Tag: British Pakistani

  • British Pakistani accused of beating wife leading to death of unborn child

    British Pakistani accused of beating wife leading to death of unborn child

    A complaint has been filed against British Pakistani Zubair Yousaf over accusations of assaulting wife to the extent that it led to the death of their unborn child.

    Dubai police are looking for Yousaf, who is currently living in Dubai, who allegedly fled his apartment after beating up his wife, Gulraz Anjam.

    Yousaf assaulted his wife, Gulraz, in April 2024 when she questioned him about his relationship with another woman and the lack of financial support. This enraged Zubair, and he severely beat her for nearly 30 minutes. He strangled her, dragged her on the floor, and made her drink dirty water, as per the complaint.

    “I lost our unborn child aged five months as a result of the assault. My husband Zubair Yousaf assaulted me with the intention to abort our baby,” she stated in the complaint. She asked the Dubai police to arrest him and prosecute him according to local laws.

    The complaint also lays out details of Zubair’s past, which is marked by criminal activities, including allegedly having ties with terrorist groups and the underworld.

    “Yousaf engaged in various fraudulent schemes, including using fake IDs to secure bank loans and purchase properties in the UK,” Gulraz shared with the UAE police, adding details of various frauds that prompted the UK police to start an investigation against him. This prompted Zubair to flee the UK, and then he stayed in Pakistan for nine years, taking advantage of the statute of limitations on civil suits in the UK.

    Gulraz, in her complaint, also alleged that she has evidence that during his stay in Pakistan, Yousaf developed connections with terrorist organizations like Daesh and Taliban militants and raised funds for them. According to her, he became so involved with the extremist militant groups that an intelligence agency in Pakistan took him into custody and questioned him.

    “He was involved in money-laundering, banking fraud, forgery, violence, mortgage fraud and manipulation of the then lax banking system of the UK. He literally stole millions from the UK banks,” Gulraz has shared a hefty file containing accounts of his criminal activities with the Dubai police.

    Police in Rawalpindi and Islamabad have confirmed that Yousaf is on their wanted list for various crimes and that he fled to Dubai when they tried to arrest him.

    The Dubai police’s initial investigation revealed that she is a British national and one of Yousaf’s many wives.

    Yousaf has a history of marrying women, according to Gulraz. According to records, he has married eight women and has fathered between 10-12 children from his marriages. He abandoned all the wives and maintains marital relations with three at this time.

  • Case registered for deportation of step-siblings in Sara Sharif murder case

    Case registered for deportation of step-siblings in Sara Sharif murder case

    In the case of Sara, a 10-year-old Pakistani girl who was allegedly killed in England by her father and stepmother, a case was registered in the Lahore High Court for the handover of the step-siblings of the murdered girl, reports Geo.

    On the order of the London High Court, Surrey County Council filed a case in Lahore High Court, stating in the petition that Sarah’s half-siblings in Pakistan should be handed over to the British government. Five of her half-siblings are currently in Pakistan.

    Pakistani police arrested Sara’s father, mother, and uncle from Jhelum and all three returned to Britain and were arrested.

    According to the British media, the hearing of Sara’s murder will be held in London High Court in September 2024.

  • UK organisations want Home Secretary to apologise for racist, Islamophobic allegations against British Pakistanis

    A group of healthcare professionals have demanded that England’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman issue an apology to British Pakistanis for levelling baseless accusations of racism, Islamophobia and other falsehoods against them, endangering their safety in the UK, Murtaza Ali Shah has reported for Geo.

    Several healthcare organizations, comprising a significant number of healthcare professionals from diverse backgrounds, have appealed to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to acknowledge the unfounded and discriminatory accusations made by the Home Secretary, connecting Pakistanis to sexual grooming gangs, despite contradicting evidence from the government.

    During an interview with Sky News last week, Braverman claimed that British Pakistani men were involved in child abuse rings or networks that specifically targeted vulnerable white English girls.

    “(We see) a practice whereby vulnerable white English girls – sometimes in care, sometimes in challenging circumstances – being pursued, raped, drugged, and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men, who work in child abuse rings or networks,” Braverman said while speaking to the news channel.

    These professionals have cited a Home Office-commissioned report from 2020, which stated that “research has shown that white individuals are the most common perpetrators of group-based child sexual exploitation,” and that it could not be determined that any specific ethnic group was significantly overrepresented.

    The letter further states, “We demand an apology from the Home Secretary and an honest commitment to meaningfully tackling this vital issue which has ruined the lives of thousands of young people. We must also remind the Home Secretary that words have consequences; in 2014, Boris Johnson’s comments on women in niqabs resembling letterboxes directly resulted in a 375% increase in hate crimes targeting Muslim women.”

    “Language that empowers racist hate crime has no place in modern British society. We urge the Home Secretary to reflect on her grossly irresponsible framing of this complex and serious issue and commit to working with members from all communities to address the urgent issue of CSE together. A retraction of her statement and apology is sought.”

    Earlier, Pakistan’s foreign office also criticised Suella Braverman for “discriminatory and xenophobic” comments.

  • Pakistani-born businessman receives MBE from Prince William

    Pakistani-born British entrepreneur and restaurateur Suleman Raza was awarded the MBE by Prince William for his services to the business and philanthropy sector in Britain. Raza revealed on Twitter that he was happy to witness immigrants coming to Britain and becoming successful.

    According to his Medium article, Raza hails from Rawalpindi, but had moved to London where he started working as a chef in an eatery. He went on to open a restaurant in Tooting where he served Pakistani food.

    Raza also launched the project ‘No One Eats Alone’ in 2019 to provide meals to elderly and homeless communities during Christmas. He received public praise for his campaign “One Million Meals” to support National Health Service (NHS) workers in hospitals during the pandemic by providing them with hot meals.

  • ‘Messed up, rigged, racist’: Riz Ahmed slams international cinema for misrepresentation of Muslims

    ‘Messed up, rigged, racist’: Riz Ahmed slams international cinema for misrepresentation of Muslims

    British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed has expressed his views on the way Muslims are portrayed on screen internationally.

    “The game right now is messed up. The game right now is rigged,” Ahmed said in a new interview with news outlet Muslim. “Muslims are either not on screen or they are [and] they’re the bad guys. They’re perpetrators or victims of violence. We’re either invisible or we’re villainized, cause the stories we tell about our community affect the laws that get passed, the people that get attacked, the people that get invaded.”

    Read more – Riz Ahmed is the first Muslim to bag ‘Best Actor’ nomination at Oscars

    Watching a clip form the 2014, Clint Eastwood-directed blockbuster film American Sniper, in which star Bradley Cooper shoots a Muslim child during the Iraq War, Ahmed shook his head.

    “”It’s actually hard to watch this and not get angry, It’s crazy to think that, like, how many people had to say this was OK for this to be made. It’s just super racist.”

    He pointed out that most of the Muslim people featured were terrorists.

    “[We’re] gonna look back on that and look at it with the same cringe as we look at, you know, films that had blackface in them. Or films with, like, you know, cowboys and Indians, [where] the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” said Ahmed, who’s been outspoken about the importance of diversity and his experiences with racism. “Really, that’s what you’re saying, the only good Muslim is a dead one. This stuff’s so dangerous, because it enables the invasion of countries. It enables hate crimes. It enables discriminatory and racist laws being passed.”

    He pronounced such style of film “wack, outdated, racist” and said such carelessness “costs lives.”

    Read More – VIDEO: Riz Ahmed fixes wife’s hair on Oscars red carpet

    The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story actor implored filmmakers to show a Muslim community that’s more diverse, when it comes to race, geography, gender, sexuality and abilities. In June, Ahmed and his film company, Left Handed Films, partnered with the University of Southern California’s Inclusion Initiative and others to address the problem of underrepresentation through grants and mentorships to Muslim filmmakers. This followed the university’s Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism’s report that, of the top-grossing movies from 2017-2019, just 10 percent had any type of Muslim character, while fewer than 2 percent of those characters had dialogue. In real life, Muslims comprise nearly a quarter of the world’s population.

    Ahmed also co-wrote and starred in the new movie Mogul Mowgli, about a British Pakistani rapper, which is a background strikingly similar to Ahmed’s own. (He was born in Britain to a Pakistani family and has performed as a musician.) The character’s name is actually Zaheer, but he goes by Zed, and that’s also a situation familiar to the man who played him. Ahmed’s first name is actually Rizwan.

    “Zaheer has changed his name to Zed and the question is, is that a choice he made or is that something he was forced to do, because [he wanted] to fit in, because people couldn’t pronounce his name,” Ahmed explained. “And I sometimes ask myself that question. I have kind of censored my full name, and on some level, I wonder whether it’s just got too much weight and too much history.”

    On that subject, Ahmed had clearly made a decision.

    “One thing I’ll say is, after this film, I introduce myself as Rizwan,” he said.

  • Fawad says anyone who kills innocents is a terrorist after FM Qureshi skips question on OBL

    Fawad says anyone who kills innocents is a terrorist after FM Qureshi skips question on OBL

    Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry tweeted on Monday that there is no confusion at any level regarding anyone who kills innocents. “That is terrorism and the perpetrators are terrorists. We have suffered pain of terrorism in our own land and can understand pain of all who have lost their loved ones in these cowardly attacks.”

    In an interview with Afghanistan’s Tolo News, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi skipped a question when asked if Osama bin Laden was a martyr. Qureshi paused for a few seconds and then said, “I will let that pass.”

    Senior Afghan journalist Lotfullah Najafizada had originally asked Qureshi about Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan calling Osama bin Laden a martyr. The foreign minister responded that the PM was quoted out of context. “Out of context. He was quoted out of context. And, a particular section of the media played it up.”

    Qureshi is being criticised for skipping this question and not taking a clear position.

    Last year, Prime Minister Imran Khan came under fire for calling al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden a “martyr” during his speech in the National Assembly.

  • British-Pakistani Mayra Zulfiqar’s murderer gets arrested

    British-Pakistani Mayra Zulfiqar’s murderer gets arrested

    Zahir Jadoon, a resident of Lahore, had confessed to murdering a British-Pakistani woman Mayra Zulfiqar on May 3.

    Police in Lahore has formally arrested Zahir Jadoon in relation to the murder of Mayra, a law graduate from London.

    Zahir Jadoon and Saad Butt were two of the four accused named in the murder in the first information report (FIR) filed by Mohammad Nazeer, a relative of Zulfiqar.

    Muhammad Zulfiqar, Mayra’s father, had appealed to the prime ministers of both Pakistan and Britain to help him get justice for his daughter.

    24-year-old Mayra Zulfiqar was found dead in Lahore. She had been threatened by two men who both wanted to marry her.

  • VIDEO: Riz Ahmed fixes wife’s hair on Oscars red carpet

    Riz Ahmed may have lost the Oscar Award for Best Actor to Anthony Hopkins but he walked away with the best red carpet appearance when he took a moment to fix his wife Fatima Farheen Mirza’s hair. Ahmed had revealed in January that he had tied the knot in secret a few months back.

    In a video that went viral on social media, the couple can be seen walking in together and as the photographers clicked their pictures, Riz paused for a moment to make sure his wife’s hair looked perfect. Ahmed’s act won the hearts of audiences across the world and they started hailing the couple as “relationship goals”.

    The British-Pakistani actor was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his role of a drummer who loses his hearing in the Sound of Metal.

    In addition to winning hearts with his romantic gesture on the red carpet, Ahmed also made history at this year’s Oscars as the first Muslim nominee in the Best Actor category. He was up against Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Sir Anthony Hopkins for The Father, Gary Oldman for Mank, and Steven Yeun for Minari. Hopkins eventually took home the award.

    Meanwhile, Sound of Metal bagged two awards for Best Film Editing and Best Sound.

    The 93rd Academy Awards were held on April 25, (April 26 PST) in Los Angeles at multiple locations: Dolby Theatre, where it has been traditionally hosted since 2001, and Union Station. Only the nominees, their guests and the ceremony’s presenters were allowed inside the hall due to coronavirus restrictions.

    The event began with a movie-style opening credits sequence, as Regina King strode into the venue clutching a gold statuette.

    “Live TV, here we go. Welcome to the 93rd Oscars!” she said. “And, yes, we are doing it maskless… people have been vaxxed, tested, re-tested, socially distanced.”

    This year’s Oscars arrived at their Union Station venue two months late due to the pandemic — organisers have said it would have been “impossible” without the delay.

    Before the show, stars paused briefly for pictures and socially distanced interviews on what organisers called a “teeny-tiny red carpet.”

    An honourary award for the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which has supported struggling actors and crew particularly during the pandemic, was awarded at the Oscars’ traditional Hollywood theater base. Black entertainment mogul Tyler Perry was also honored.

    But the bulk of the awards were handed out at the 1930s-built Union Station, chosen for its grand scale and outdoor courtyards, where white tents sheltering everything from Covid testing booths to catering were installed.

    “We’re here, isn’t it crazy?” said Ahmed. “Human beings in the flesh!”

    While The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences remembered late actors Irrfan Khan, Rishi Kapoor, Sushant Singh Rajput, Chadwick Boseman and other stars in the 93rd Academy Awards.

    The late stars were honoured for their services to the cinema industry in the ‘In Memoriam’ sequence during the award show with Stevie Wonder’s song ‘As’ in the background.

    https://youtu.be/lRbfMvLO118