PESHAWAR, Pakistan (TIP): Gunmen stormed a school in Pakistan’s volatile northwest on May 4, killing seven teachers and gunning down another teacher from the school in a separate attack. Earlier in the day, a shootout with militants elsewhere in the region killed six Pakistani soldiers.
The violence underscores the challenges the government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif is facing amid a surge in militant attacks across the country in recent months.
In Kurram, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan, a group of gunmen stormed a government school where students were taking exams. The seven killed teachers were members of Pakistan’s minority Shiite community, which is frequently targeted by militants.
Another teacher from the same school, a Sunni Muslim, was gunned down on the road in a separate attack earlier in the day in Kurram, according to local police official Abbas Ali. (AP)
Tag: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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Attacks across Pakistan, including school shooting, kill 14
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Peshawar mosque attack: Conspiracy hatched in Afghanistan, says Pakistan’s law enforcement officials
PESHAWAR (TIP): The plot to target a highly secure mosque here in the capital of Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was hatched in Afghanistan and funded by their intelligence agency, the country’s law enforcement officials probing the suicide attack said on Feb 7. On January 30, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up during the afternoon prayers in a Peshawar mosque, killing 101 people and injuring more than 200 others.
The bomber disguised himself in a police uniform to sneak into the high-security zone and was riding a motorcycle with a helmet and mask on, a top police official said previously.
The Peshawar mosque suicide attack conspiracy was hatched in Afghanistan and funded by the intelligence agency based in Kabul, investigating officials said. The motorcycle used in the blast was sold twice in Sarki Gate, Peshawar’s bustling market, officials said.
Police said they have arrested the sellers of the motorcycle. Police sources said the security agencies have arrested 17 suspects involved in the devastating blast – the deadliest attack on security personnel in decades in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the Counter Terrorism Department Peshawar has announced a bounty of PKR 10 million for the facilitators of the suicide bomber. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Police Chief Moazzam Jah Ansari said the suicide bomber’s identity has been identified through his DNA samples. The bomber left his helmet at the gate before entering the highly-secured mosque which was captured in the CCTV footage.
“The facilitators behind this heinous attack will be arrested soon,” he said.
Pakistan has been hit by a wave of terrorist attacks, mostly in the country’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but also in Balochistan and Punjab. The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for the attack.
(PTI)
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US NGO based in Pakistan associated with terror organizations, alleges Congressman
Congressman Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, seeks a suspension of the funding to the NGO pending a full and thorough review of these allegations
WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): A US NGO based in Pakistan and receiving humanitarian aid from the US Agency for International Development is associated with designated terrorist organizations, an American lawmaker has alleged. In a letter to USAID Administrator Samantha Power on January 24, Congressman Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sought a suspension of the funding to the NGO pending a full and thorough review of these allegations.
“This award must immediately be suspended pending a full and thorough review of these accusations,” McCaul said. The Congressman, in the letter, expressed concern that USAID received information from his office more than eight months ago regarding credible allegations that one of its grantees is associated with designated terrorist organizations.
In October 2021, USAID awarded USD 110,000 to Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD) through the Ocean Freight Reimbursement Program. This award was made despite longstanding, detailed allegations that HHRD is connected to designated terrorist organizations, terror financiers and extremist groups, he said.
In November 2019, three Members of Congress requested that the State Department review these alleged ties to terrorism in a public letter, he wrote.
“Please immediately personally review this grant to HHRD. I strongly urge you to pause this grant while you complete a thorough review of the allegations, to include coordination with the intelligence community, federal law enforcement, the State Department Counterterrorism Bureau, and the Department of Homeland Security,” McCaul said.
The HHRD, a top 4-star rated USA NGO, is also registered in Pakistan with the Ministry of Interior. It is present in all four provinces – Balochistan, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – of Pakistan, in addition to Pakistan occupied Kashmir. According to the allegations and media reports, some sponsors of HHRD events in Pakistan include Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), the charitable wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist outfit responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The US in 2016 had designated FIF as a terrorist organization.
(Source: PTI)
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Pakistani currency depreciates to record low
Islamabad (TIP): The Pakistani rupee on January 27 fell to its lowest-ever level of Rs 262.6 against the US dollar ahead of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation’s visit to Islamabad to discuss resuming disbursements from a bailout package.
On January 26, the Pakistani rupee had suffered the largest single-day depreciation of Rs 24.54 and settled at Rs 255.43, adding to its woes of heightened violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, high prices and even shortage of essentials and electricity blackouts. A devastating flood that affected large parts of the country preceded by the ravages of the Covid pandemic had already put pressure on the Pakistani economy, which was already affected by an unstable polity.
As a result, foreign exchange reserves are at rock bottom with reports of 9,000 containers stuck at the Karachi port for want of payment. Some of the containers reportedly contain essential commodities, petroleum products, LNG and soybean.
The steep devaluation that put pressure on essentials was itself an IMF formula which had asked for the removal of an unofficial cap on the dollar-Pakistani rupee rate to revive its loan programme.
Pakistan is seeking a $1.1 billion IMF bailout after getting off the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list. It had negotiated a $7 billion package secured in 2019, but the IMF now wants Pakistan to take several tough and unpopular measures to get the next round of funding. These include an increase in electricity rates, widening the tax base and ending the artificial control on the exchange rate. The partial implementation of the last step has led to a plunge in the value of the Pakistani rupee.
The IMF delegation is slated to visit Islamabad for 10 days from January 31 to discuss the ninth review of the $7 billion Extended Fund Facility. Then Imran Khan government had negotiated a loan of $6 billion loan in 2019, which was increased to $7 billion last year.
Meanwhile, the foreign exchange reserves of the central bank continued to slide and hit a new nine-year low of USD 3.678 billion during the week ended on January 20. The State Bank of Pakistan on January 26 said that its forex holdings decreased by USD 923 million during the week due to external debt repayments. (TNS)
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Protests in PoK as locals grapple with flour crisis
Muzaffarabad (PoK) (TIP): Frustrated residents in the illegally-occupied region of Muzaffarabad staged a protest against the spike in the prices of flour, according to a Pakistan media report.
Trade associations and other groups have warned the government if the prices do not come down, they will launch a movement after January 19, it said. The flour dealers have rejected the government’s plan to form municipal committees to control the supplies.
Pakistan is facing its worst-ever flour crisis, with parts of the country reporting a shortage of wheat and stampedes reported from several areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan provinces. Tens of thousands spend hours daily to get the subsidised bags of flour that are already in short supply in the market, according to another report.
The residents also suffered an electricity shortage. People in Muzaffarabad took to the streets to protest against increasing load-shedding hours. In Hanza, residents and trade unions were protesting against no electricity, no water, no doctors in hospitals and no medicines in the area. (ANI)
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3 cops die in TTP militants attack on police station in Pakistan
Peshawar (TIP): Some six to seven militants attacked Sarband police station bordering Khyber tribal district with hand grenades, automatic weapons and sniper shots and three policemen were killed in the cross-firing, SSP Operation Peshawar Kashif Abbasi said.
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terror group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The three slain policemen include the Deputy Superintendent of Police Sardar Hussain and two constables.
Kher Pakhtunkhwa Police chief Moazzam Jah Ansari said the policemen successfully foiled the terrorist attack on the station and fought valiantly. The DSP was injured in the firing while entering the building. He succumbed to his injuries in the hospital.
Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Mehmud Khan condemned the incident and said sacrifices of the police in the war against terror will not go to waste.
A search operation to locate the attackers is nderway. In a statement, Muhammad Khurassani pokesman for TTP said their Mujahideen attacked two police posts in Peshawar last night with laser guns.
The TTP claimed killing four policemen, including a DSP rank police officer, and injuring three in the attack, along with seizing two Kalashnikovs, two magazines and Rs 47,000.
In another statement, its spokesman also claimed esponsibility for the attack on a joint security checkpoint of police and CTD in tehsil Tunsa Sharif of Dera Ghazi Khan district Southern Punjab, killing two cops.
TTP, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, is an umbrella organisation of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007, the group shares a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and assisted them in the 2001–2021 war. (PTI)
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Pakistan govt to convert Havelis of Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar into museums
peshawar (TIP): The ancestral homes in Peshawar of Bollywood legends Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor are now owned by the Pakistan’s local government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, and will be converted into museums.
According to Pakistani media, ownership of both properties has been transferred to the director of KP’s archaeology and museum department, the Peshawar deputy commissioner announced. Raj Kapoor’s home was constructed by Deewan Basheswarnath, the actor’s grandfather, between 1918-1922. He was a police officer in British India. Though from today’s Faisalabad in Pakistan, he remained posted in Peshawar for quite some time.
Prithviraj Kapoor, Basheswarnath’s son, was one of Hindi cinema’s first big stars. After making a name for himself in local plays, he moved on to Mumbai in the late 1920s for greener pastures.
Raj Kapoor was born on 14 December 1924 in the same house. Shakeel Waheedullah, head of the Cultural Heritage Council of Peshawar, said the family of the legendary actor returned to the house a few times before partition to sell it.
Dilip Kumar was born Muhammed Yusuf Khan in 1911. His house was built by his father, who was a fruit merchant. Waheedullah said that financial losses forced his father to migrate to Mumbai, where the family looked to accomplish more. Kumar’s father sold his house in Peshawar in 1930 for a sum of Rs. 5,000. Since then, it has been sold various times and is currently being used as a warehouse.
Last year, the veteran actor had expressed his gratitude in a tweet to a Pakistani journalist, asking his fans in Pakistan to send him pictures of his ancestral home.
His tweet said: “Thank you for sharing this. Requesting all in #Peshawar to share photos of my ancestral house.” The KP Archaeology and Museums Director Abdul Samad said that the government would start restoration and rehabilitation of both badly damaged properties, before turning them into museums. He added that the directorate would also contact members of both families regarding the restoration work.
“In the past, only announcements were made, but no practical steps were taken but the current government took possession of the houses after completing all legal procedures,” Samad told the News. He added that the next step is to restore the two houses to their original condition and convert them into museums for which funds are available.
According to the government, Dilip Kumar’s house was valued at Rs8.56 million in Pakistani currency while Raj Kapoor’s home was valued at Rs10.5 million.
But Haji Lal Mohammad, the owner of Dilip Kumar’s ancestral house, had refused to sell the house for Rs 8 million. He had demanded a minimum value of Rs 250 million for the property. Similarly, the owner of Raj Kapoor’s ancestral mansion had also refused to sell the house for Rs 10 million fixed by the local administration. Ali Qadir had demanded Rs. 2 billion for the historic mansion. — IANS
Myanmar military court sentences two journalists to jail Bangkok (TIP): A military court in Myanmar has sentenced two journalists to two years in prison for their reporting, a move that has been decried by rights groups as the latest assault on the free press since the country’s coup.
Aung Kyaw, 31, a reporter for the Democratic Voice of Burma, and Zaw Zaw, 38, a freelance reporter for the online news agency Mizzima, were convicted on June 3 by the court in Myeik, a city in southern Myanmar.
The two had been charged under a recently revised provision in the penal code with spreading misinformation that could incite unrest, a charge that critics say criminalises free speech.
The convictions are the latest moves against journalists since Myanmar’s military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a February coup. According to Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, about 90 journalists have been arrested since the takeover, with more than half still in detention, and 33 still in hiding. The coup sparked massive civilian protests against military rule that have been met with a brutal crackdown that has left hundreds dead.
The Democratic Voice of Burma and Mizzima are among five local media outlets that were banned in March from broadcasting or publishing after their licenses were cancelled. Like many other banned media outlets, both have continued operating.
A statement issued by the Democratic Voice of Burma said Aung Kyaw was arrested March 1 for reporting about anti-junta demonstrations in Myeik.
A statement from Mizzima said Zaw Zaw was detained about two months ago at his home while covering events for them in Myeik and Dawei, also in southern Myanmar.
The news agency said it “categorically opposes the two-year prison sentence handed to Zaw Zaw and calls for the immediate release of all journalists unjustly detained by the ruling junta, including Zaw Zaw and another four detained Mizzima journalists”.
“Mizzima firmly believes that journalism and the right to freedom of expression is not a crime and that Mizzima and all independent Myanmar media outlets should be allowed to freely function in Myanmar,” the statement said. Family members of both reporters were not allowed to attend their hearing at the military court, but were allowed to talk to them by phone for a few minutes after being sentenced. During their call, Aung Kyaw told his wife to tell the media that he would not appeal because he no longer believed in the law under military rule. AP