A prominent cleric was shot dead by gunmen belonging to the Islamic State in a targeted attack in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said.
'Imran Khan's rule was dismal. Despite this, he has become a cult figure.' 'He sold the dream of a Naya Pakistan to the people of Pakistan, especially the youth, and branded all other politicians as corrupt.' 'Hence, his popularity.'
He attributed the nation's predicament to unseen forces orchestrating decisions from behind the scenes, reducing elected officials to mere puppets.
Among the political parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) emerged as the largest party, winning 227 seats, followed by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) with 160 seats.
Sharif, the three-time former premier, said that there is a need for all the political parties to sit together and form a government to pull Pakistan out of its difficulties.
The meeting is being speculated to have revolved around the recent political developments in the country, with the local media reporting that the agenda of the meeting could have revolved around the upcoming Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) summit in Pakistan, the ongoing unrest in Balochistan and the upcoming no-confidence motion against Imran Khan.
The police also said that an initial probe has suggested that the banned terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is behind the suicide attack that injured over 100 people in Khar, the capital of Bajaur tribal district.
In a live-address to the nation, 69-year-old Khan also discussed a 'threat letter' that purportedly showed 'evidence' of a foreign conspiracy to topple his coalition government.
A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has sent a Chinese national to jail on 14-day judicial remand on blasphemy charges in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province after he was arrested on Monday, according to media reports on Tuesday.
Police in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said on Monday that an initial probe has suggested that the banned terrorist group Islamic State is behind the suicide attack on a political convention of a hardline Islamist party that killed at least 46 people and injured over 100.
The idols of deities at Shri Mari Maata Mandir in Karachi's Korangi area were attacked on Wednesday.
He was the chief of the hardline political party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Sami.
Nine leading Pakistani clerics, who had gathered for a meeting that declared suicide attacks as un-Islamic, fell seriously ill after eating 'halwa' served to them, prompting the police to investigate whether an attempt was made to murder them.
The National Assembly session will be held at the Parliament House at 4 pm (local time), according to the schedule issued by the assembly secretariat. It also issued a 24-point agenda for the session and the no-confidence motion is fourth on the agenda.
A central leader of radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, Rehmat Salam Khattak, is among 30 arrested in raids following the attack on the temple in Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Karak district on Wednesday, Station House Officer Rehmatullah Khan told PTI.
The charged PTI supporters, including women and children, showed their solidarity with Khan during the rally that started at 9 pm on Sunday and lasted till 3 am on Monday.
Pakistan's National Assembly session was on Thursday adjourned abruptly till Sunday after opposition lawmakers demanded an immediate vote on a no-confidence motion against embattled Prime Minister Imran Khan who has effectively lost majority in the lower house.
A leading Pakistani cleric is at the centre of a controversy over his remarks apparently endorsing suicide attacks in Palestine, Afghanistan and Kashmir, prompting Islamabad to formally distance itself from his comments.
Two of his allied parties also withdrew their support and joined the ranks of the rejuvenated Opposition.
A former Pakistani lawmaker on Monday offered a $200,000 bounty for anyone who kills the maker of an anti-Islam film during a protest against the movie in Peshawar, days after a federal minister announced a reward of $100,000 for eliminating the person behind the video. Ikramullah Shahid, thea leader of a faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, made the offer before a crowd of 15,000 people during a rally led by the Defa-e-Pakistan Council.
Pakistan's embattled Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday shared some details from what he called a "foreign conspiracy letter" with senior journalists and cabinet members, asserting that the document was authentic.
Shoaib Malik's family has challenged M A Siddiqui -- who claimed the cricketer had married his daughter Ayesha before dumping her -- to sue the former Pakistan captain in court. The Hyderabad-based Siddique had claimed that his daughter is the legal first wife of Malik and he wanted Shoaib to divorce her before marrying Indian tennis star Sania Mirza.
The prime minister needs 172 votes in the lower house of 342 to foil the Opposition's bid to topple him.
'Both the countries have signed this agreement to resolve all their disputes bilaterally,' Fazal-ur Rehman said.
The Palestinian foreign ministry also denied this information, saying, "Our ambassador in Pakistan is in Palestine and our position was declared by our official statement which we have published last week."
Pakistani religious parties have offered blood money to the family of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer to pardon his killer.
The party, political observers said, seems as an effort to set up a front which is acceptable to moderate Pakistanis.
India has slammed Pakistan for its decision to hold elections in Gilgit-Baltistan and said any action to alter the status of the militarily-occupied region has no legal basis.
A group of clerics today asked the government not to hold peace with the banned Pakistani Taliban after it condoned the recent bomb attack on a church in Peshawar that killed over 80 people.
With the maulana fully committed and PML (N) cadres prepared to court arrest, this would be the first time where both Punjabis and Pakhtuns would be standing up against the Pakistan army, notes Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi is now gone. But the mass appeal of fundamentalism among Pakistan's burgeoning, young, illiterate, unemployed and angry population isn't, observes Shekhar Gupta.
A single party will need at least 137 of the directly elected seats to be able to form the government on its own.
Kashmir has a deep resonance inside Pakistan and the tense situation in the Valley acts as bait and encourages radical elements 'to wage jihad to liberate fellow Muslims', says former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri.
The Hindu Marriage Bill 2017, which is the first elaborate Hindu community's personal law, was adopted by the Senate on Friday.
'What we are today witnessing is the final act of the Pakistani army trying to retain its turf,' argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Pakistani Taliban has warned that the next few days and weeks would be "disastrous" for the country as the banned outfit vowed to "teach" the government and its security agencies a lesson over the killing of its leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a US drone strike.
Counting has begun for the election which will be the second democratic transition of power in the nation's 70-year history.
Amid accusations by Pakistan that America deliberately sabotaged peace talks by killing Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, the Unites States on Sunday said the militant group has a "symbiotic relationship" with the Al Qaeda and provided "safe haven" to terrorists.
