Month: February 2018

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore on Monday charged a man with raping and murdering six-year-old Zainab Amin in a case that enraged the country and sparked riots in his home district of Kasur last month. Imran Ali, 24, pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting and murdering Zainab, said defence lawyer Mehr Shakeel Multani. “The police have levelled baseless and false allegations against my client,” Multani told AFP. The hearing was held in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail for security reasons. Witnesses will be called on Tuesday. Zainab’s rape and murder last…

Read More

KARACHI: The Sindh Home Department formed a Joint Interrogation Team (JIT) to probe the Intezar murder case on Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah’s instructions Monday afternoon. Intezar Ahmed, 19, was killed after the police’s Anti Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) officials opened fire on his vehicle on Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA on January 13. Father of the murdered youth Ishtiaq Ahmed met the Sindh chief minister earlier today who ordered a notification about the JIT to be issued within an hour. In a prompt response to Shah’s order, the Sindh Home Department issued a notification…

Read More

The Election Commission of Pakistan on Sunday allowed Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) deputy-convener Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui to hand out party tickets for the upcoming Senate elections. Speaking to DawnNews, former ECP secretary Kanwar Dilshad said that MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar will no longer be able to submit nominations for the Senate elections. Instead, the nominations would require the signature of Siddiqui. Soon after the ECP announced its decision, Sattar and other party leaders arrived at the election body’s office in Karachi. “I am the party convener, only I have the…

Read More

ISLAMABAD: The second round of Pakistan-Afghanistan talks on an engagement plan on peace and security issues ended on Saturday without making any headway on its key elements because the Afghan delegation felt that their priorities were not being addressed. The two sides could not only agree on a joint statement to sum up the two-day proceedings, but gave divergent accounts about the outcome. The Pakistani version came through Foreign Office spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal’s 12-word tweet that essentially said more needed to be done to bridge the difference of opinion…

Read More

Former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Saturday he has made it clear that he would not serve in the ruling PML-N under the leadership of “juniors” — a reference to Maryam Nawaz who is widely tipped to assume the mantle of the party in the future. When questioned at a press conference in Taxila about his previous remark that Maryam lacked the experience to lead PML-N, Nisar in turn asked whether he had said anything wrong at the time. “You tell me, can I work under children?”…

Read More