Pakistan

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah said on Friday that the now-banned religious party Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) was “created in a bid to cut into PMLN’s vote bank”. Yesterday, the religiopolitical party was banned by the federal cabinet. In the 2018 general elections, the TLP was estimated by political analysts to have cost the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) at least 15 closely contested national seats across Pakistan. The party secured nearly 2.2 million votes, mostly from Punjab and Karachi, during the elections. Earlier today, the interior ministry notified a ban on the TLP, saying that the federal government had “reasonable grounds” to believe the religiopolitical party was connected to terrorism, after nationwide TLP protests over Gaza claimed the lives of several protesters and police officers and paralysed major highways and city roads from Karachi to Islamabad. Speaking on Geo News programme ‘Naya Pakistan’, Rana Sanaullah, in response to a question regardin...

Supreme Court judge Justice Athar Minallah on Friday termed extra-judicial killings, custodial torture and the excessive use of force as the most “intolerable crimes” in a democratic society, calling them the “worst form of violation” of the Constitution. In his dissenting note on the court’s judgement issued in a case pertaining to the killing of Mohammad Hayat Mirza, a Karachi University student, in Turbat, Justice Minallah said that there can be “no tolerance” for such acts and conduct by law enforcement agencies and its member. In 2020, police arrested a soldier of the Frontier Corps (FC), Shadiullah, on charges of killing Mirza and started an investigation after registering a case against him. The case was registered against the suspect on the complaint of Mohammad Murad Baloch, the brother of the deceased. The convicted had appealed to the SC following his sentencing by a trial court. The trial court, in a judgment on January 20, 2021, convicted the appellant under Section 302(b) (premeditated murder) o...

Foreign Office Spokesperson Tahir Hussain Andrabi on Friday said that transit trade with Afghanistan would remain suspended for the foreseeable future till the current security situation was evaluated. Questioned about the status of trade with Afghanistan during his maiden weekly press briefing, Andrabi said: “Afghan transit trade is closed, is not taking place. It is not taking place because of the factors that you were aware of. There was considerable discussion on this question during last week’s briefing as well. Till the evaluation of the security situation, this transit trade will remain closed.” He said there had been continuous attacks on trading points at the border from the Afghan side that killed Pakistanis, adding that the lives of citizens were “more important than any commodity trade”. Andrabi added that Afghan soil should not be used for fomenting and sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan. Questioned about reports of the Taliban supreme leader ordering the construction of a dam on the Kunar river, t...

The main Palestinian political factions, including Hamas, said on Friday they had agreed that an independent committee of technocrats would take over the running of post-conflict Gaza. During a meeting in Cairo, according to a joint statement published on the Hamas website, the groups agreed to hand “over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a temporary Palestinian committee composed of independent technocrats”. It said the committee would “manage the affairs of life and basic services in cooperation with Arab brothers and international institutions”. The statement also said the factions had agreed to work on unifying a common position “to confront the challenges facing the Palestinian cause”. It called for a meeting of all forces and factions to “agree on a national strategy and to revitalise the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”. Hamas is not part of the PLO, which is dominated by its longtime rival Fatah. An informed source told AFP ...

Pakistan is among four possible destinations that are being considered to receive exiled Palestinian captives, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC), a non-governmental organisation established in 1993 to support political prisoners in Israeli occupation jails. They were freed in exchange for Israelis held in Gaza, but instead of going home, 154 former Palestinian prisoners were exiled to Egypt, where they are confined to a hotel and kept under tight surveillance. All of them had been sentenced by an Israeli military court to life in prison on charges of murder, belonging to Palestinian resistance groups banned by Israel and more. But when a ceasefire took effect in Gaza earlier this month, the group was put on buses and sent to Egypt, where authorities have put them in a five-star hotel that they cannot leave without clearance. Egypt first received 150 exiled prisoners in January, and more than eight months later, most of them are still in the same hotel, their fate undecided. PPC official Hasan ...

Security forces conducted an intelligence-based operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district on Friday after receiving reports of the presence of militants linked to the group identified by the military as Fitna al-Khawarij.

In a rare sighting, four Bryde’s whales have been spotted off the coast of Gwadar, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P). In a post on X, the organisation said the group was sighted a day ago by local fishermen near Gwadar (Demi Zur) by local fishermen, who immediately reported the incident to WWF-Pakistan as part of its citizen science initiative. “The whales were spotted by a fishing boat captained by Amir Dad Karim, who noticed movement on the calm sea about 5 kilometres north of their operation area. On approaching, they found a pod of baleen whales, later identified as Bryde’s whales, likely moving toward coastal waters to feed.” The organisation said the Bryde’s whale (Balaenoptera brydei) is one of the three baleen whale species known from Pakistani waters — the other two are the blue whale and the Arabian humpback whale — adding that it lives in warm and temperate oceans and mainly feeds on schooling fish such as sardines, anchovies and mackerels, which are abundant along the co...

:Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said that the timely completion of development projects in the federal capital would not only provide greater convenience to citizens and improve traffic flow but also project a positive image of Pakistan to the world.

ISPR says 8 terrorists killed during Tank IBO SP Asad Zubair among three martyred in Hangu Police kill two terro

FO says Istanbul round will seek to finalise monitoring framework

Gunmen abduct 18 labourers in Khuzdar

Sanaullah rules out talks with banned TLP

Wheat output target set at 29.68m tonnes

PM says CPEC, rail projects to boost trade and cooperation

Three cops, including a superintendent of police (SP), were martyred as back-to-back blasts rocked Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Hangu on Friday, according to police. KP Inspector General of Police (IGP) Zulfiqar Hameed shared these details with Dawn.com, saying that the first blast targeted a police checkpost in the jurisdiction of Bilyamina police station. He said no policemen were usually deployed at the checkpost, adding that some policemen were on their way to the site when a second blast took place near their vehicle. Three policemen were martyred in the second blast, which was caused by an improvised explosive device, the IG said. Kohat division’s Regional Police Officer (RPO) Abbas Majeed shared further details of the incident while speaking to the media in Hangu. He said police security was on high-alert today in Hangu, as well as in other districts of Kohat. Police had been carrying out a search and strike operation in the area and had also cordoned off a location at a distance of around 100 metres from the ...

.

IOM chief terms country very dangerous place

.

Technocrats committee to run affairs

.