Stiff sentence for captors:
Slain candidate’s widow wins PM Khan holds on to slim majority after by-elections Subcontinent
ISLAMABAD, Oct 15 , (Agencies): Pakistan’s ruling party under new Prime Minister Imran Khan has maintained its slim majority in parliament after key by-elections, final results showed Monday.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won 15 seats of the total 36 on offer in polls held across the country on Sunday, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan.
Its ally the Pakistan Muslim League, one of several parties with which it has formed a coalition government, won an additional two seats, bringing the coalition’s total in the national assembly – the lower house of parliament – to 177 out of 342.
The main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) increased its seat count to 85.
The by-elections come after a national vote on July 25 propelled former World Cup cricketer Khan to power, an outcome that was rejected by the main opposition parties.
Most of the national assembly seats had been open as Pakistan allows candidates to run in multiple constituencies, but keep only one seat. The general election – dubbed “Pakistan’s dirtiest” – had been criticized by the United States, the European Union and other observers after widespread claims that the powerful military was trying to fix the playing field in Khan’s favour.
Meanwhile, the wife of a Pakistani politician killed in a Taleban suicide attack during campaigning won her husband’s provincial seat in by-elections.
Samar Bilour on Sunday won the provincial assembly seat in northwestern Khyber Pakthunkhwa province that her husband Haroon Bilour, a member of the anti-Taleban Awani National Party, had been scheduled to contest in July.
Haroon Bilour was killed along with 19 others in a suicide attack in Peshawar, the provincial capital, claimed by the Pakistani Taleban weeks before the July 25 polls. The attack prompted a delay in voting for that seat.
His father, senior ANP leader Bashir Bilour, was killed in a suicide bombing in the run-up to Pakistan’s last election in 2013.
Sunday’s by-elections were for 24 seats across the four provincial assemblies and 11 in the National Assembly. Most of the national parliamentary seats were open because Pakistan allows a candidate to run in multiple constituencies but only keep one seat.
The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) won four out of 11 parliamentary seats contested, retaining its slim majority in the National Assembly.
After Sunday’s vote, the PTI and its coalition partners held a slim three-seat majority of 174 seats in the 342-seat parliament. Khan’s ruling coalition in parliament elected him prime minister by 176 votes in August.
Khan
Survivors of slavery at a rock quarry in India welcomed a stiff sentence handed to the owner and managers, and said on Monday that the rare ruling sends a strong warning to other employers.
A court in Tamil Nadu state found three men guilty of using violence, intimidation and debt bondage to force people to work in the quarry in Tiruvannamalai district, and sentenced them each last week to 11 years and nine months in prison.
“We didn’t even think our case against the owner of the quarry would be registered to begin with,” said Pachayamma Arul, one of the survivors.
“But we wanted to try, and we wanted justice,” she said by phone.
Arul was rescued with 30 other labourers in 2012, after spending nearly four years in bondage, working alongside her husband to pay off a loan of 15,000 Indian rupees ($202.58). (RTRS)