A Hindu girl from Punjab province was kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam and is currently being held in a madrassa, leading Pakistani rights activist Ansar Burney said on Friday.Burney said his rights organisation, the Ansar Burney trust international, had learnt that 15-year-old Gajri, the daughter of Mengha Ram, was abducted by a Muslim neighbour from her home at Katchi Mandi, Liaquatpur, in Rahim Yar Khan district on December 21, 2009.
The United States on Wednesday dismissed as 'false and outrageous' the allegations made by former Inter-Services Intelligence agency chief Hamid Gul that the United States government was involved in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.Noting that Gul had 'repeatedly asserted the outrageous and baseless claim' during appearances on two TV news channels, a spokesman for the US embassy said, "The US rejects this and other false allegations."
The Pakistan government will take action against Pervez Musharraf after concrete evidence is obtained against him, after a United Nations panel blamed the former military dictator for failing to provide effective security to slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto. "We welcome the UN (commission's) report because it is independent and transparent. The people already knew what the commission has pointed out," said Interior Minister Rehman Malik.
A Pakistani court reserved its decision on Monday, on a petition filed by authorities to challenge an anti-terrorism court's order rejecting a plea to declare Ajmal Kasab and Fahim Ansari as fugitives. A Rawalpindi-based bench of the Lahore High Court comprising Justices Rauf Ahmed Sheikh and Hasan Raza Pasha reserved its decision after hearing arguments by the counsel for the Federal Investigation Agency, which had filed the petition on April 10.
As Pakistan's armed forces on Sunday staged a massive drill in the Cholistan desert, close to the Indian border, the country's civil and military leadership said Islamabad's defence strategy is based on credible minimum deterrence and had 'no offensive design' against anyone.
Pressure mounted on Pakistan government to hold probe into the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as authorities remained tight lipped after an independent UN report blamed security officials for "failing" to protect her.
Pakistan on Friday expressed its satisfaction over a United Nations panel's report on the killing of former premier Benazir Bhutto, saying it had vindicated its stand that former dictator-turned-president Pervez Musharraf's regime was responsible for her assassination in 2007.
Two deserters from a paramilitary force arrested for terror links have told Pakistani investigators that Taliban had specific plans to abduct Indian diplomats, including the high commissioner, to swap them for detained militant commanders.
Amid the shouting of slogans against former dictators Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf, the members of the lower house of parliament approved 102 amendments, including several that will transfer powers from the office of the President to the Prime Minister.
A "well established, foolproof safety and security culture fully qualifies Pakistan for equal participation in civil nuclear cooperation at the international level, which would help us in addressing our immediate energy problems and would bring greater stability as well," Yousuf Raza Gilani said.
Indian High Commissioner Sharat Sabharwal said on Saturday that reduced flow of river waters into Pakistan are not the result of any "violation of Indus Waters Treaty by India or any action on our part to divert such flows or to use more than our assigned share of water from Western Rivers".
Pakistan's Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan resigned on Friday citing "lack of cooperation" from the Law Minister, a day after he accused him of obstructing efforts to implement the Supreme Court's order to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari in Switzerland.
A day after Pakistan's Supreme Court gave the April 5 deadline to the government to reopen graft cases in Switzerland against Asif Ali Zardari, the President's spokesman on Friday said that all verdicts of the apex court will be implemented in letter and spirit.
Pakistan has no objection to India's relations with Afghanistan but these ties should not assume the dimension of encircling the country, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Thursday.
Zardari is "said to have quietly given names of four international personalities--Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, Saudi Arabian intelligence chief Prince Muqran bin Abdul Aziz and the UAE intelligence chief to the UN inquiry commission to ask them: how did they know the secret in advance that Benazir Bhutto would be killed?" The News Daily reported on Thursday.
A landmark constitutional reforms package, which includes proposals to strip the president of his sweeping powers, was on Thursday submitted to the speaker of Pakistan's Parliament by a key committee that finalised it, ahead of its possible introduction in the House on Friday.Raza Rabbani, the leader of the 26-member parliamentary committee on constitutional reforms, presented the package, popularly referred to as the '18th Constitution amendment'.
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has convened a meeting of his loyalists in Dubai on April 2 to formally launch a political party, which is likely to be named the All Pakistan Muslim League.
Authorities had written letters to Swiss Attorney General and other officials to reopen the corruption cases that were closed under a controversial graft amnesty issued by ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf, National Accountability Bureau Chairman Naveed Ahsan's lawyer Abid Zubairi informed a seven-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
The diplomat, Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, who was working as commercial attache in Iran's consulate in Peshawar, was freed 'in a complicated intelligence operation', Iranian state-run television said on Tuesday.
Pakistan on Thursday said the success of its strategic dialogue with the United States should not be judged in the context of whether it can obtain a civil nuclear agreement similar to the one inked by America and India, as Islamabad failed to get a clear commitment from Washington on such a pact. "To judge the success or failure of our relations with the US or this particular dialogue in that narrow context is not appropriate," Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said.