Pakistan

Mandates strict compliance with Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Rules 2025

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Accepts defeat in 82kg Mongli lifting challenge after contest

Exhibition by Dr Shaista Hyder brings the ancient Indus precursor site to life

Over a foot of snowfall shuts roads, strands residents and disrupts communications

Clash between rival groups spills outside Abbottabad University

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Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti addressed the issue of terrorism in the province on Wednesday, asserting that no one was allowed to take up arms and kill innocent people. He made this statement while addressing the Balochistan Assembly, around 10 days after a spate of attacks on January 31 brought parts of the restive province to a standstill for several days. Security forces responded to the attacks by killing a total of 216 terrorists during “Operation Radd-ul-Fitna-1”. Speaking about terrorism today, Bugti said there was, unfortunately, “confusion” on the issue in Pakistan. He linked this “confusion” to the use of “propaganda”, which he said was used to create distance between the state and the youth of Balochistan. Moreover, he claimed, “a forced narrative has been created against Pakistan that is purely based on perceptions and devoid of reality”. The minister decried that terrorism in Balochistan was linked to the lack of development in the province, adding that the problem of “unparalleled dev...

50 terror-hit schools rehabilitated as bypass opens

India’s oil minister said on Wednesday he had communicated with and met the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during his time in the United States, but said he had no connection to any wrongdoings or crimes. Hardeep Singh Puri, a career diplomat-turned-politician, said he was part of the International Peace Institute, a New York think tank headed by Norwegian diplomat and former cabinet minister Terje Roed-Larsen until 2020, and met Epstein “three or maximum four times” during his time there. Roed-Larsen, 78, has apologised for his connection to Epstein and his wife, Mona Juul, a Norwegian ambassador, stepped down over her links to Epstein. Puri’s comments came in response to questions by India’s opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in parliament on Wednesday. Gandhi said Puri’s name had been mentioned in Epstein’s emails and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to clarify what his dealings with Epstein were. Puri, who served as India’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2009-2...

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ISLAMABAD: Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Wednesday criticised National Assembly (NA) Opposition Leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai over his recent remarks about the army, saying that the “irresponsible” statement was an attempt to “belittle the sacrifices” of security personnel. Asif’s rebuke came during a session of the lower house of Parliament, where he recalled Achakzai’s recent remarks and quoted him as saying that the army was a “force of four districts”. Asif did not elaborate on the context of the remarks attributed to Achakzai. Terming it “highly irresponsible” and a “deliberate attempt to malign” the national institution, Asif asserted that the army was a national force. “It is the force of the federation, with representation from all provinces,” he stressed. “It is the force of the entire country.” During his address, the minister also shared data about the representation of different provinces in the army, reading out statistics from a document. According to the document, seen by Dawn, the province-w...

National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Wednesday accepted the resignation of veteran politician Sardar Akhtar Mengal, chief of his faction of the Balochistan National Party (BNP-M). Mengal, who was elected as an MNA from Khuzdar (NA-256) in the 2024 general elections, had submitted his resignation in September that year, citing the “prevailing situation in Balochistan”. “PML-N has at last accepted my resignation after dragging its feet long enough to expose its own fear,” Mengal said in a social media post, referring to the speaker’s party. “Was it the applause that unsettled you or the fact that I could draw crowds in Punjab’s core?” he asked, apparently referring to his participation in a charged discussion about Balochistan at the Asma Jahangir Conference held recently in Lahore. At the event, Mengal had criticised recent political and electoral developments, alleging that mainstream Baloch political leadership had been sidelined. He also expressed concern over restrictions on political activity, media ac...

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has stated that there is a “fair chance” of sighting the new moon of Ramazan on the evening of February 18, it emerged on Wednesday. According to a letter by the department’s Climate Data Processing Centre (CDPC) in Karachi to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, dated January 26, the new moon of Ramazan “will be born on the crossing conjunction point of 5:01pm on February 17”. “According to astronomical parameters, there is a ‘fair chance’ of sighting the new moon of Ramazan 1447 AH on the evening of February 18, 2026,” it said. Furthermore, the weather was expected to be partly cloudy/fair in most parts of the country, it added. In their letter, the PMD also shared the last expected times for moon sighting in various regions on February 18: 6:58pm in Azad Jammu and Kashmir; 7:47pm in Balochistan; 6:53 pm in Gilgit-Baltistan; 7:13pm in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; 7:08pm in Punjab; and 7:24pm in Sindh.

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad expects the economy to grow as much as 4.75 per cent this fiscal year, pushing back against a recent downgrade by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In written responses to Reuters, the SBP chief argued the recovery is broader and more durable than headline export data suggest. The central bank raised its FY26 growth forecast to 3.75–4.75pc at its January meeting, 0.5 percentage points higher than its previous range, despite a contraction in exports in the first half of the year and a widening trade deficit. The governor said differences in projections were not unusual and reflected timing issues, including the IMF’s incorporation of flood-related assessments in its latest outlook. “All these sources and indicators, along with FY26-Q1 data, point to a broad-based recovery in all three sectors of the economy,” he said. He added that the SBP believed that agricultural activity had remained resilient despite floods and “it is even performing better than its ...

KARACHI: Around 4.30pm on Feb 25 last year, an altercation took place between two groups of people on Mai Kolachi Road, near the US consulate. While the details of the brawl itself are unclear, the bone of contention was allegedly a three-acre chunk of prime real estate located just off the thoroughfare. One of its two co-owners, builder and developer Javed Iqbal had employed a local JUI-F leader named Jibrail Khan, 32, to work there as a supervisor. Several sources claim that the huge plot is coveted by extremely powerful individuals at the top of the political food chain. Some days earlier, this party had sent in their supporters to occupy the plot. On Feb 25, Jibrail got into a heated confrontation with them. An FIR was filed against him for rioting armed with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and attempted murder. Several other FIRs (copies of which are in Dawn’s possession) were also filed against him in Karachi and other parts of Sindh, including Shikarpur, Moro, Qazi Ahmed and Nawabshah for various crimes, o...