Category: English

Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani, in response to a warning from United States (US) Vice President (VP) Mike Pence to Islamabad earlier this week, made it clear that Pakistan is not in the habit of “taking notices” from anyone. Pence, while addressing US troops at the Bagram military base in Kabul, had said that Pakistan has allegedly provided safe haven to terrorists for too long but those days are over now, as US President Donald Trump has now “put Pakistan on notice”. “Two days ago, Pence had the gall, the audacity to say…

Read More

ISLAMABAD: Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO), Maj Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza, will brief the Senate Committee of the Whole House on the national security situation in the country during an in-camera session on Tuesday (tomorrow). Through a notice, the Senate Secretariat on Sunday informed all the senators about the extraordinary meeting, to be presided over by Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani. It will be after six years that the military leadership will be coming to the Parliament House for…

Read More

ISLAMABAD: Justice Faisal Arab, who was a member of the three-judge Supreme Court bench that exonerated the PTI chairman on Friday, observed in his additional note that Imran Khan did not incorporate offshore company Niazi Services Limited (NSL) to park assets acquired through embezzlement, bribery or tax evasion to keep them hidden from the public eye. Comparing the case of Imran Khan with that of the Panama Papers case in which Nawaz Sharif was disqualified as prime minister, Justice Arab observed that Mr Khan’s case was that of acquisition of an…

Read More

The Supreme Court on Friday will announce its verdict on a petition seeking the disqualification of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan and secretary-general Jahangir Tareen, DawnNews reported on Thursday evening. The verdict, which had been reserved by the bench on November 14, is expected to be read out at 2pm tomorrow afternoon by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar. Justices Nisar, Faisal Arab and Umar Ata Bandial had comprised the three-member bench which heard the case. The petitions filed by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Hanif Abbasi on Nov 2 last year sought the two PTI…

Read More

Police claimed to have taken into custody more than 70 drug addicts and six narcotics dealers from Quetta’s main nullah on Tuesday. Abdullah Afridi, a senior police officer, told DawnNews that police also destroyed several safe havens established by peddlers inside the nullah during the operation. Two female addicts were among the 70 taken into custody from the nullah, which police said had been serving as a shelter for both dealers and addicts. Afridi said the arrested addicts would be handed over to a rehabilitation centre. “Their rehabilitation is our top priority”, he added.…

Read More

The Supreme Court on Tuesday continued to press the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on why the apex court should allow for the Rs1.2 billion Hudaibya Paper Mills reference to be reopened. A three-judge SC bench — comprising Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel — was hearing the appeal against a 2014 decision of the Lahore High Court to quash the reference. At the outset of the hearing, Justice Alam asked the NAB prosecutor to satisfy the court on reasons as to why the bureau waited…

Read More

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry on Tuesday reiterated that cases concerning the storming of the state-run broadcaster’s offices during the 2014 sit-in do not qualify as terrorism cases. An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) had on Monday rejected PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s request to transfer the ongoing 2014 Pakistan Television (PTV) attack case to a civil court. In 2014, Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek Chairman Tahirul Qadri staged a major rally in Islamabad against alleged rigging in the 2013 election and the Model Town tragedy, which had seen as many as 14 people…

Read More

NAROWAL: Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal on Sunday said the backbone of terrorism has been broken and the people of Pakistan have now been living in peace. Speaking to media here, Iqbal said in the past over 25 people had been falling prey to terrorism in the country, who have now been living in peace. “Previously, there existed up to 22-hour load-shedding in the country, now the people have uninterrupted power supply for 22 hours a day,” he noted. Taking exception to opponents, the minister said those making speeches can only…

Read More

Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan on Sunday claimed that Indian security forces are using “chemical weapons” against civilians in India-held Kashmir (IHK). The AJK president, delivering a speech in Islamabad to mark International Human Rights Day, said that there have been a number of deaths due to the use of chemical weapons in IHK. Earlier this year, the Foreign Office also tried to draw attention towards the use of chemical munitions against civilians in IHK. It was the first time that such a serious allegation had…

Read More

Police on Sunday confirmed that an alleged incident of robberyreported in Karachi’s Malir area earlier this week was actually an act of murder where a 20-year-old young woman killed her younger sister, Aleena, with the help of her fiance. On December 6, it was reported that a 16-year-old girl was stabbed to death and her sister, Alveena, was wounded when they allegedly resisted a robbery attempt in their home. However, addressing a press conference on Sunday, Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Korangi Nauman Siddiqui said that Alveena had confessed to slitting the…

Read More

Five PML-N lawmakers announced their resignations from public office during a Khatm-i-Nabuwwat conference organised by Pir Sialvi in Faisalabad on Sunday. The lawmakers belonging to Punjab’s Jhang, Chiniot, Faisalabad and Sargodha districts, include MNAs Dr Nisar Ahmad Jutt and Ghulam Bibi Bharwana; Punjab MPAs Maulana Rehmatullah, Nizam-ud-Din Sialvi — Pir Hameeduddin Sialvi’s son — and Khan Muhammad Baloch. They said they would step down from their positions in the assemblies due to government inaction against Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah. The Punjab law minister came under fire from various quarters…

Read More

(Nasir Iqbal | Dawn) ISLAMABAD: Against the backdrop of a 20-day-long Faizabad sit-in, the Supreme Court has ruled that no one could be allowed to use “filthy-abusive language” for the sake of politics in the guise of an Islamic cause. “Freedom of speech and expression as well as freedom of the press is enshrined as a fundamental right (Article 19 of the Constitution), but the same provision curtails it when it is used to undermine ‘the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan… or morality, or…

Read More

(Manzoor Ali | Dawn) PESHAWAR: Police investigators probing the Friday attack on Peshawar’s Agriculture Training Institute (ATI) suspect that the planners of the attack apparently tricked the suicide bombers into believing that the facility was an intelligence agency’s office, it emerged on Saturday. Nine people, including eight students, were killed and 28 others injured when three terrorists stormed the provincial agriculture department-run training institute on Friday morning. All the three terrorists were also killed in a two-hour-long operation. A senior police official told Dawn that the planners had deliberately misled…

Read More