Pakistan PM meeting officials amid growing tension with neighbors
ISLAMABAD: Officials said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be briefed on the latest tensions in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, where Pakistan accused India of a cease-fire violation in which Indian troops killed one Pakistani.
According to sources, Sharif will also be briefed about measures being taken by the army to prevent militants from entering from Afghanistan or crossing the border to launch attacks inside Afghanistan.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to reporters on the record.
The development comes a day after Pakistan summoned an Indian diplomat and lodged a protest with New Delhi over Wednesday’s
Kashmir.
India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. shooting in
Sources said the death toll from a massive fuel truck fire earlier this week has climbed to 190, after 17 more people died in hospital from severe burns.
Rao Taslim Ahmad, a deputy commissioner in the city of Bahawalpur in central Pakistan, said some of the victims who were rushed to hospitals following the blaze were still in critical condition on Friday.
The disaster struck early on Sunday outside Bahawalpur when the driver of the oil tanker, which was en route from the southern port city of Karachi to Lahore, lost control and crashed on a highway.
The fuel ignited when villagers rushed to the scene to collect the spilled oil, ignoring warnings from police.
Pakistan held a collective funeral for 130 of the victims on Tuesday.
Authorities have arrested a journalist under a new electronic crime law aimed at combating terrorism and preventing blasphemy but which critics say is used to suppress political dissent.
The journalist, Zafarullah Achakzai, a reporter for the Daily Qudrat newspaper, in Quetta city was brought before a magistrate on Wednesday and remanded in police custody under the cyber law, an official from the police’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said.
He is one of the first reporters to be charged under the electronic crime law, which was introduced in August to the objections of media freedom and human rights activists.
Achakzai’s father, Naimatullah Achakzai, said his son was detained on Sunday by officers from the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force in overall charge of security in Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital.