29 June 2011
A tribunal headed by Justice Mohammad Hashim Kakar of the Balochistan High Court submitted on Tuesday its report on the Kharotabad incident of May 17 in which five foreigners, three of them women, were killed by security personnel, but the provincial government has decided not to make it public. According to sources, the government observed after going through the report that recommendations made by the judicial tribunal could not be fully implemented....
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28 June 2011
The Pakistan government’s inability to provide for the security and prosperity of its own people has led to questions about its sovereignty, whether in terms of its monopoly of violence, fiscal solvency, or human security. But rather than asking questions of the Pakistani government, Pakistanis are content with blaming Washington for the country’s ills. Washington wants Pakistan to succeed, even though, admittedly, the United States has...
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Police Stations Understaffed in Punjab, KP and Sindh: Report
28 June 2011
The police stations in Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) were understaffed to a varying degree, the police stations in Balochistan and Islamabad capital territory were heavily overstaffed, according to Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN’s) police station monitor. This report is based on information collected by FAFEN monitors who visited 90 police stations in 62 districts across the country during January - March 2011. Of the monitored...
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Murder Charges Sought in Rangers Killing as Courts Address Other Incident Inquiries
16 June 2011
A Pakistani prosecutor said Wednesday he would seek murder charges against six soldiers and a civilian remanded over the killing of an unarmed man in a public park that shocked the nation. Paramilitary Rangers shot dead Sarfaraz Shah in Karachi last Wednesday after he was accused of robbery, but his family has demanded justice, insisting he was an innocent student. The killing was filmed by a television cameraman. Public prosecutor Arshad Iqbal Cheema...
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Six Rangers Arrested in Extrajudicial Killing Case
13 June 2011
The Sindh High Court granted police a two-day physical remand of six Rangers and a policeman involved in the killing of Sarfaraz Shah. The six Rangers are Shahid Zafar, Muhammad Afzal, Liaquat, Muhammad Tariq, Bahar and Minthar Ali. Afsar Khan is the policeman who first handed over the youth to the Rangers and later filed a fake FIR against him. All the suspects were presented in the court today....
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US Convicts Rana in Danish Newspaper Plot, Clears Him on Mumbai Attack Charges
10 June 2011
A US federal jury has convicted a Chicago businessman of helping plot an attack against a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. But the jury in the US state of Illinois cleared Tahawwur Rana of the most serious terrorism charge of co-operating in the deadly 2008 rampage in the Indian city of Mumbai. At the centre of the trial was testimony by the government's star witness, David Coleman Headley, a longtime friend of Rana...
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Pakistan Arrests Five Soldiers Following Extrajudicial Killing
09 June 2011
Pakistan on Thursday arrested five soldiers for shooting dead a young man at point blank range in a park after the killing was filmed live and broadcast on television, shocking human rights activists. Five members of the Rangers paramilitary rounded on unarmed 22-year-old Sarfaraz Shah in Karachi's most exclusive neighbourhood of Clifton on Wednesday, claiming he had tried to rob a policeman's family. The Rangers chief for Sindh province said an...
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01 June 2011
Two Russian diplomats arrived in Quetta on Tuesday to take the bodies of the victims killed in Kharotabad area when security forces had gunned down five foreigners on May 17. The Russian officials said that four of the deceased are suspected to be Russians; however, no official statement has been given yet. They said that they are waiting for the identification of the bodies to take place, adding that the bodies were decomposed due to the poor air-conditioning...
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Mumbai Attack Co-Accused Claims He "Attended Over 50 Training Sessions" with ISI Handler
27 May 2011
Mumbai attack co-accused David Headley on Thursday told a U.S. court that a Pakistani Navy man was present during discussions with his Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) handler Major Iqbal on landing sites and arrival of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists by sea. Headley also said he had attended over 50 training sessions with the powerful Pakistan's intelligence agency and that he always briefed Iqbal first during his visits to Paksitan. Iqbal was...
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Karachi Authorities Seize 375 Kilograms of Heroin in "Largest Ever" Haul
26 May 2011
Pakistan said Wednesday it had seized its largest ever heroin haul, impounding 375 kilograms (825 pounds) of the narcotic worth an estimated $44 million on the international market. About 108 kilograms hidden in matchboxes was seized late Monday from a container at the Arabian sea port and another 267 kilograms of heroin in a follow up raid in Quaid Abad neighbourhood, officials said. "We have arrested five people and during investigations they have...
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