The video of a Sikh fan cheering for the Pakistan cricket team at Edgbaston on Wednesday, has gone viral over the internet.
The unnamed fan has won hearts of Pakistani supporters all across the globe with his gesture during the must-win match against New Zealand at the packed cricket stadium.
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A Sikh supporting Pakistan cricket team and chanting slogans “Pakistan Zindabad” in Edgbaston yesterday. #PAKvNZ#CWC19 Via Wadood Mushtaq pic.twitter.com/MUZ6zQd0wl
In the video, he can be heard raising the slogan “Pakistan Zindabad” while thousands of other Pakistan team supporters join him.
Green Shirts defeated New Zealand by six wickets to stay in the hunt for a place in the World Cup Wednesday. They next face Afghanistan and Bangladesh on June 29 and July 5, respectively.
Pakistan Army has rebuilt a girls school for higher secondary education where once existed the headquarters of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant Hakimullah Mehsud, a private media outlet reported.
The school, located in the Orakzai Agency of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) Kohat division, was completely destroyed during the war on terror and later converted into the headquarters of Mehsud, who was the deputy to TTP commander Baitullah Mehsud.
With the war abated after years of unrest, Pakistan Army has rebuilt the school at the same spot.
The TTP has been a strong adversary of the idea of sending girls to schools. The militant group claims “educating women goes against Islam”.
In 2012, Nobel Peace Prize winner and activist Malala Yousafzai was also shot by the Taliban after advocating for girls’ education using a pen name, bringing global attention to the group’s violent threat on the nation’s young women.
An Indian parliamentarian has demanded that Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s gunslinger moustache be declared the “national moustache of India”.
“Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman should be awarded and his moustache should be made the national moustache,” Indian National Congress (INC) leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was quoted as saying by India Today.
On February 27, the IAF pilot was captured after Pakistan Air Force (PAF) shot down two Indian jets for intruding into Pakistan’s territory.
Pakistan, as a goodwill gesture, had handed over the captured pilot to Indian authorities at Wagah border on March 1.
According to Indian media reports, the opposition party’s leader has now argued that the pilot should be given a national honour “for his bravery”.
Earlier, the shot down and captured Indian pilot’s facial hair had become the talk of the town as India hailed him as a “war hero”.
Head coach of the national cricket team, Mickey Arthur, has said Pakistan’s defeat against arch-rivals India was so painful that it left him “wanting to commit suicide”, Khaleej Times reported.
“Last Sunday I wanted to commit suicide. But it was, you know, only one performance,” he was quoted as saying.
Pakistan faced a humiliating 89-run defeat against India in Manchester on June 16, a result which sparked a furious backlash as the country’s hopes of reaching the World Cup semi-finals were put in grave danger.
“It happens so quick. You lose a game; you lose another game; it’s a World Cup; media scrutiny; public expectation and then you almost go into sort of survival mode. We’ve all been there,” Arthur said.
While the head coach’s emotional comment may have been exaggerated to show how passionate he is about his job, some believed it was in bad taste considering former coach Bob Woolmer’s sudden death after Pakistan suffered a bruising defeat against Ireland during the 2007 World Cup.
Pakistan lifted Arthur’s spirits with an impressive 49-run win against South Africa at Lord’s on Sunday. They now need to win their remaining three matches and improve their inferior net run-rate to have a chance of advancing to the semi-finals.
Pakistan play New Zealand in Birmingham on Wednesday.
As many as 2,397 Afghan families living in Mansehra have been served a final notice to vacate their refugee camps for the security of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), ARY News reported.
According to reports, Mansehra Assistant Commissioner (AC) Talat Fahad has directed the refugees to leave the three camps situated in the area latest by June 30.
“The decision has been taken to ensure the security of CPEC”, the AC said in a notification issued in this regard.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Pakistan is hosting over 1.4 million Afghan refugees, making the country the second largest host of the refugee population in the world.
Some refugees have been living in Pakistan for three generations. They have established their business here while some of them have married locals and been deeply integrated into Pakistani society.
The interim stay of Afghan refugees extended by the Pakistani government is coming to an end on June 30, and Minister of State for States and Frontier Region Shehryar Khan Afridi has affirmed that the country supports voluntary repatriation.
In a recent meeting, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR have agreed to launch an awareness programme to enable Afghan refugees to make a decision to voluntarily return with Pakistan’s facilitation.
A Pakistani citizen filed a suggestion on the Prime Minister’s Citizen Portal requesting for the Maldives to be merged with Pakistan because its a “Muslim country.”
The request which was received from an unknown person from Lahore stated that the Republic of Maldives should be made a part of Pakistan because “with rising sea levels, Maldives could be under water in the next 50 to 100 years” threatening the lives of 5 lakh Muslims who reside in the island country. As per the citizen, Maldives is Muslim nation and our neighbour, hence “it is our responsibility to do something about it. Allah taala rewards good deeds and it is justification enough.”
The citizen also believed that the inclusion of Maldives “will enrich Pakistan financially and culturally and provide a strategic spot in the middle of the Indian Ocean.”
He concluded his suggestion saying, “It’s a win win.”
The request was closed.
There are people in Pakistan who never fail to amaze you with their level of intellect, same as this unknown person who had filed a complaint on PM’s Citizen Portal seeking Maldives to be merged with Pakistan because its a ‘Muslim country’, the request was closed subsequently. pic.twitter.com/vN3nfB6jNo
Interim chief executive officer (CEO) of the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), Asadullah Khan, has said that Afghanistan is currently better than Pakistan in all aspects of cricket.
According to senior sports journalist Ibrahim Momand, Asadullah in a recent television interview said that Pakistan should “seek Afghanistan’s help to improve their cricket”.
“We are currently far better than Pakistan in cricket and they should ask us for technical, coaching and more support for the betterment of their cricket [sic],” Asadullah is reported to have said.
A majority of fans have been left disheartened ever since Pakistan’s humiliating defeat against arch-rivals India in the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
While some hope for a comeback from the Green Shirts as witnessed in the 2017 Champions Trophy and many other times, everyone is confused over the national cricket team’s future in the tournament.
CAN PAKISTAN STILL QUALIFY FOR THE SEMIS?
The simple answer to this question is yes. Pakistan can still manage to secure a spot among the four teams that will be playing in the semi-finals of the World Cup.
As per the current table, Pakistan are at number nine out of the ten teams playing in the tournament.
The situation doesn’t look very good; however, Pakistan still has another four matches to play against South Africa on June 23, New Zealand on June 26, Afghanistan on June 29 and Bangladesh on July 5.
In order to qualify, Pakistan need to win all four matches while maintaining a good Net Run Rate (NRR) — a statistical method used in analysing teamwork and performance in cricket.
Other than performing well, Pakistan also has to hope that New Zealand loses all its remaining matches because considering their current forms, India, Australia and England will most probably be the top three teams that will qualify.
Soon after Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) on Accountability Shahzad Akbar said the British government has agreed to extradite Ishaq Dar, it was reported that the former finance minister had approached Home Office in London “to apply for political asylum”.
Dar, 69, is currently in London, “undergoing medical treatment”. He is absconding from several cases in Pakistan since 2017 and has been declared a proclaimed offender by the courts.
He is facing charges of accumulating assets beyond known sources of income.
With the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government continuing to claim Dar is only evading the cases against him since he has been spotted walking upright on the streets of London time and again, PM Imran Khan’s special assistant on Tuesday said the former finance minister “will be brought back soon”.
A day later, a private media outlet claimed that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader had reached the Home Office in London for a second interview with regard to political asylum in the United Kingdom (UK).
Rejecting the reports, a close aide of Dar told The Current that he had visited the UK Home Office “only to inform them about the fabricated reports in the name of a recently-signed extradition agreement between the two countries”.
The source’s claim was validated when British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the United Kingdom (UK) would not sign any extradition treaty that could be used for “politically-motivated” cases.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Foreign Minister (FM) Shah Mahmood Qureshi at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Hunt confirmed the two had discussed the issue of an extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK.
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“Let me say it straightforward. The UK will never sign any treaty allowing for politically motivated extradition,” said the British official to which Qureshi added that Pakistan did not intend to use the treaty against political rivals.
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor has trolled Indian Home Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah over his congratulatory message to the Indian cricket team.
“Another strike on Pakistan by Team India and the result is same [sic],” Shah had tweeted after India secured an 89-run defeat against Pakistan in the ongoing ICC World Cup on Sunday.
Another strike on Pakistan by #TeamIndia and the result is same.
Congratulations to the entire team for this superb performance.
He was referring to the aerial combat between the two neighbouring countries in February, which happened after Indian aircraft on February 26 carried out an airstrike on what it alleged was a “terrorist training camp” in Pakistan.
“Dear Amit Shah, yes your team won a match. Well played,” Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor tweeted while responding to Shah’s tweet. He, however, advised the Indian home minister to not compared “two things with different denominators”.
Dear @AmitShah yes ur team won a match. Well played. Two things with different denominators can’t be compared. So are strikes & match. If in doubt please see results of our Nowshera counter strikes & response to IAF violation on 27 Feb19 downing two Indian jets. Stay Surprised. https://t.co/cY089VmYIe
“Two things with different denominators can’t be compared. So are strikes and match. If in doubt, please see results of our Nowshera counter strikes and response to IAF violation on February 27, 2019, downing two Indian jets. Stay Surprised,” he said.
