Nawaz Sharif, daughter granted parole to attend Begum Kulsoom's funeral

Nawaz Sharif's wife Kulsoom Nawaz passed way in London on Tuesday after a period of prolonged illness. She was 68.

The Pakistan government released former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz from Adiala Jail on parole late Wednesday night to attend the funeral of his wife, Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, reported Geo News.

Kulsoom Nawaz passed way in London on Tuesday after a period of prolonged illness. She was 68.

On Tuesday, Pakistan Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had informed that the Pakistan government has decided to release Sharif and his daughter for Begum Kulsoom's funeral.

"We have just received a request from the family, and, Inshallah, we will be granting parole," Dawn News quoted Chaudhry as saying,

The father and daughter will be granted parole according to rule 545 of the Punjab Prison Rules of 1978, Dawn News reported.

According to Dawn News, both Nawaz and Maryam boarded a special plane after being released from Adiala Jail. The other family members of the Sharif family were also reportedly on the plane bound for Lahore. Read More

 

Voting begins in Pakistan; parties of Imran Khan, Sharif in tight race

Pakistan votes amid claims democracy being stifled, military accused of favouring ex-cricketer Imran Khan

Pakistani voters in large numbers have started flocking outside polling stations across Pakistan to cast their vote in country's 11th general election, according to DawnNewsTV.

The first vote was cast in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Charsadda.

While polling stations officially opened for voting at 8 am, enthusiastic citizens queued up outside their respective stations as early as 7 am. Results will start trickling in within hours of polls closing at 6 pm and the likely winner should be known by around 2 am on Thursday.

The knife-edge general election is pitting cricket hero Imran Khan against the party of jailed ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, with the prospect of neither winning a clear majority amid a looming currency crisis.

A decade after Pakistan was last ruled by a military government, the election has been plagued by allegations the powerful armed forces have been trying to tilt the race in Khan's favour after falling out with the outgoing ruling party of Sharif, who was jailed on corruption charges this month.

Read More On → Pakistan Elections 2018

 

Nawaz Sharif 'speaking Modi's words' on Mumbai attacks: Top 10 developments

Calling him a modern-day Mir Jafar, Imran Khan said that Sharif was speaking the language of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cooperating with the enemies of Pakistan

Pakistan's ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif set the cat among the pigeons after he publicly acknowledged that militant organisations are active in the country and questioned Islamabad's policy of allowing "non-state actors" to cross the border and "kill" people in Mumbai, in an apparent reference to the 2008 Mumbai attacks. In the wake of the remarks, the Pakistan Army is said to be 'extremely upset' with Sharif, who has come under attack for his statement, and will hold a high-level meeting on Monday to discuss the matter. Meanwhile, Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has issued a statement claiming that his statement has been "grossly misinterpreted" by the Indian media.

Without naming Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed and Maulana Masood Azhar's militant organisations, the Jamaat-ud-Dawah and Jaish-e-Mohammad, Sharif had said in an interview: Militant organisations are active in Pakistan. "Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill over 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can't we complete the trial," said Sharif.

New Delhi has long accused the Lashkar-e-Taiba of carrying out the attacks in Mumbai in 2008 with the help of ten well-armed terrorists. These attackers arrived on a boat from Karachi and, according to the Indian government, carried out the violent strikes across Mumbai in coordination with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. The attacks left 166 people dead.

The 26/11 case is being tried in an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan since 2009 but has hardly made any progress. India maintains that Pakistan has not kept its end of the bargain and sent the case to court without really investigating the conspiracy that led to the attacks. Islamabad, however, squarely blames New Delhi for not providing it with "solid evidence" against prime accused Hafiz Saeed and others.

Sharif, for his part, has been disqualified from holding public office for life by the Pakistan Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case.

Here are the top ten developments around Nawaz Sharif 's remarks on the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks:

1) Pakistan Army upset with Sharif, worried over his remarks: The Pakistan Army is said to be 'extremely upset' with Nawaz Sharif's remarks on the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Citing unnamed sources, news agencies reported that Sharif's statement has left the Pakistan Army extremely worried that "this will give more weight to India's narrative that Pakistan is not doing enough" to rein in terrorist modules operating from its soil and particularly from areas in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). Read More

Surgical strikes achieve tactical closure, not strategic detente: Former NATGRID CEO

Surgical strikes achieve tactical closure, not strategic detente: Former NATGRID CEO

Military power is never about the number of troops, tanks, ships or aircrafts. If military power was all a country needed to establish superiority, America would not have been beaten by Vietnam, the Soviet Union would not have been routed by Afghan tribes and the juggernaut that is the Indian Army would not have been held at bay by a few thousand Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

A country’s military power is actually determined by a combination of economic realities, governance frameworks, national will and strategic thinking – which work together to deliver a punch worthy of its weight.

Comparing India’s military power to Pakistan’s from this perspective actually yields a startling conclusion.

In 1999, Pakistan’s army chief at the time was mid-air when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif decided to sack him. Surgical Strikes Denied permission to land in Pakistan and faced with the option of making an emergency landing on Indian soil, the sacked general decided to land in Karachi anyway. He communicated his orders to his military subordinates through the civilian aviation channel and by the time his plane landed, Pervez Musharraf was firmly back in the saddle while Sharif had been toppled off his. That is the power of the Pakistani military.

Now compare the Pakistani army’s swiftness to India’s handling of the Kandahar hijacking in 1999. When the Indian Airlines flight was taken over by terrorists and parked in Amritsar over the course of its long journey, the Indian establishment could not decide between blocking the aircraft’s departure or letting it go. That ambivalence cost India the advantage it had in being able to control events happening on its own turf. Read More

Three nuances of national strength

Three strategic realities India cannot overlook

Using economic leverage to influence Pakistani economy

Expose and target value chains of Pakistan’s military businesses

Combine ‘strategic depth’ with ‘strategic stretch’

Article Source : Business Standard

Nawaz Sharif's UNGA speech: Top 10 things he said and India's rebuttals to his accusations

Nawaz Sharif's UNGA speech: Top 10 things he said and India's rebuttals to his accusations

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif raked up the Kashmir issue at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and tried to burnish his country's credentials as an opponent of global terrorism.

His speech, which also referred to the prevailing situation in Europe and the Middle East, attempted to paint India as an uncooperative neighbour which had rebuffed Sahrif's overtures for peace.

His speech came days after suspected Pakistan-based terrorists attacked an Indian army camp in Uri, in Kashmir, and killed 18 Indian soldiers. The four terrorists who participated in the attack were also eliminated by the security forces during the attack.

ALSO READ: Pak PM Sharif should have talked about Balochistan not Kashmir: Baloch activist

India for its part reacted very strongly to the Pakistani prime minister's speech, calling it an act of "self-incrimination" on the latter's part.

Here are the top 10 things Sharif said at the UNGA and India's rebuttal to some of them: Read More

Hizbul's Syed Salahuddin threatens nuclear war against India

Hizbul's Syed Salahuddin threatens nuclear war against India

The Pakistan Government has again encouraged terror leader Syed Salahuddin, the head of the Hizbul Mujahideen, to threaten war against India over the Kashmir issue, and this time, Salahuddin has threatened a nuclear attack on India.

Speaking to reporters in Karachi Salahuddin said there is a great chance of a nuclear war taking place between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir issue.

"Pakistan is duty bound, morally bound, politically bound and constitutionally bound to provide concrete, substantial support to the ongoing freedom struggle on the territory of Kashmir. And, if Pakistan provides this support, there is a great chance of a nuclear war between the two powers," he added.

He said three wars have already been fought between the two countries over the Kashmir issue, adding that he can predict a fourth war with certainty because Kashmiris are no longer willing to compromise under any circumstances.

"Whether the world supports them or not; whether Pakistan stands by them or not; whether the United Nations performs its duty or not; they have taken a pledge to fight up to the last drop of their blood," he added.

Salahuddin warned that if the international community did not pay heed to the ongoing violence in Kashmir, Kashmiris from both sides of the divided Valley would be forced to take things into their own hands.

"If God forbid, the international community continues to cold shoulder and ignore this issue and Pakistan's efforts are not fruitful, and India does not stop its atrocities, a big incident can occur. Our base camp in liberated Azad Kashmir and the Kashmiris from this side will announce the trampling of the bloody Line (of Control)," he said. Read More

Pathankot airbase attack: Pakistan arrests some suspects

Pakistani authorities carried out raids at different places following attack on the Pathankot air base in India, leading to some arrests, intelligence officials said today.

They said that raids were carried out in Gujranwala, Jhelum and Bahawalpur districts and an unspecified number of people were arrested. Read More