Bodies of 3 newborns found from garbage in Karachi’s North Nazimabad: police

By: Inter News on November 04, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home

Bodies of three newborns were found in a garbage dump in Karachi’s North Nazimabad area on Saturday, according to the police.

Sharea Noorjehan Station House Officer (SHO) Qamar Kiani told Dawn.com that the bodies were thrown in a garbage dump in Block-L of North Nazimabad and were found floating in jars filled with water and chemicals.

He speculated that they might have been used for “medical purposes by a medical institute” in the city but were thrown in the garbage instead of being properly disposed of or buried.

The SHO said some medical instruments were also found.

The officer said that generally, “bodies of newborns recovered in the city are wrapped up in shopping bags or bed sheets.”

He added that the bodies were sent to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for autopsy and the police awaited medical reports to initiate further legal proceedings.

A report published in July earlier this year had revealed that the Edhi Foundation had buried 576 newborns in Karachi — 200 in 2021, 289 in 2022, and a minimum of 87 in the first half of 2023.

It had also stated that official records of infanticide were wildly at odds with the number of infants buried by the foundation. This had promped Sindh Police to “issue formal instructions to register a criminal case if a dead newborn is found abandoned”.

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Local clerics proclaim ban on mingling of NGO women with ‘na mehram’ men in Kohistan

By: Inter News on November 04, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home

A group of clerics in Kohistan on Saturday proclaimed that women working with non-governmental organisations (NGO) would not be allowed to mingle with “na mahram” men in public and that doing so would require them to follow specific directives, contingent upon their marital status.

A 12-member group of clerics issued a warning that if a married woman was found accompanying a na mahram — men that women are permitted to marry — she would be expelled from the area. If a woman is single, the accompanying man must enter into a marriage with her.

However, the assistant commissioner of Kohistan’s Pattan area, Muhammad Bilal, has dismissed the “announcement” and pledged that it would not be permitted to be enforced.

On the other hand, a cleric, calling himself Maulana Karimdad, also posted the same “decision” on his Facebook account and claimed that a local station house officer had also been informed about the decision.

Speaking to Dawn.com, Karimdad said, “We cannot endorse non-religious activities in Kohistan, and these NGO women are in breach of our customs by participating in such activities.”

If they were to operate under religious laws, we would safeguard and back them, but transgressing our customs, which are not permitted by Sharia, cannot be tolerated, he added.

“NGO women who disregard our directives should consider leaving Kohistan voluntarily, otherwise, we may take measures to either remove them or facilitate their marriages to the colleagues they are seen with.”

Maulana Fazal Wahab, another religious leader, claimed that the decision was unanimous among all the ulema of Kohistan.

Speaking to Dawn.com, the assistant commissioner insisted that the clerics had made this decision for their own “vested interests”.

He pointed out that the non-profits had been operating in the area for eight months and the clerics never complained. “It appears to be a form of blackmail and nothing else,” he said.

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Former PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry ‘arrested’ in Islamabad: wife

By: Inter News on November 04, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home

Former PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry, who is currently a member of the Istehkam-i-Pakistan Party, was arrested on Saturday, according to his wife.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Hiba Fawad said, “Fawad [has been] arrested and taken to [an] unknown place.”

His brother, Faisal Chaudhry, also confirmed the same to Dawn.com, alleging that the ex-federal minister was “kidnapped by a few uniformed officials accompanied by plainclothed men while he was having breakfast at his Islamabad residence”.

“Even after my repeated insistence, they did not present any arrest warrant or order. I have serious apprehensions about his safety,” he added.

Fawad’s arrest comes a day after PTI leader Asad Qaiser was detained by police in a graft case.

Fawad had parted ways with the PTI soon after a countrywide crackdown on the party as initiated after the May 9 riots sparked by its chairman Imran Khan’s arrest.

A week before the announcement, an attempt was made to detain Fawad, who had gotten relief from the Islamabad High Court, but the PTI leader had dashed back to the courtroom and sought blanket relief from the single-member bench in the cases registered against him.

He had later joined the IPP — a party formed by gathering PTI deserters on one platform — on its inception in June.

In July, a Lahore anti-terrorism court granted the former information minister interim pre-arrest bail in two terror cases relating to the May 9 riots.

However, days later, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had issued non-bailable arrest warrants for him and Imran in a case pertaining to contempt of the electoral body and the chief election commissioner.

A month later, he furnished bail bonds worth Rs100,000 in each case before an ATC in the terror cases registered with Model Town police about an attack on the party office of the PML-N during the May 9 protests.

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Islamabad court sends PTI’s Asad Qaiser on judicial remand in graft case

By: Inter News on November 04, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home

A sessions court in Islamabad sent PTI leader Asad Qaiser on judicial remand on Saturday, a day after he was taken into custody in an alleged corruption case.

The court directed investigators to complete legal proceedings against the former National Assembly speaker in a week.

The PTI leader was arrested on Friday from the capital during a raid on his residence jointly carried out by the Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad police.

Police sources had told Dawn that the ACE sought assistance from the capital police to arrest Qaiser over alleged corruption committed during the purchase of medical equipment for an educational institution in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Qaiser was an MNA elected from Swabi.

After his arrest, he was shifted to an undisclosed location.

Today, the Islamabad police brought him before Judicial Magistrate Qudratullah, seeking judicial remand for the PTI leader.

Station House Officer of the Bani Gala Police Station, Ashfaq Warraich, requested the court to grant judicial remand to allow ACE officials to take Qaiser into custody for further inquiry.

Qaiser’s lawyer, Shoaib Shaheen, questioned the “haste” of the capital police to make an arrest in a case that, according to him, fell outside their jurisdiction.

The lawyer pointed out that the arrest of the PTI leader occurred immediately after the announcement of an election date and claimed that it was motivated by political vendetta.

He further informed the court that his client frequently travelled to KP, where the ACE team had never detained him. The lawyer expressed his intention to file a protective bail plea on behalf of his client.

In response, the court clarified that protective bail could not be granted at this stage. After hearing the arguments, the court placed the PTI leader under judicial remand and instructed the ACE KP to conclude the legal proceedings against Qaiser within a week.

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Bomb blast near police patrol kills 5 in KP’s Dera Ismail Khan: official

By: Inter News on November 03, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home

A bomb blast targeting police killed five people in Dera Ismail Khan on Friday, rescue and police officials said.

The bomb exploded close to a police patrol in Dera Ismail Khan city, police official Mohammad Adnan said.

Rescue official Aizaz Mehmood said five people were killed and another 21 suffered wounds.

Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in terror activities in recent months, especially in KP and Balochistan, after the TTP ended its ceasefire with the government in November last year.

On Oct 31, a policeman was martyred after unknown militants opened fire on a police camp in Dera Ismail Khan. That same day, two soldiers were martyred in an IED blast in South Waziristan district.

In July, as many as 12 soldiers of the Pakistan Army embraced martyrdom in separate military operations in the Zhob and Sui areas of Balochistan.

That was the military’s highest single-day death toll from terrorist attacks reported this year. Before this, 10 personnel were martyred in a ‘fire raid’ in Balochistan’s Kech district in February 2022.

Last month, data compiled by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) said the number of militant attacks in August was the highest tally for monthly strikes in almost nine years.

There were 99 attacks across the country, the highest number in a single month since November 2014, the report had said.

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More to follow

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Fire at drug rehabilitation centre in Iran kills at least 32: report

By: Inter News on November 03, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home

At least 27 people died in a massive fire that broke out at a drug rehabilitation centre in northern Iran early on Friday, the judiciary said.

“Twenty-seven have died and 12 others were taken to hospital after a fire erupted at a drug rehabilitation centre in Langarud”, a city in Gilan province north of Tehran, said the judiciary’s Mizan Online news website, quoting provincial chief justice Esmail Sadeghi.

The cause of the fire was not immediately clear but Sadeghi said an investigation “was under way,” according to Mizan, which said the centre could accommodate up to 40 people.

Local ISNA news agency shared footage of the fire which lit up the night sky and sent huge plumes of smoke into the air.

Other images showed the heavily damaged site after the fire was contained.

In August, a fire broke out in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, damaging multiple shops but causing no casualties.

In January 2017, a fire at a 15-storey Plasco shopping centre in Tehran, killed at least 22 people, including 16 firefighters.

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Air pollution in New Delhi turns ‘severe’, some schools shut

By: Inter News on November 03, 2023 / comment : 0 NEWS, The Dawn News - Home

People in New Delhi woke up to a thick layer of toxic haze on Friday, and some schools were ordered to be shut for two days as the air quality index (AQI) entered the “severe” category in several parts of the Indian capital.

A filthy smog forms over Delhi every winter as cold, heavy air traps construction dust, vehicle emissions and smoke from crop stubble burning in neighbouring states, causing a surge in respiratory illnesses among the city’s 20 million people.

Residents on Friday complained of irritation in the eyes and itchy throats with the air turning a dense grey as the AQI hovered around 480 in some monitoring stations in the city.

An AQI of 0-50 is considered good while anything between 400-500 affects healthy people and is a danger to those with existing diseases.

New Delhi topped a real-time list on Friday of the world’s most polluted cities compiled by Swiss group IQAir which put the India’s capital’s AQI at 611 in the ‘hazardous’ category.

“Unfavourable meteorological conditions, sudden increase in the farm fire incidents and north-westerly winds moving the pollutants to Delhi are the major causes for sudden spike in AQI,” the region’s Commission for Air Quality Management said on Thursday.

Authorities ordered primary, or elementary, schools to remain shut on Friday and Saturday, while most construction work in the region has been suspended.

Some suppliers of air purifier filters in the region said there was a shortage as demand had suddenly spiked.

This year, attention on the worsening air quality has cast a shadow over the cricket World Cup hosted by India, with financial capital Mumbai also suffering from a spike in the pollution levels.

Delhi hosts a World Cup match next on Monday between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Last year, Bhiwadi in northern India was the country’s most polluted city and third in the world, according to IQAir. New Delhi was fourth while Pakistan’s Lahore and China’s Hotan topped the list.

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