RAWLAKOT: Four police officers were killed and more than 20 others wounded on Sunday in some of the worst violence to strike Azad Jammu and Kashmir in years, as clashes between security forces and supporters of a newly banned protest movement turned a regional political standoff into open bloodshed.
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PPP claims victory in Gilgit-Baltistan as rivals cry foul over missing vote tallies
GILGIT: The Pakistan Peoples Party appeared on Sunday night to have won a commanding plurality in elections for the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly, with unofficial returns from across the remote Himalayan territory showing the party leading in at least 10 of the 24 directly contested seats — even as its own leaders joined rival parties in accusing election officials of withholding the paperwork that stands between a result and a verified one.
Security forces kill 27 militants in North Waziristan offensive as army avenges tribal elder’s murder
ISLAMABAD: The security forces have killed 27 militants during a series of intelligence-led operations in the restive North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa over the past 72 hours, the military said on Sunday, describing the offensive as both a counter-terrorism sweep and an act of retribution for the murder of a prominent tribal elder.
Bhutto-Zardari seeks urgent meeting with PM Sharif over Azad Kashmir unrest
ISLAMABAD: Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said he will seek an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif over the deteriorating situation in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, as federal authorities moved to suppress a popular protest movement days before a scheduled demonstration and less than three weeks before regional elections.
Gilgit-Baltistan goes to the polls for first time in six years as PPP cries foul over missing vote count forms
GILGIT: Polling for Gilgit-Baltistan’s legislative assembly concluded on Sunday after a day of largely uninterrupted voting across one of Pakistan’s most strategically significant and geographically forbidding territories — though the relative calm of the contest itself was punctured almost immediately as the Pakistan Peoples Party began alleging systematic attempts to withhold vote count documentation and manipulate the result.
AJK Supreme Court rules refugee assembly seats can only be removed by elected parliament — not by protest
MUZAFFARABAD: The Supreme Court of Azad Jammu and Kashmir has delivered a pointed constitutional rebuke to a banned protest movement demanding the abolition of reserved seats for Kashmiri refugees, ruling that the twelve contested places in the region’s legislative assembly enjoy full constitutional protection and can be removed only through formal parliamentary amendment — not through street agitation or political pressure.
Pakistan delivers sealed message to Iran’s wounded supreme leader as Middle East war enters its 100th day
ISLAMABAD: A sealed brown envelope changed hands in Tehran on Sunday. In it, according to Iranian state media, was a written message from Pakistan’s prime minister addressed to Iran’s supreme leader — a man who has not been seen in public since he was wounded in the opening hours of a war that has now dragged on for one hundred days.
Gilgit-Baltistan votes again with electricity cuts, broken roads and empty promises still on the ballot
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s northernmost territory goes to the polls on Sunday for the first time in six years, after elections originally scheduled for February were postponed when winter snows rendered many of its mountain constituencies effectively unreachable. Nearly 960,000 voters are registered across Gilgit-Baltistan’s 24 general constituencies. The problems they want fixed are the same ones they brought to the ballot box in 2009, 2015 and 2020: electricity blackouts lasting up to 22 hours a day, broken roads in remote valleys, schools without teachers, and an unemployment crisis among a young population with few prospects. None of the major parties campaigning across the region in recent weeks has offered any serious plan to address them.
Bahria Town CEO’s overseas assets frozen in Pakistan money-laundering probe
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s premier anti-corruption agency said on Saturday it had frozen $4.5 million held in foreign bank accounts linked to the chief executive of Bahria Town, the country’s most prominent real estate developer, and his wife — the latest salvo in a sweeping money-laundering investigation that has ensnared one of Pakistan’s most powerful business dynasties.
Police arrest 72 members of banned JAAC protest group, allege weapons and foreign contacts
MUZAFFARABAD: Police in Azad Jammu and Kashmir arrested at least 72 members of a freshly banned protest movement in a sweep conducted over roughly 18 hours, authorities said on Saturday, alleging that some detainees were found carrying weapons, communication devices and documents suggesting coordination with foreign individuals.