Pakistan

Sacks adulterated with soil; further raids underway arrest accomplices

The PTI has set up a three-member committee aimed at providing legal aid and welfare support to its members incarcerated in Punjab and their families. PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja has formally notified the committee, called the ‘PTI Punjab Legal and Welfare Committee’. Haider Majeed, Faiza Murad and Ali Ijaz Buttar have been named members of the committee. The notification states: “The PTI hereby announces the constitution of the PTI Punjab Legal and Welfare Committee for the support of party members who have been convicted or are currently incarcerated as well as for the welfare of their families. “All matters concerning the imprisonment, legal proceedings and welfare of PTI-affiliated prisoners and their families in the province of Punjab may be referred to any member of the committee,” it added. The committee will convene meetings as required and will remain in close coordination with the party leadership, it said. It further stated that it would keep the office of the secretary general fully in...

DO accused of exceeding authority as staff appeal to govt high-ups for intervention

Police register murder case as attackers were identified as stepbrothers

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ISLAMABAD: PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said on Saturday that the party’s future participation in meetings of the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) was conditional upon whether consultations would be allowed with incarcerated party founder Imran Khan. Neither Barrister Gohar nor Barrister Syed Ali Zafar — who represent PTI in JCP meetings — have attended recent sessions of the council during which, in separate meetings last week, the commission had recommended the confirmation of 31 additional judges as permanent judges. JCP is the key judicial body responsible for appointing judges to the superior judiciary Speaking to the media at the Supreme Court on Saturday, Gohar said, “The party will take a final decision whether or not to attend future meetings of the JCP after having consultation with the PTI founder”. When asked why PTI skipped meetings of the commission, Barrister Gohar explained that the status of the commission had changed after the passage of the 27th Constitutional Amendment and th...

The Gul Plaza inferno that erupted on Saturday night, killing at least 21 people and injuring several others, is one of the deadliest fires Karachi has witnessed in recent years. It is also the latest reminder of a grim and familiar pattern in a metropolis where fires routinely destroy homes, businesses and livelihoods. Across Pakistan, fires frequently break out in residential, commercial and industrial buildings due to a toxic mix of crumbling infrastructure, weak enforcement of safety regulations and widespread negligence. Many structures lack basic fire exits, alarms and emergency response protocols, while faulty wiring and overloaded power systems sharply increase the risk of electrical short circuits. City planners and engineers estimate that around 70 per cent of Karachi’s residential, commercial and industrial buildings do not have an adequate fire safety system. Despite the frequency and scale of such incidents, accountability has remained elusive. Investigations are rarely concluded, recommendations...

Rescue workers on Monday combed through the rubble and debris of Karachi’s Gul Plaza in the aftermath of a deadly fire over the weekend. The fire started late on Saturday at Gul Plaza, which houses 1,200 shops in a multi-storey complex. The blaze in Karachi’s historic centre raged for more than 24 hours before it was mostly extinguished. Videos showed flames ripping through the building as firefighters laboured through the night to put out the blaze. On Monday, they began cooling the structure and clearing twisted metal and debris strewn across the street, along with fallen air-conditioning units and shop signboards. A firefighter works next to the smoldering remains of Karachi’s Gul Plaza shopping mall on January 19, following a massive fire that broke out. — Reuters Police officers, rescue workers and shopkeepers gather at Karachi’s Gul Plaza shopping mall on January 19 after a massive fire broke out. — Reuters Rescue workers search for victims on January 19, following a massive fire that broke out in Karac...

United States President Donald Trump said he no longer felt an “obligation to think purely of peace” after not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, and repeated his demand for control of Greenland. Trump made the remarks in a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, which was published on Monday and whose authenticity was confirmed to AFP by Støre’s office. A copy of the text of the letter was posted by the foreign affairs and defence correspondent for PBS News, Nick Schifrin, on social media platform X, who said he had obtained it from multiple officials. Schifrin added that the letter had been forwarded to “multiple European ambassadors in Washington”. “Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” Trump said in the letter. “Although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.” As Bloomberg pointed out, ...

PPP Senator Sherry Rehman on Monday said that there was no need to politicise the fire which broke out in Karachi’s Gul Plaza shopping mall, saying that it was a “lesson for all of us”. She made the remarks in the Senate after Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) Senator Khalida Ateeb called the House’s attention to the incident, lambasting the Sindh government for its negligence. Calling the incident “heartbreaking”, Rehman said that there could be no compensation for all of the lives lost in the incident. She asserted that the entire Sindh government was active and dealing with the situation. However, she conceded that the fire brigade took time to reach the site after the fire broke out as there was a large crowd gathered at the scene. She added that Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had announced Rs10m as compensation for the affected families. “Shutting down private enterprise is harmful since this is such a big plaza. But fire safety is necessary for a city like Karachi and one should ask the administration...

KARACHI: National Assembly Opposition Leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Monday called for a “new Pakistan”, which is democratic, where there is rule of law, and where there is no cruelty. Achakzai — who is on a four-day visit to Sindh along with a delegation of opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) to mobilise the masses for a nationwide strike and protest rallies scheduled for February 8 — expressed these views while addressing lawyers at the Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA) in Karachi. Apart from him, other TTAP leaders, including Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen chief Allama Raja Nasir Abbas and PTI’s Asad Qaiser, also spoke at the seminar titled “Protecting the Basic Structure of the Constitution of Pakistan”. “Let’s make Pakistan a democratic country, a country where people have the power, and there is rule of law and the Constitution,” said Achakzai, adding that democracy had not been allowed to flourish in the country. “The country is ailing like a cancer patient.” “Let’s comply...

The devastating fire at Gul Plaza, a landmark shopping centre on Karachi’s MA Jinnah Road, is not merely an accident or an unfortunate lapse in safety compliance. It is a grim reminder that poor governance kills. As rescue operations continue and the death toll rises in the aftermath, what is already evident is that this tragedy was foreseeable, preventable, and rooted in institutional failure rather than fate. Gul Plaza was an old, densely packed commercial building with hundreds of shops spread across its basement and upper floors, with inadequate emergency exits and fire safety systems. Despite its prominence and heavy daily footfall, reports indicate that the building lacked critical emergency exits and fire-venting infrastructure — features that should have been enforced long ago by the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA). Ensuring compliance with these standards is not optional; it is the statutory responsibility of the authority charged with public safety. The question is not whether a short circui...

LAHORE: Mubashra Khawar Maneka, the daughter of Bushra Bibi, withdrew her plea filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) seeking meetings with her incarcerated mother. Maneka had filed the plea on January 16, seeking meetings with her mother, who is the wife of jailed PTI founder Imran Khan. The court registrar’s office had, however, objected to the maintainability of the plea, asking Maneka to approach the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench instead. During Monday’s hearing, Justice Farooq Haider sustained the registrar office’s objection pertaining to territorial jurisdiction, observing that the plea was not maintainable before the LHC’s principal seat. Maneka’s counsel then withdrew the petition, following which Justice Haider disposed of the plea. The petition, filed through Lahore High Court Bar Association President Malik Asif Nissoana, listed the inspector general of prisons, the superintendent of Adiala jail, Rawalpindi, and others as respondents. It said the Adiala jail administration had barred Maneka from meeting he...

US President Donald Trump’s government has asked countries to pay $1 billion for a permanent spot on his “Board of Peace” aimed at resolving conflicts, according to US media reports. The White House has asked various world leaders to sit on the board, chaired by Trump himself, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban and Canada’s Mark Carney. Member countries — represented on the board by their head of state — would be allowed to join for three years, or longer if they contributed more than $1 billion within the first year, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the sum. “Each member state shall serve a term of no more than three years from this charter’s entry into force, subject to renewal by the chairman,” stated the board’s draft charter obtained by Bloomberg and other media. “The three-year membership term shall not apply to member states that contribute more than USD $1,000,000,000 in cash funds to the Board of Peace within the first...

The government is implementing comprehensive reforms aimed at improving efficiency and ensuring transparency in the petroleum sector, according to the Petroleum Division.

Pakistan’s external financing position weakened in December 2025 due to a rise in imports and persistent income outflows that pushed the current account back into deficit. According to data provided by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Pakistan recorded a current account deficit of $244 million in December, compared with a $98m surplus in November of the same year. As a result, the cumulative current account position for July to December FY26 rose to a deficit of $1,174m compared to a surplus of $957m during the same time last year. The monthly decline was driven primarily by changes in trade. Imports of goods rose to $5.74bn in December, while exports stood at $2.75bn. Trade in services also remained negative. Services exports for the month were $936m while imports were $1.31bn, adding $370m to the deficit. Overall, strong remittance inflow did provide support, with workers’ remittances amounting to $3.59bn in December. Other notable findings were that the financing account posted a net outflow of $596m in D...

KARACHI: A petition was filed in the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday, seeking the initiation of “criminal, departmental and contempt proceedings” against officials found responsible for the Gul Plaza fire. The fire, which erupted late on Saturday night, raged for almost 24 hours before it was doused. The death toll from the inferno rose to over 20 today from six reported on Sunday as rescue workers continued a search operation for several persons reported missing following the incident. Meanwhile, a lawyer, Advocate Saleem Michael, and a resident of Karachi, Muhammad Haris, filed a plea in the SHC, stating that the “tragedy was not an unavoidable accident but a direct consequence of gross negligence, failure of inspection, nonenforcement of safety laws, and maladministration by the respondents who are legally bound to ensure building and fire safety”. The Sindh government, Sindh Building Control Authority, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, Karachi’s chief fire officer, the Sindh Emergency Rescue Service dire...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday held a telephone conversation with Egyptian Foreign Minister Dr Badr Abdelatty to discuss recent regional developments as well as ongoing bilateral and multilateral matters.

The federal government has formally released the list of public and optional holidays for 2026, with the Cabinet Division issuing a comprehensive notification covering national days, religious observances, and minority festivals.