded with ads from agents, you don’t know where to look someone who you can trust and have the peace of mind that he will not bully you.

Until about 8 months ago I was living in an apartment for the past 7 years with no trouble the place was owned by someone who is a family friend, I used to pay rent as per market but It was so peaceful.  But then I made the mistake of thinking that all property owners are like them, this mistake has cost me something which I value the most “Mental Piece”.

I found a place which looked nice and spacious, when we visited the place the owners were living there and we immediately liked what we saw. I decided to make them an offer (mistake I did not meet the neighbors), Immediately after I made the offer I got to meet the owner.  I told him that I have a some questions about the place before I proceed any further, He stopped me right there with aggression and said that before I let you stay at my place I need to know what kind of people are you.  He took a one hour interview from me and my wife and he said that for me it is important that ‘Shareef family people’ live at my place, I don’t want to be receiving complaints from the building people. We were able to satisfy him and asked the following questions.

1. What is the water situation? Answer: Oh we have been living here and we have had no water problems ever, you just have to pay the monthly water bill on time. Also a big plus is that this house is the only one with an extra water tank. So I was like Great!
2. I see some repairs required here, so I would need the locks changed, my oven fitted in the kitchen, the kitchen cabinet fixed, and a few more think. Reply: You don’t need to mention all this, we understand what a family requires
3. How much advance rent and deposit will I be required to pay? All sorted out, I ended up paying 150k at beginning with a monthly rent of 18k

I gave an advance payment of 10k and I was to get passion within a week. A few days after that I was called by the agent saying that you need to pay the advance amount and sign the contract so that we can get the repair work done and get the place ready to move in and I was like ok. So I also signed the 11 month contract and gave the advance payment with nothing tangible in hand. All because I trusted these people.

Any ways finally the day came when I got the keys, when I walk in all I see is that a new paint job was done and nothing else, all the fancy lighting was removed with wires hanging out, one room striped off from a fancy fan which I saw on my first visit, generator wires removed even AC power plugs removed along with the wires, no locks changed, no fixes made in the kitchen, and a hundred more things. I was almost in a position to say go to hell with your money and leave but then I had no other choice but to move in. The very first day I went to see where the water motor is and I saw about six empty bottles of Blacklable  with proper packaging, and I was like SHOOT what did I do. From that day on words I keep hearing the people from ‘Flat  x’ had a fight  with people from ‘Flat Y’ and there is no water because the ‘Flat number Z’ did not pay their share.  Recently someone opened fire on the other party over a misunderstanding regarding of paying each other’s bills. I think about Rs 900 or something and the idiots said all the bad words in their vocabulary.   The list goes on from day to day every day a new incident.

This is what happens in DHA Karachi, a family person like me can’t find a decent place to live in, but if anyone of you is reading this and knows someone who can get me a place near DHA Phase 1, 2 or 4 then place drop me a comment. I just have a few more months before I have to shift.

WHY SHOULD I PAY TAXES IN PAKISTAN

As far as I know Taxes are meant to provide services and facilities to the citizens of a country. Definitely I don’t see that happening.  I have been paying taxes on my income since 2005, now it is a good 6 years and almost a million rupees paid to the Government of Pakistan.  I am a salaried person who works for a technology company. I am happy with what I do, I am also happy with the tax I give but I am NOT happy with how my money is being spent.  I definitely don’t want to be responsible for paying for VIP movements luxury cars etc.

Today I promise that I would pay double the tax if I am given the option to chose how my money is spent.  If you ask me I would like all my money to be spent in nothing but education. I am sick of uneducated idiots running this country who don’t know a shit about how mass education is policy is implemented and they don’t even care to get proper consultants to do the job for them.

I buy fruit at least once a week and when I have to give him RS 200 for one apple, six bananas, and three peaches I think  hard as to how much money this man makes??? The answers is more than 5 lacks in a month and guess what he pays NO taxes. In my view he has no right to complain about anything. FBR has failed to collect taxes for these people and if this continues to happened the economic situation of Pakistan will continue to go down.  Whenever KESC has some problem, the fuel prices go up, or any other problem it is these people who hit the roads and salaried people like me are more worried that how will I go to work the next day because going to work is my bread and butter and that is how I feed my family.

For some reason my blood boils when I see this disparity, just because I work for a registered company it is easy for the government to collect taxes from me but what about those land lords, Gold traders, real estate trading, foreign exchange trading and a million other verticals.

I would leave you with some points to consider

1. Do you pay taxes? If not make sure you do because if you don’t you don’t have the right to complain.
2. Make sure you file your tax returns, get benefits from tax returns against, WHT on bank accounts, mobile bills, utility bills, etc
3. If you know someone who wants to know how to pay taxes or he/she is confused about the process just drop a comment here or simply visit www.fbr.gov.pk , I know a few people who might be able to help them
4. If you are buying goods try to buy from people who pay their taxes.
5. Never bribe people to get your matters sorted with FBR faster, everything is now online you can do it online www.fbr.gov.pk and their hot line is very helpful.
6. Keep your chin up if you pay your taxes and show ownership towords your country because it is yours.

LungFish Lives without water and food for 4 years

Social Networking Over time

Crazzy turkey Communication

Pakistan Independence Day Celebrations at Karachi Sea View

Green everywhere, Pakistani flag on each car, green painting on cheeks, crazy dances, madness with motor bikes, firing and fireworks, lights on Government buildings, dances, sea view, freedom, happiness, joy, and a lot more is experienced every 14^th August in Pakistan. I don’t know about other cities of Pakistan but in Karachi if you want to see how mad and crazy people get at these occasions you should hit a place which everyone know as Sea View. I actually went there this 14^th August to shoot a few clips which would make you people believe as to how crazy people can get.  If you ask any decent person he/she would say never go to sea view on 14^th of August, or EID, or any big holiday because people really go crazy. I actually wanted to have some fun so I went for it.

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The kind of people you will find here are normally from SEC C or below. These people don’t normally have much options when it come to family entertainment. Sea view is the only place where no one is charges any money to come and have fun normally rent cars, wagons, or even trucks and just stuff people in it. The most common vehicle you will see at sea view is Motor Bike and that too if it is 14th August without cylencers to get noticed.

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If you talk to any of these people you will immidiately feel that things happening arround them dont really affact them they will continue to do what they do and continue to thing what they think. I see a lot of potential in this man power in our country which can be used for something which benefits the country and themselves.

DHA Under water 2009 Monsoon Rains

It has not been much time since i have been in Karachi but it is a good 8 years now. I consider Hyderabad as the most neglected city in Sindh. But now when i look at areas like DHA in Karachi i think otherwise.

The negligence of deciding who is competent enough to take up development projects is enought to put your money and time down the drain.

What really has to be considered is that do they know that water can never flow from a lower plain to a higher plain until an external force is involved.

See this small diagram in which i have tried to explain where these people went wrong when building the drainage system.

I know that recent drainage project in DHA had a lot of money involved in fact millions were spent to be able to see the streets of DHA dry after rains. Unfortunately the people who took this project thought that water will automatically flow to where ever they want it to flow. If there was an engineer or some wise guy monitoring this then we would not have to see these days where by all the roads were loaded with water and all the hard earned taxes and money went straight down the drain.

I knew that people will ask for proof and that is what i arranged in form of videos shot specifically for this post.

This video is at popular avenue DHA phase 5 if i am not mistaken.

Here is another one showing that water needs to be pumped out so that it goes out of the main drain.

I have a few more snaps which ill add later.

My first internet experience and the journey to today’s world

People say that Pakistan is at-least 5 years behind in technology but I think we are now keeping up. I mainly wanted to talk about my first internet experience. I remember my grandfather having an IBM 386 computer which my uncle brought from the US. Back then even having a computer use to be , like now a day’s someone has Lexus. He bought a fax modem and got an email account from UNDP in Karachi. They use to charge per KB of data transfer. All of us tried to make an email under one KB.

Here is how it worked.

1. You have an email address something like Yourname@pakistan.undp.com
2. You dial UNDP number in Karachi using a dos based application as I remember it was a plain blue screen.
3. You press send and wait for confirmation and get disconnected.
4. Once you send it then they will again dial a New York number to further send the emails to the desired recipients. This process only took place once or twice a day. Because of the high calling charges. This means you need to schedule your mails so that they get sent when you want them to.
5. This is how emails were sent and received. Costing more than any postal, fax or any other form of communication.
6. Fax Modems were 1.4 Kbps of speed which we thought were amazing. If I remember correctly I was in grade 3 back then.

My next experience was when we got our very first internet connection.
We had a 486 computer which we got when we were asked if we want a computer or a vacation, so we decided to go for a computer. My Mother arranged an external US robotics 14.4 kbps Fax Modem black color with serial connectivity. That is also when I learned that what is an ISP and how does a modem talk to an ISP. Any ways me and my brothers got dressed up looking nice and formal to go and get an internet account.
We lived in Hyderabad and a new ISP just opened, they were giving free trial accounts and we got our extended two days trial account from them. The internet packages were measured in hours and one hours use to cost anything from Rs 60 to Rs 150 depending on the ISP and speeds offered.
Any ways we installed the modem and after about 5 phone calls to the ISP we were able to connect to the internet. I still remember the happiness of seeing Yahoo in middle of the web browser in red, we were jumping up and down the internet speed and page loading speeds were superb like any newly launched ISPs have. After that I opened an account with geocities which was later acquired by yahoo. I had my website on the web with just one page or so.
I was in grade 7 or 8 by then and like all kids we wanted to show off so I printed my ICQ number my email address and my home phone number on a business card and gave out to friends who ever asked for them. Most of the kids did not understand what it was. All they knew that it is something cool.
Using internet in a place where all the phone lines are non digital and you get your phone bill in units and not showing where and how many phone calls are made. Each call means a unit and outside city, calls were metered separately.
We took the risk of buying and testing internet connectivity on our non digital phone line, our modem was set to pulse dial, each number was dialed like bep beep beppp… beep very old technology. Guess what IT worked and we made history as the first people to go online from Tandojam and every one use to come to us asking can you please setup my internet connection.
We used to talk to my brother on ICQ at night because making a call was totally out of question.
Rs 60 per hour was better than Rs 250 per minute. I remember of having connection times of only 5 to 10 minutes long but we still use to connect.
My fathers always use to say each call is charged separately!!!!. We always won because he had no ways to show that on the phone bill. For digital phones PTCL introduced 131XXXXXX numbers so that only one phone call is charged when someone connects to the internet otherwise after every 5-10 minutes a separate phone call was charged. Those who had non digital phones were only charged once because the technology did not support multi metering. That is why non digital numbers were held with people for so long without actually complaining about them.
It was exciting to sit and wait for a download to complete. Back then MP3 format of music was not even close to existence. I remember getting my first MP3 CD with WIN Amp’s first version. I remember i was in grade 9 back then.
The internet stayed like that for at least 5 years after which we got our first true cable internet when we came to Karachi for our education. World Call really rocked us with their 64kbps connection and the internet was a totally different world for us then. I thought that nothing can be better but within months we had 128 KBPS/ 256kbps/ 512 kbps etc. soon after focus started shifting to mobility of internet. Go CDMS started with their GO CDMA FWT(Fixed wireless terminal) soon after ptcl came up with Vfone. My father still carries these huge CDMA phone sets with him along with his laptop because he has no other option.

Now we have small USB internet devices like PTCL EVO and World Call Wireless with true broad band experience.

However i am not a big fan of the Pakistani services industry specially PTCL, I am still proud to see that lot is happening in my country.

Moving from 1.4 kbps to 3.1mbps was a long time but I remember each and every thing.
I shall write in more detail about all this later on.

Tetris: Best Time Pass

I thought i would let you people have a nice time when you visit my blog.

I openly challenge the world to beat me in Tetris game. I made 156 line and went up to level 16 any one who makes 157 lines wins the challenge. I will personally send Cheque of RS 500 to who ever beats me. I will need proof as a screen shot of the entire screen.

Best Me in Tetris Open challenge for all