HD Viral Videos

PESHAWAR/MARDAN: A Pakistan Army soldier and a Counter-Terrorism Department constable embraced martyrdom in exchange of fire with militants in North Waziristan and Mardan districts on Friday, ISPR and police officials said. “An exchange of fire took place between militants and the security forces in Mirali area of North Waziristan. During intense exchange of fire, Sepoy Irshadullah, 29, a resident of Karak district, embraced martyrdom,” a statement issued by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said. The statement said sanitisation of the area was being carried out to eliminate any militants found there. Meanwhile, a CTD constable was martyred and a wanted militant was killed in an exchange of fire in Mardan on Friday. Police said a CTD team raided a mosque located in Seri Behlol locality after receiving information about the presence of a wanted militant there. The militant, who was identified as Maulana Jawad, opened fire on the CTD officials, causing serious injuries to cons...

PESHAWAR: Justice Musarrat Hilali will take oath as the first woman chief justice of the Peshawar High Court today (Saturday). She is the senior puisne judge of the court and will serve in the CJ’s office until the appointment of a regular chief justice by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan.“ Justice Roohul Amin Khan took oath as the acting CJ for a single day on Friday and laid down robes afterwards on attaining the retirement age of 62. He was administered the oath by provincial Governor Ghulam Ali at the Governor’s House here. Later, a full court reference was held in his honour. The speakers included Justice Musarrat Hilali, provincial advocate general Aamir Javed, additional attorney general Sanaullah and Peshawar High Court Bar Association president Rehmanullah. Justice Amin holds office for one day due to retirement Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan retired a day ago. Justice Roohul Amin retired after remaining on the bench for over a decade. He was elevated to the Pesh...

KARACHI: Amid production suspensions and rising prices, Honda Atlas Cars Ltd (HACL) on Friday extended its plant shutdown from April 1-15. In a stock filing on Friday, the company said the supply chain has been severely disrupted due to restrictions on the opening of letters of credit (LCs) for the import of kits and accessories. Meanwhile, Atlas Honda Ltd (AHL) increased the prices of various models of two-wheelers by Rs5,000-15,000 from April 1 without attributing any reason in its letter issued to the authorised dealers. The new price of Honda CD70 (red and black), CD70 Dream (red, black and silver), Pridor, CG125 (red and black), CG125S (red and black), CB125F, CB150F (red and black) and CB150F (silver) is Rs149,900, Rs160,900, Rs197,900, Rs222,900, Rs265,900, Rs365,900, Rs458,900 and Rs462,900 as compared to Rs144,900, Rs155,500, Rs190,500, Rs214,900, Rs255,900, Rs350,900, Rs443,900 and Rs447,900. Separately, Yamaha Motor Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd also raised prices of various models...

LAHORE: PTI Chair­man Imran Khan has said PML-N is trying to create a 1997-like situation when its workers attacked the Supreme Court to pressurise the then chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah hearing a contempt petition. In a tweet on Friday, the ex-premier said the PML-N is targeting the incumbent chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) exactly as it targeted the then CJP in 1997 because it is scared of elections. It was for this reason that he wanted people to get ready for streets protests to protect democracy and rule of law, he said, urging legal fraternity in particular to play their part as they did in 2007 for the protection of the Constitution. Mr Khan also wrote he was ready to hold talks with the parties, which were ready to oppose the “conspiracy” against the constitution and court. Meanwhile, senior PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry while responding to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif’s media talk in London during which he demanded Supreme Court’s full court to hear the poll delay case, sai...

KARACHI: At least 12 women and children were killed in a deadly crush at a Ramazan food and cash distribution centre, set up by a private company in Karachi on Friday, police and rescue officials said, as the country struggles with surging food prices. The stampede occurred when hundreds of women and children panicked and started pushing each other to collect food outside the F.K. Dyeing company in the Sindh Industrial and Trading Estate (SITE) industrial area, Fida Husain Janwari, Keamari’s Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), told Dawn. Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed told Dawn that 11 people — three children and eight women — were among the dead. She said nine bodies were brought to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and two were brought to Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital. Later, the deputy inspector general of police (DIG) for Karachi’s south zone, Irfan Ali Baloch, told Dawn that another woman had died, bringing the number of deaths to 12. An Edhi Foundation spokesperson also said in a s...

PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif on Friday cast doubt on the verdict — which is yet to to come — by the three-member Supreme Court bench hearing the petition against the postponement of polls in Punjab. A diminished Supreme Court bench — comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan and Justice Munib Akhtar — is currently hearing the PTI’s petition against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s decision to postpone elections to the Punjab Assembly till Oct 8. The three-member bench was constituted after the original five-member bench was disbanded following the recusals of Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail. Earlier today, the three-member bench had rejected Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Awan’s request for the formation of a full court to hear the PTI’s petition. In a press talk from London, Nawaz was asked whether the three-member bench’s decision would be acceptable. “It is a straightforward thing. When the bench itse...

PESHAWAR: A local court on Thursday convicted a man of an acid attack against a woman and her brother and awarded life imprisonment to him. The convict was also ordered by additional district and sessions judge Syed Arif Shah to pay Rs2 million compensation to the two injured in the attack. The gender-based violence court declared that the prosecution proved its case against the accused, Farhad, a resident of Afghan Colony, Peshawar, while the evidence on record also connected him with the commission of the offence. The FIR of the acid attack was registered at the Pahari Pura police station on July 1, 2021. The victim of the attack, Sidra, who was the complainant in the FIR, claimed that the accused targeted her after she rejected his demand for an extramarital affair. She said the accused threw acid on her and her brother, Shehzad Nasir, when the latter were travelling in a car. The woman said the attack caused severe burn injuries to her and her brother. Sahibzada Inamur Rehma...

KARACHI: An additio­nal district and sessions court on Thursday granted transit bail to lawyer Hassaan Niazi, a nephew of PTI chief Imran Khan, in a case lodged against him at the Nowshera Cantt police station, Khyber Pakhtun­khwa, on the charges of mutiny and sedition. Granting him interim post-arrest bail against the sum of Rs100,000, the judge told Mr Niazi to surrender before the relevant court within 48 hours. Mr Niazi secured bail after the KP police obtained his custody from Karachi without obtaining a no-objection certificate. The court also issued notices to the SHO of the Jamshed Quarters police station and the investigating officer to file their respective replies on a contempt application filed by Mr Niazi. On Wednesday, Judicial Magistrate (East) Sibghatullah discharged Mr Niazi from a case lodged under sections 121, 124-A, 153-A and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Jamshed Quarters police station. Meanwhile, the Sindh High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition fi...

PESHAWAR: The Judicial Com­mission of Pakistan (JCP) has done an injustice to judges of the Peshawar High Court by not elevating any of them to the Supreme Court over the last few years, a member of the commission from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa observed on Thursday. Ahmad Farooq Khattak also expressed concern over the delay in appointment of the high court’s new chief justice on retirement of the incumbent. In a strongly worded letter addressed to the JCP’s Chairman (the Chief Justice of Pakistan), Mr Khattak stated it was incumbent upon the JCP chairman to have given his attention to successive retirements this week of two chief justices of the PHC and to have convened a meeting of the commission to make timely appointment of a permanent chief justice. “In circumstances and on serious reservations shown by the legal fraternity of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, I earnestly request to immediately convene a meeting of the Commission for appointment of the senior most judge as Chief Justice in accordanc...

ISLAMABAD: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has warned the general public about unregistered and fraudulent lenders operating through mobile applications. An inquiry initiated by the CCP over the subject has shown that such apps constantly change their premises and whereabouts as well as the undertakings behind such operations. However, the CCP said it is necessary to alert the public about the issues identified and ways to avoid them until the probe is underway. “To avoid falling prey to such activities, it is important for the public to be aware that there have been instances where recovery agents have given their personal account details instead of the lender’s valid account,” the CCP said. As a result, the payments were not adjusted against the repayment and caused further inconvenience to borrowers, it added. These applications, available on Google PlayStore and AppStore, offer short-term micro-credits to borrowers but are currently facing numerous complaints and c...

RAWALPINDI: The Senate Standing Committee on Aviation was on Thursday informed that a significant number of pilots have recently fled the country as a result of major salary cuts in the form of high taxes. PIA’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Amir Hayat informed the committee that 15 pilots had recently left the country and that a Supreme Court appeal for hiring young male staff for the national flag carrier had not yet been entertained. The committee’s chairman Senator Hidayatullah remarked that the future of aspiring pilots was in jeopardy. He asked Senator Saleem Mandviwalla to take up the issue with the FBR through the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate committee was briefed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CIA) about the reasons behind the decline of routes of foreign airlines. CAA’s Director Genral Khaqan Murtaza said 31 international airlines had applied for operations to and from Pakistan with a total tally of 576 weekly frequencies from all international airports in Pakis...

KARACHI: The country should do away with restrictions on dollar outflows to attract long-term foreign investment in efficiency-seeking sectors, said economist Ali Khizar in a webinar on Wednesday. Taking part in a panel discussion on the challenges in attracting foreign investment, Mr Khizar listed several structural problems that have led to foreign investors exiting the Pakistan market with negative returns in banking and telecommunication sectors. Referring to semi-official curbs on the repatriation of profits by multinational companies operating in Pakistan, he said such short-sighted moves to arrest the outflow of dollars are counterproductive. Restrictions on the free flow of capital have led to the creation of a grey market as local companies are financing their imports using dollars that they remit to Dubai through illegal channels, he added. Mr Khizar urged policymakers to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to the export-oriented, manufacturing sector instead of consu...

PESHAWAR: Bureaucrats threatened a pen-down strike across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday accusing information minister Feroze Jamal Shah Kakakhel of overstepping his powers by trying to occupy the office of additional secretary of the department Arshad Khan. The minister claimed that he visited the secretary’s office and wanted to sit on his chair but the latter didn’t allow that prompting him to step out and go to the office of the director-general (public relations). “I held the same chair during an earlier visit to the office,” he told Dawn . Mr Kakakhel alleged that the province’s bureaucracy had a tilt to the former ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). Minister Kakakhel claims secy denying him record of official cars Official sources claimed that the DG was away but still, the minister occupied his chair. The minister said he had sought details of official vehicles used by officers of his department, but the records weren’t shared. “I want to see how many official vehi...

ISLAMABAD: The Constitution does not grant unilateral and arbitrary power to the country’s top judge to list cases for hearing, form special benches and select judges, Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday. He proposed that cases under Article 184(3) of the Constitution be postponed until amendments were made to Supreme Court Rules 1980 regarding the chief justice of Pakistan’s (CJP) discretionary powers to form benches. “With respect, the Chief Justice cannot substitute his personal wisdom with that of the Constitution,” Justice Isa said in his remarks, part of a 12-page judgement he authored. “Collective determination by the Chief Justice and judges of the Supreme Court can also not be assumed by an individual, albeit the Chief Justice,” he said. Justice Isa was heading a three-judge special bench, which was formed by CJP Bandial, to hear a suo motu case related to the award of an additional 20 marks to candidates for memorising the Holy Quran by heart ...

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced new funding to bolster democracies around the world amid criticism his administration has made little progress in advancing human rights and democracy as a focus of its foreign policy. Biden announced he planned $690 million in funding to help fight corruption, support free and fair elections and advance technologies that support democratic governments at a second White House-led Summit for Democracy. He announced over $400 million for similar programmes in 2021 when he last held such an event. “We’re turning the tide here. As we often say, we’re at an inflection point in history here, when the decisions we make today are going to affect the course of our world for the next several decades for certain,” Biden said. Rights advocates say there is little evidence the countries joining the summit have made progress on improving their democracies, and that there is no formal mechanism to hold participants to the modest commitment...

President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday appointed Justice Musarrat Hilali as the first female chief justice of the Peshawar High Court (PHC), according to a notification from the Ministry of Law and Justice. The notification, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com , said she was promoted to the position since she was the most senior PHC judge and will assume office from April 1 “till the appointment of a regular chief justice by the Judicial Commission of Pakistan”. She will be the second female to become the chief justice of a high court after Justice Tahira Safdar, the chief justice of the Balochistan High Court from September 2018 to October 2019. Born in Peshawar on August 8, 1961, Hilali received her law degree from Khyber Law College of the University of Peshawar and enrolled as an advocate of district courts in 1983, as an advocate of the high court in 1988 and as an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2006. She was the first female elected office-bearer on the post...

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) is working on the monsoon contingency plan 2023 in consultation with all stakeholders to identify monsoon hazards, vulnerabilities, risks and resource mapping for effectively reducing disaster risks and taking coordinated disaster response on time. A statement issued here said the contingency plan’s outcomes reinforced prevention, mitigation and response to monsoon-related disasters. A “pre-planning and orientation” meeting for it was held here with PDMA director (disaster risk management) Mohammad Amin in the chair. The participants included representatives of the relevant departments. Mr Amin said the PDMA had begun the monsoon contingency planning for the current year by involving all stakeholders and that such meetings would continue next month. PDMA promises effective disaster risk management and response He said hopefully, the contingency plan would be developed by the end of May. “The PDMA d...

SUKKUR: A couple, said to be employees of a Rangers hospital in this city, was shot dead while they were on their way back home from a family court along with their small daughter and a woman lawyer on Tuesday. The assailants stopped the car they were riding at a section of Bandar Road and one of them aimed his gun at the couple before pulling the trigger to kill them on the spot. The other persons accompanying them in the car escaped unhurt in the attack. Officials at the B-Section police station said that some armed men intercepted the car and one of them fired shots at Akbar Ali Solagi and his wife Zeenat Gadani killing them on the spot. They were were on their way home after attending the hearing their case in a family court at the sessions court building, they said. The couple’s lawyer, Advocate Farzana Bhatti Makwal, said the killer walked away without any fear of being caught. A passerby was seen recording the video of the episode with his mobile phone, she claimed. Accordin...

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has denied having PTI activist Azhar Mashwani in custody in a report submitted to the Rawalpindi bench of Lahore High Court (LHC). Justice Chaudhry Abdul Aziz of the LHC Rawalpindi bench on Tuesday heard the habeas corpus petition filed by Mr Mashwani’s brother, Mazharul Hassan. A habeas corpus petition is filed to seek the release of an unlawfully imprisoned person. The FIA in its report denied having any information of Mr Mashwani’s whereabouts. However, the report failed to convince the judge who called it “unsatisfactory” and directed the FIA to resubmit it. Further hearing of the matter was adjourned till April 4. Separately, a sessions court on Tuesday disposed of a petition seeking the registration of a case against Mr Mashwani’s alleged abduction. Additional District and Sessions Judge Mian Mudassar Umar Bodla disposed of the petition after the police stated that a case for the said offence has already been registered. The...

ISLAMABAD: Islamabad High Court was informed on Tuesday that 29 criminal cases had been registered against former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan in the federal capital. The state counsel told IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq that PTI chief was nominated in 28 first information reports (FIRs) by the capital police while the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) also booked him in one case. Justice Farooq was hearing a petition seeking details of the cases registered against the PTI chief in Islamabad’s police stations. According to report submitted to the court, out of 28 FIRs, one has been quashed, investigation is in process in seven cases and trial is under progress in 20 cases. It said the FIA has registered a case against Mr Khan under Foreign Exchange Act and this matter is pending before the Special Court on Offences in Banks. According to the report, police registered 15 cases against the former premier on a single day, on May 26 last year. An FIR...

CIUDAD JUAREZ: At least 39 migrants from Central and South America died after a fire broke out at a migrant holding centre in the Mexican northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, the government’s National Migration Institute (INM) said on Tuesday. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the blaze apparently broke out after migrants set fire to mattresses in protest after discovering they would be deported. “They didn’t think that would cause this terrible tragedy,” Lopez Obrador told a news conference, noting that most migrants at the facility were from Central America and Venezuela. President Obrador says asylum seekers apparently burnt mattresses to stop being deported There were 68 adult men from Central and South America staying at the facility in the city opposite El Paso, Texas, the INM said in a statement. Twenty-nine of them were injured in the blaze and taken to four hospitals in the area. Those who died included migrants from Guatemala and Honduras, a Mexican ...

After a bill aimed at curtailing the chief justice of Pakistan’s (CJP) powers to take suo motu notices and constituting benches of the Supreme Court (SC) was approved by the federal cabinet and presented in the National Assembly on Tuesday, the opinion in the legal fraternity was split. The cabinet summary for the Supreme Court (Practice and Procedure) Bill, 2023, states that “every cause, matter or appeal before the apex court would be heard and disposed of by a bench constituted by a committee comprising the CJP and the two senior-most judges,” adding that “the decisions of the committee would be taken by a majority.” Regarding exercising the apex court’s original jurisdiction, the bill said that any matter invoking the use of Article 184(3) would first be placed before the abovementioned committee. “If the committee is of the view that a question of public importance with reference to enforcement of any of the fundamental rights conferred by Chapter I of Part II of the Constitut...

LAHORE: Federal Minister for Railways and Aviation Khawaja Saad Rafique has said that what Imran Khan wants will never happen, as the government will never surrender to his desires. “Whatever you want, it will not come to pass. It will not be done because you are a fascist. You don’t have any connection with democracy. You have abrogated the Constitution. You are ‘falsely’ popular,” the minister lashed out at PTI chief Imran Khan at a news conference here at the Pakistan Railways (PR) headquarters on Monday. “You (IK) have a cult-following. And [we] will not hand over this country to a man having such following,” he declared. Describing Mr Khan and his facilitators as thieves and Sicilian Mafia, the minister asked them to apologise to the nation for promoting and installing a party that had allegedly destroyed everything in the country. Claims ‘facilitators’ are trying to reinstall ex-PM; asks PIA pilots to ‘bear with’ govt on tax issue “Not we, you are thieves. Not we, you are ...

ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet on Monday approved about Rs72 billion financing facility for payment of the Balochistan government’s obligations in the Reko Diq Project dispute settlement. The meeting presided over by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, however, deferred proposals for increasing the minimum prices of about 177 medicines because of poor defence by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) chief executive and the secretary of national health services. While the meeting rejected a proposal for increasing the price of Remdemsivir 100mg injection from the existing Rs1,892 per vial, it directed Drap and the Ministry of National Health Services to prepare their case and come back to the ECC to justify an increase in prices of 177 other medicines. The ECC also deferred a summary for the appointment of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank as transaction adviser for the outsourcing of the country’s three top airports...

ISLAMABAD: The exp­enses for this year’s Haj are likely to come down by Rs40,000 per person following “successful negotiations” with the Saudi government, an official said on Monday after a meeting of the Senate’s standing committee on religious affairs. “If the rupee remains stable, the Haj package under the government scheme will come down to Rs1.13 million from Rs1.17m, for the northern region, and to Rs1.12m from Rs1.16m for the southern region,” the religious affairs ministry official said. The northern region con­sists of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while the southern region comprises Sindh and Balochistan. The price difference is due to lower air fares from the southern region. In reply to a query over reasons for a jump in Haj expenditure this year under the government scheme, the official cited the Saudi government’s decision to raise charges for several services, including food and rents for accommodation in Makkah and Madina. The charges for food have gone up from Rs...

LAHORE/KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court on Monday denied further physical remand of Advocate Hassaan Khan Niazi, nephew of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, to police in a Lahore case and granted his two-day transit remand to Sindh police in a case lodged in Karachi. The police produced Niazi before the court to seek physical remand in a case registered with the Racecourse police regarding attacks on police teams and damage to public property outside the Zaman Park residence of Imran Khan. The investigating officer told the court that custody of the suspect was required for the recovery of a laptop and a cellular phone from him. Mr Niazi’s lawyers opposed the remand and asked the court to discharge him in the case. ATC judge Abher Gul Khan rejected the request of the police and sent Hassaan Niazi to jail on judicial remand. However, the judge allowed two-day transit remand of Mr Niazi to Sindh police for his shifting to Karachi as required in a case of hate speech. Separately, Justice Tar...

LAHORE: The Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) has sought a report from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) about the whereabouts of PTI social media activist Azhar Mashwani, as police investigators have been clueless for the past five days, despite the registration of an abduction case on a court order a couple of days ago. According to his family, Mr Mashwani was travelling to Zaman Park in a cab from his home on March 23 when he went missing. Mazharul Hassan, the elder brother of the PTI activist told Dawn that a preliminary police investigation failed to trace his whereabouts despite the passage of five days. He said the law enforcement agencies should produce his brother in a court of law if he had done anything wrong. He said his parents were cardiac patients and were worried about their missing son. It was only after a sessions court issued notices to the Lahore police chief on a petition seeking the registration of a case over his alleged abduction that the...

Around this time two years ago, Ester Rose looked on helplessly as a jackhammer excavator demolished her home. It was Palm Sunday — the day before Easter, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar. When the jackhammer was done, hardly 30 per cent of her home, where she had lived for decades, remained — a single room that had only three walls and was completely open from one side. Around her, many of the homes in Kausar Niazi Colony along the Gujjar Nullah shared a similar fate. Ester was told her home had to be demolished because it was constructed on land marked for a nullah [a watercourse] — in legal parlance, the home was built on encroached land, said the authorities. What she wasn’t told was where she was now supposed to find shelter for herself and her children. In fact, no one had thought of that, it later transpired. Only after demolishing 6,600 homes and evicting 66,500 people , did the Government of Sindh (GoS) realise it needed a rehabilitation and resettle...