Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s (TLP) leader Syed Sarwar Shah Saifi on Wednesday said, “Sheikh Rasheed lied yesterday that matters have been resolved. He also lied about contact [with us] at 8 pm — from them till now no government official, including Sheikh, has contacted [us],” reports Dawn.
In a statement issued by the group’s central committee, TLP said, “Let the entire nation see the malicious intent of the government.”
TLP said its activists would now march onto Islamabad because their demands have not been met by the government.
Saifi said, “Are these claimants of the state of Madina unable to respond to France? Have they become so enslaved to the Jews and the Christians?”
“Don’t lie to the nation. No negotiations are being done with us. The government is not sincere in negotiations but if more blood is shed now, revenge will be taken,” the statement said.
Saifi said the demands would increase if more blood was spilt and the nation would be “rid of this dishonest, lying and hypocritical government”. He said it would be better if the agreement was abided by and TLP chief Saad Hussain Rizvi was released so the group could go back.
“We accept all other conditions of the banned TLP. They promised us that they will open all blocked roads but we are waiting for them to open the routes,” said Rasheed, adding that the only issue between the government and TLP is the French ambassador matter. “Otherwise we don’t have any reservations with their conditions.”
“TLP’s demand of expelling the French Ambassy and Ambassador has a lot of complications attached to it. We are the largest nuclear force in the Islamic world. The world is conspiring to sanction us,” said Rasheed.
Islamabad has recorded the highest number of dengue cases since October 15 in the last 24 hours, Dawn News has reported. As per District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Zaeem Zia, in the last 24 hours, 174 cases of dengue were reported in Islamabad. It is the highest number of cases since October 15 when 152 cases had emerged.
The DHO said that a patient admitted in Polyclinic lost his life to dengue on Friday.
110 cases of dengue have been reported from the rural areas and 64 from the urban areas. The DHO said that 47 patients were admitted in Federal General Hospital, 25 in Pims, 20 in Holy Family Hospital (HFH), three each in Polyclinic and Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), two in Capital Hospital and one in the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital. The remaining patients were admitted in private hospitals.
As per details, 2,603 cases have been reported in Islamabad – 1,589 from rural and 1,014 from the urban areas.
Roads have been blocked in Islamabad and Lahore and Metro Bus service in Rawalpindi has been suspended because of the ongoing protests organised by the banned Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) and Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) in these cities, reportedGeo News.
Islamabad Traffic Police have issued a traffic plan as the city braces to deal with TLP protests today (Friday). TLP’s protest is reportedly moving from Lahore to the federal capital for a long march.
Road Alert! In view of the upcoming protests, The district police is likely to block Road near Ravi Toll plaza & Faizpur interchange. We advice avoid travelling in the vicinity. We will update. Stay with us. Best regards NHMP.
— National Highways & Motorway Police (NHMP) (@NHMPofficial) October 22, 2021
Containers have been placed at various points in Lahore, including the Samanabad turn at Multan Road and at the Grid Station Stop. Containers have also been placed at the Dubai Chowk in Iqbal Town’s Boulevard area to stop protesters from assembling.
Earlier, the Ministry of Interior had written to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to suspend internet services in Lahore due to TLP protests.
Strict security measures have been taken in Rawalpindi as authorities have blocked and placed containers on several roads.
The health authorities announced that another variant of the deadly Covid virus has reached Pakistan, reports Dawn.
Talking to the media outlet, Member Scientific Task Force on Covid-19 Dr Javed Akram said a fatal variant of the virus called ‘Epsilon’ had been detected in the country.
He confirmed that around 40 patients had contracted the variant so far, however, the figure is not accurate.
“This variant had originated in California, which was why it was called the California strain or B.1.429,” Dr Akram added.
“We need to understand that the virus has been controlled but not eradicated, therefore, there are chances of it bouncing back,” said Dr Akram.
Talking about the vaccines’ efficiency, Dr Akram, who is also the vice-chancellor of the University of Health Sciences (UHS), stated, “The positive side is that all vaccines are effective against Epsilon, therefore people should get immunised and adhere to the standard operating procedures.”
The Japanese government provided equipment worth 6.59 million dollars to Islamabad through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for enhancing Pakistan’s capacity for Covid vaccine storage.
According to the statistics shared by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), 662 covid cases were recorded in the last 24 hours and the current positivity rate is 1.40 per cent.
The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) will launch its countrywide anti-government protests from today (Wednesday).
PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif held a high-level party meeting on Tuesday to finalise the schedule for protests and rallies against the PTI-led government.
The first jalsa will be held in Rawalpindi today, and Shehbaz Sharif is urging workers and leaders of the party at the district and provincial level tp take part in the protests.
PDM leaders in Islamabad will be meeting at 2pm, to decide the dates and venues for the Islamabad protests.
PDM, which had lost steam in previous months, is now once again, at the receiving end of the opposition’s criticism. Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed has said that the Prime Minister is lucky he has such a “worthless” Opposition to deal with and that the government does not feel threatened by the Opposition at all because “it is spineless”.
The call for protests come at a time when inflation is at its height and buying essentials in the country has become difficult.
Rasheed had also reacted to the Opposition’s criticism of the PTI-led government due to the rising inflation in the country and said that the situation arose due to the policies of the previous governments as well as the coronavirus situation in the country.
US President Joe Biden is nominating a career diplomat Donald Blome as his envoy to Pakistan, soon after U.S. troops left Afghanistan, giving up control to the Taliban and plunging the country into crisis.
Blome is currently serving as the US ambassador in Tunisia. He previously worked in the Kabul embassy and is a career Foreign Service diplomat.
The United States has frozen access to aid or foreign reserves in Afghanistan and the country is on the verge of humanitarian collapse.
The nomination comes at a time when the U.S. is also interested in Pakistan’s relationship with China.
Tunisia, where Blome has worked as ambassador since 2019, is an important diplomatic outpost for the United States in North Africa, representing interests beyond the country’s borders, including in neighbouring Libya.
The ambassadorial position requires Senate confirmation.
The Supreme Court has approved the bail of Zahir Jaffer’s mother, Asmat Adamjee. Zahir is the prime suspect in Noor rape and murder case. His mother’s bail is granted in exchange for bail bond of Rs1 million.
A three-member bench headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, while hearing the bail plea, granted bail to the accused Zahir Jaffer’s mothrr on the grounds of her gender and on the ground that she was not present at the crime scene, Urdu News has reported. However, the Supreme Court has rejected the bail application of Zahir Jaffer’s father, Zakir Jaffer.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz said that Prime Minister Imran Khan should not try to be Nawaz Sharif. Maryam was addressing the media after an appearance at the Islamabad High Court (IHC).
آپکو نوازشریف بننے کی کوشش بھی نہیں کرنی چاہیے نوازشریف جب ووٹ کو عزت دو کا نعرہ لیکر میدان میں آیا تھا تو وہ منتخب وزیراعظم تھا وہ آئینی وزیراعظم تھا وہ عوام کے ووٹ سے آیا تھا وہ ایک لمبی جدوجہد کرکے آیا تھا جو اسکی ذات کیلیے نہیں تھی@MaryamNSharifpic.twitter.com/d0MGoFD5wR
“When Nawaz Sharif came up with the slogan, ‘Vote ko izzat do’ [give respect to the vote], he was an elected prime minister, a constitutional prime minister, he came to power from the votes of the people and he had a long constitutional struggle, which was not for himself,” said Maryam.
“He [Nawaz Sharif] gave up prime minister office for the respect of the Constitution and people of Pakistan,” she said. “To give respect to vote, you need to go to prison, you need to say that you will not take dictation from anyone.”
“Imran Khan’s identity is to conspire against the elected prime minister and to hold a 126-day sit-in,” she said. She was referring to the 2014 sit-in by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Islamabad.
The PML-N leader went on to say that one does not simply become a lion by cloaking oneself in the creature’s hide.
Maryam said PM Imran Khan’s identity is confined to “conspiracies” and that he has “nothing to do with the principles of law and democracy”.
عمران خان آئینی اور منتخب وزیراعظم نہیں ہے وہ آئین کو روند کے آیا ہے اسکو وہ جواب پہلے دینا پڑے گا.مسلم لیگ ن عوام کے ساتھ ملکر یہ جدوجہد کرنا چاہتی ہے آئندہ کوئی شخص عمران خان کی طرح مہرہ بن کے سامنے نہ آئے.@MaryamNSharifpic.twitter.com/4OuZUdWEPH
She said that the premier will have to “answer for his conspiracies”. Speaking further about the so-called “conspiracies”, she said that if the use of “magic” has yielded such success, then it should be put to use to alleviate the petrol, diesel, flour crises, reports Geo News.
جو شخص ملک کی اہم ترین تقرریاں جادو ٹونے سے کرتا ہو بجائے وزیراعظم کے جنات تقرریاں کرتے ہوں تو پھر اس ملک کا دنیا میں تماشہ بننا کوئی حیرانگی کی بات نہیں ہے اگر انکا جادو ٹونا اتنا ہی کامیاب ہے تو وہ عوام کی بھلائی کیلیے کیوں استعمال نہیں ہوتا@MaryamNSharifpic.twitter.com/2mlafoQ1z1
“If your magic is so successful, then why don’t you use it for the good of the people?”
“Go ahead, revoke my bail, arrest me, so that the people can see how fearful you are,” she challenged the government.
درخواست دینے والوں کو یہ پتہ ہونا چاہیے کہ اگر یہ مجھے ڈرانے کیلیے ہے تو آپکو یہ علم ہونا چاہیے کہ اللہ کا شکر ہے نہ میں آپکی گرفتاری سے ڈرتی ہوں نہ میں جعلی مقدمات سے ڈرتی ہوں نہ نیب سے ڈرتی ہوں@MaryamNSharifpic.twitter.com/IxyYEd3qej
Prior to this, the Pakistan Information Commission (PIC) had directed the Cabinet Division to “provide the requested information about the gifts received by PM Khan”.
However, the Cabinet Division argued that the matter did not fall under the Right of Access to Information Act, 2017.
“What is the harm in making it public if some country has given a necklace as a gift?” asked Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb. He said that gifts received by the rulers of a country belonged to the nation and not to them, asking whether public officeholders would even receive those gifts if the public office did not exist.
Justice Aurangzeb asked: “Why doesn’t the government keep all the gifts in the museum? The government should make details of the gifts in the last 10 years public.”
He also said that the Centre should inform how many gifts had their valuation done by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The government representative at the hearing requested time to respond, after which the court adjourned the hearing.
Earlier in September, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry revealed that Arab rulers who presented gifts to PM Khan “did not want their names to be made public”.
Toshakhana is a department established in1974 that stores precious gifts given to the rulers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and officials heads by the other governments and foreign dignitaries.
According to Dawn, it has valuables ranging from bulletproof cars, gold-plated souvenirs, expensive paintings, watches, ornaments, rugs and swords.
Pakistan has been plagued by episodes of rape and abuse over the years that it has now become common to the extent that people have started normalising such acts.
Back in 2002, Mukhtaran Mai’s gang-rape was one of the most horrifying gang-rape incidents that were reported.
Another major incident that took place in 2014 was the Layyah gang-rape case, where a 20-year-old girl after being gang-raped, was found hanging from a tree. Such inhumane incidents haven’t stopped even now.
Two men stole her money and the jewellery she had on her. They then raped her in front of her two children in a nearby field and escaped.
The incident sparked national outrage but what happened next? Before the arrest of the two culprits, questions like “Why was she out on the motorway so late without a brother or husband? Why didn’t she check her gas tank before leaving the house? And if she had to travel, why didn’t she take the more public GT Road route?” were asked because, sadly, in our country ‘getting raped’ is the woman’s fault. Apparently, a woman gets raped because ‘she was driving alone, on the wrong road, at the wrong time, in the wrong place’.
Later, the motorway rapists were sentenced to death but rape cases continued to rise in Pakistan.
On October 12, 2020, our team started counting rape cases on a daily basis from 13 different sources, which included these newspapers: Dawn, The News, The Express Tribune, The Nation, Pakistan Today, Daily Times, Nawa-e-Waqt, Daily Jang. And from these websites: ARY News, Geo News Samaa News Dunya News Aaj News.
It is to be noted that the given stats only include the reported incidents, not the ones that go unreported.
During the process, we have included reported rape cases of girls, boys, women, men and transgenders. Moreover, we have divided the rape cases province-wise, according to which Punjab till date has the highest number of rape cases, i.e. 936 rape cases and 44 attempted incidents.
It has been a year since we have started posting our rape template daily to analyse the record of reported rape cases. We have collected the data of the entire year (October 12, 2020 to October 12, 2021) and prepared slides of reported cases of each month provinces-wise.
Provinces Categorisation:
Sindh
Till date, Sindh has recorded a total of 60 reported rape cases in which 10 are attempted incidents. 11.6 per cent of cases were reported in the month of April and August as per the graph.
Punjab
Punjab has recorded a total of 936 reported rape cases in which 44 are attempted incidents until now. 13 per cent of cases were reported in August.
Islamabad
The capital has recorded a total of 13 reported rape cases which no attempted cases until now. The reported cases are relatively low as compared to other provinces’ data. However, 38.46 per cent of rape cases were reported in June this year.
Balochistan
Balochistan has reported a total of 11 reported rape cases. Most of the months show zero reported rape cases, according to the graph.
KPK
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) has reported a total of 20 reported rape cases of which 2 were attempted incidents. The numbers throughout the months are quite the same.
Deaths (province-wise)
As per the graph, the death rate was high in the month of January i.e.14.5 per cent.
Numbers of the recorded cases after the highlighted incidents of 2021
After the following incidents, we noticed an increase in the reporting of rape cases.
Mufti Aziz-ur-Rehman: sexual assault case
On June 17, police registered a criminal complaint against Mufti Aziz after a male student accused him of sexual abuse. In the aftermath of a viral graphic video that showed Mufti engaging in sexual intercourse with the male student, who was the victim, the action was taken against Mufti Aziz. After the incident, we noticed an increase of 10.7 per cent in the reporting of rape cases in the month of June.
Usman Mirza’s sexual assault on a couple
Usman Mirza was arrested on July 7. He was seen torturing and assaulting a couple. He was also seen stripping naked a woman in the video. The video sparked outrage across Pakistan. After the petrifying incident, an increase of 9 per cent was observed in the reporting of rape cases in the month of July.
Noor Mukadam’s murder case
On July 20, Noor Mukadam, daughter of former Pakistani diplomat Shaukat Mukadam, was raped, beheaded and murdered, in a posh neighbourhood of Islamabad in July. Noor’s murder led to nationwide protests. After her murder, as per the reported cases we have monitored, there was an increase of 12.6 per cent in the month of August.
There are many more cases that are still unreported due to various reasons.
According to The News, official statistics obtained from the Police, Law, and Justice Commission of Pakistan, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Women’s Foundation, and provincial welfare agencies in 2020 revealed that there are at least 11 rape cases reported in Pakistan every day with over 22,000 rape cases reported to the police across the country in the last six years.
