LONDON: British police said on Wednesday they were holding two more men in connection with an armed hostage-taking incident at a Texas synagogue by a man from northwest England. Malik Faisal Akram, 44, from Blackburn, was shot dead by the FBI after a 10-hour siege in the small town of Colleyville in mid-January. His four hostages, including a rabbi, were all freed unharmed. “As part of the local investigation, two men have been arrested this morning in Manchester,” the Counter Terrorism Policing force for northwest England said in a statement. “They remain in custody for questioning.” Police have also questioned…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
PATNA: Angry mobs in eastern India set fire to train carriages on Wednesday in protests over access to railway jobs that have seen police violently disperse crowds with tear gas and baton charges. Bihar state has been on edge since the start of the week over claims by young job applicants that an entrance exam for the government-run rail sector was being conducted unfairly. Protests began on a small scale on Monday but have since spread, with crowds pelting stones at train cars, blocking tracks and burning effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. More than a dozen people have been…
OSLO: Western diplomats on Tuesday linked humanitarian aid to Afghanistan to an improvement in human rights after meeting a Taliban delegation on a landmark visit to Europe. On the final day of the Taliban’s first official trip to Europe since returning to power in August, the fundamentalists held talks behind closed doors with several Western diplomats. The Taliban are seeking international recognition and financial aid. Afghanistan’s humanitarian situation has rapidly deteriorated since the group returned to power in August 2021, when international aid came to a sudden halt, worsening the plight of millions of people already suffering from hunger after several severe…
China said on Thursday it has returned an Indian citizen who entered “illegally” into Chinese territory at the disputed border between the two countries. The Indian citizen was found in recent days by Chinese border guards during a patrol, said a spokesman for the Western Theater Command, Colonel Long Shaohua in a statement. The individual “illegally entered Chinese territory and then was routinely questioned, quarantined and observed in accordance with relevant border control regulations, and given humanitarian assistance,” Long said in the statement posted on the official WeChat account of the Western Theater of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The…
Indian police have detained six people in a crackdown on illegal immigration after four Indians were found frozen to death near the border between the United States and Canada last week, officials said on Thursday. Hundreds of Indians, mostly from the western states of Punjab and Gujarat, attempt to cross the US-Canada border each year, braving harsh weather conditions in search of a better life and job opportunities in the West. Police in Gujarat said they identified the four, belonging to a single family, after law enforcement agencies on the border provided photographs of passports and other belongings. “We are…
RAWALPINDI/ISLAMABAD: As many as 15 educational institutions were sealed in Rawalpindi district on Wednesday after over 80 people were found infected by Covid-19 on their premises. However, a drop in cases was seen in the capital on Wednesday, As many as 685 people tested positive during the last 24 hours compared to 1,836 recorded the previous day. On the other hand, two persons lost their lives and 277 contracted the virus in Rawalpindi district, with the positivity rate recorded at 10.1pc. The deceased were identified as Mussarat Sultan, 59, and Yaseen Qureshi, 80. Officials of the capital administration said 6,468…
MUZAFFARABAD: Students, civil society and political activists lined up in the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Wednesday to express anger at India’s denial of Kashmiris’ right to self-determination amid horrendous rights violations in the illegally occupied territory of the disputed Himalayan region. The demonstration was held at Burhan Wani Chowk as part of the activities planned by the Kashmiris in different areas of the liberated territory and elsewhere in Pakistan to mark India’s Republic Day as ‘black day’. Most demonstrators held banners and placards inscribed with slogans reminding the international community in general and the United Nations in particular…
ISLAMABAD: After the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) has also announced that it will hold its own “decisive” long march on Islamabad in March. The announcement was made by JI secretary general Amirul Azeem after presiding over a meeting of the party office-bearers from northern Punjab at the party’s Rawalpindi office on Wednesday. The JI secretary general said the party had decided to hold anti-government long marches at tehsil, district and provincial level from Feb 6 which would continue till March, when a “final and decisive” long march towards the capital would be held against the government. He said…
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court held on Wednesday that since the government’s amnesty scheme was a beneficial piece of legislation, it must be exercised liberally to help achieve recovery of stuck tax revenue instead of penalising voluntary tax payments. “The amnesty notification, being a beneficial subordinate legislation, must be viewed liberally in favour of the taxpayer in order to achieve the solitary fiscal objective of quick recovery of stuck tax revenue,” observed Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah in a judgment he wrote. Justice Shah was a member of a three-judge Supreme Court bench, whose other members were Justice Umar Ata Bandial…
ISLAMABAD: With the next hearing of foreign funding case less than a week away, the orders passed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to declassify key documents linked with the case are yet to be implemented, informed sources told. During the last hearing of PTI foreign funding case on Jan 18, the ECP had reversed the orders of the scrutiny committee to keep secret some portions of its report, including certified PTI documents and bank statements acquired through the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). A formal written request for access to all enclosures of the scrutiny committee report addressed to the…
