Sindh Food Authority (SFA)conducted raid at a shop with police in Karachi after a family complained about the selling of artificial plastic eggs for food consumption.
As per reports, SFA staff recovered two crates of the eggs allegedly
made of plastic. Initial inspection suggests that the eggs recovered from the
shop were made from a plastic material. The confiscated eggs have been sent to
a laboratory for further tests.
The authority’s staff
has also recovered more than 100 crates of eggs from the supply van. Police
have arrested four persons including two wholesalers and one retailer.
According to police
eggs were also kept in a truck along with genuine chicken eggs. The eggs were
being supplied to Karachi from Gharo, arrested suspects told police in their
statement.
Chief Selector and Head Coach Misbah-ul-Haq has announced the T20 squad for the cricket team’s upcoming tour to Australia.
As per details, Musa Khan has been included in the T20I side along with uncapped middle-order batsman Khushdil Shah and wrist spinner Usman Qadir, and lanky fast bowler Mohammad Irfan made a comeback as well.
Hasan Ali was ruled out of the tour due to back injury while Shaheen Shah Afridi named only for Tests after injury comeback.
Here is a quick look at the T20 squad:
T20 squad:
Babar Azam (captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Sohail, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Imam-ul-Haq, Khushdil Shah, Muhhamad Amir, Muhammad Hasnain, Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Rizwan, Musa Khan, Shadab Khan, Usman Qadir, and Wahab Riaz.
Cricketer-turned-politician, Gautam Gambhir of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has helped an ailing Pakistani minor get a visa for treatment in India, Times of India reported.
According to reports, Gambhir wrote to the Ministry of External Affairs, requesting help for seven-year-old Omaima Ali with congenital heart disease.
In a letter to the former cricketer, Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said that he had directed the Indian high commissioner in Islamabad to grant the necessary visa to the minor girl and her parents.
Gambhir was quoted as saying that he had learnt about the girl’s condition through a phone call to his office by former Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Yousuf. Following this, the now lawmaker wrote to the ministry on October 1, seeking help for the child.
“I have asked our high commissioner in Islamabad to issue appropriate visas to Omaima Ali and her parents,” the minister wrote back to Gambhir in his letter dated October 9.
उस पार से एक नन्हे दिल ने दस्तक दी, इस पार दिल ने सब सरहदें मिटा दी।
उन नन्हे कदमों के साथ बहती हुई मीठी हवा भी आई है, कभी-कभी ऐसा भी लगता है जैसे बेटी घर आई है।
— Gautam Gambhir (Modi Ka Parivar) (@GautamGambhir) October 19, 2019
Sharing the letter on Twitter, Gambhir wrote a poetic tweet in Hindi, “A little heart knocked from the other side and the heart this side removed all the boundaries. A sweet breeze has wafted through with those little feet, it seems sometimes like a daughter has come home.”
Meanwhile, Omaima’s maternal uncle from Karachi thanked Gautam and said that they would be travelling to India soon.
With the government planning to put in place hundreds of shipping containers to seal the twin cities and block the forthcoming long march of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), reports have revealed that the move will be costing taxpayers millions of rupees a day.
JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has announced leading an anti-government long march to Islamabad via Rawalpindi with plans of a lockdown. While the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has invited opposition parties for a dialogue to call off the protest, it is also preparing for the worst.
The capital will likely be sealed from October 31 onwards by either the police or the JUI-F as preparations on both sides for the Azadi March gain momentum. According to Dawn, the Islamabad police have demanded more than 550 shipping containers to intercept the march before it enters the city.
The containers include 250 for City Zone and 100 each for Saddar, Industrial Area and Rural zones, while the logistics department of the police has ordered a vendor to arrange 450 containers.
The Rawalpindi police, on the other hand, have prepared a contingency plan under which 120 freight containers will be used to seal the garrison city by blocking all roads leading to Islamabad.
According to officials, each container being procured for both the cities, costs more than Rs5,000 a day to rent, which puts the total cost of 670 containers at Rs3.3 million (Rs3,350,000) a day.
An English language
professor at Government MAO College allegedly committed suicide after being
accused of harassment by one of his female students.
As per reports, Professor Afzal Mehmood took his life after his wife left him and the college administration did not issue a clearance certificate to him even after harassment allegations were proven false.
Afzal left a suicide note
in which he wrote that he had left the matter in the court of Allah and that he
did not want the police to investigate his death and bother anybody over it.
The professor reportedly died by consuming poison
After legal proceedings,
the police handed over the body to the deceased family without conducting a
postmortem.
A day before his death,
the professor had written a letter to his senior colleague, Dr. Aaliyah Rehman,
who was leading the committee that was inspecting the harassment charges.
In his letter to Dr. Aaliyah, he complained that he had not been informed of the decision made by the committee in writing, even though he had been innocent of the charge. Afzal also expressed that the matter had damaged his image.
As per reports, a female student initially complained that Prof Afzal used to stare at girls. The student changed her statement during the inquiry and said that the professor used to deduct students’ marks because of low attendance.
She revealed that after
completing the inquiry, the student wrote in the report that Prof Afzal is
innocent and false accusations were made against him. As a result, the report
recommended a warning to be issued against the student.
The student sent the
letter to the principal three months ago. In the next step, the principal had
to issue a clearance letter to Prof Afzal, in which it should be written that
he is innocent and the allegations against him were false.
MAO College Principal
Farhan Ibadat responded that Prof Afzal never came to him, otherwise, he would
have issued him the letter.
Reham Khan, former wife of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, has once again managed to make headlines by saying that she would not have “let herself and Imran be a puppet had the two still been together”.
Reham’s statement came as a reply to a follower’s tweet that said, “Had Reham been here, the government wouldn’t have seen such days.”
PM’s former wife is rather infamous for her statements hitting out at PM Imran and his ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Twitter as well as her personal Youtube channel.
Just last week, Reham had accused the premier of being involved in illegal transactions of foreign funds and “moral corruption for hiding accounts from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)”.
Prime Minister Youth Affairs Program (PMYAP) has planned to establish 500 skilled laboratories in Madrassas to mobilize these institutions across the country with modern technology tools, Associated Press of Pakistan (APP)reported.
A PMYAP official has said that most of the madrassas were undergoing informal education programmes to impart basic education to the students along with religious schools.
However, the authorities were planning to collaborate with different madrassas in the country to have modern technology equipped laboratories for their students.
“These skilled laboratories would help provide acquaintance to new methodologies applied through information technology tools and software applications. It would also contain technical training equipment as well that is going to enable madrasa students get technical skills for better employment opportunities,” PMYAP official added.
He also said that this programme would primarily focus to get the madrassa students at par with those acquiring formal education in schools for better employment.
School students were forced to wear cardboard cartons on their heads during an exam, apparently to stop them from cheating in the test in the Indian state of Karnataka.
As per reports, the pictures of the students wearing the cartons over their heads went viral on social media and people wanted the Indian government to take notice. The exams were mid-terms, and teachers were seen monitoring students.
“This is unacceptable. Nobody has any right to treat anybody more so students like animals. This perversion will be dealt with aptly,” a provincial minister said of the incident.
Social media widely criticized the institute for treating the students so inhumanely, tagging the behavior as totally unacceptable and ridiculous.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Farooq Sattar has made a comment over the removal of Sarfaraz Ahmed from the captaincy of the national cricket team in all formats, The Express Tribune reported.
According to the details, when asked what he felt about the removal of Sarfaraz, MQM leader said: “It is wrong to remove Sarfaraz on the basis of bad performances in just two to three matches.”
He added that if Sarfaraz is being blamed for everything that happened wrong with the Pakistan team, then the blame of the “increased number of stray dogs and the ongoing epidemic of dengue in Karachi” should also be put on the former skipper.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday removed Sarfaraz as team captain after citing his degrading individual and leadership performances in all formats.
The board then appointed right-handed batsman Azhar Ali as the new Test captain, while Babar Azam was given the captaincy in the T20 format.
However, the announcement regarding the captain of the ODI format has not been made as of yet. As per PCB, it will be made in due course since the team is not scheduled to play any ODIs until July 2020.
Earlier, Pakistan hosted Sri Lanka in Karachi and Lahore in a landmark T20 and ODI series, but the return of international cricket was marred by the 3-0 whitewash in T20Is at the hands of a second-string Sri Lanka side.
Ahead of his long march to the federal capital against the Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazalur Rehman has asked the media fraternity “to unite against bars on its freedom”.
“You the journalists should plead your case against censorship being imposed by undemocratic forces,” Fazl said while addressing a press conference at the South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA).
The JUI-F chief’s statement came days after a private media outlet took off the air his media-talk, alleging a ban imposed by the Pakistan Electronic Media Authority (PEMRA).
Geo news accepts on air that PEMRA is ordering the censorship of opposition leaders. Where is the selected PM who used to claim media in Pakistan is more free than in UK? pic.twitter.com/VrKXyS1qYe
The incident was followed by veteran journalist and analyst Hamid Mir’s tweet stating that the media watchdog has “forced TV channels not to show” Fazl’s presser.
Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority forced TV channels not to show the press conference of opposition politician Maulana Fazalur Rehman we can differ with Maulana but Govt is showing weakness by imposing unannounced censorship in Pakistan @RSF_inter@pressfreedom
He said that the government was showing weakness by “imposing unannounced censorship” in Pakistan.
Speaking to journalists Friday, Fazl said that media had a key role to play in the current situation. He claimed that it was the media that was giving his efforts a name of its choice and said, “For the JUI-F, it is an attempt to secure respect for popular vote and warn those who are trying to steal it every time.”
Flanked by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Senator Pervaiz Rasheed and JUI-F leader Abdul Ghaffoor Haideri, the religio-political party chief said that if any individual wanted to attain absolute power in the negation of the democratic norms, it could not be accepted in a free and sovereign state.
“Mutiny can take place any time against tyranny,” he warned, adding that the constitution clearly demarcated the area of jurisdiction for all organs of the state, and all must respect it.
“The trouble arises when one institution tries to hog the domain of others and creeping influence destabilises other state organs by breeding frustration among them. Once that frustration hits a boiling point, the entire process implodes. This cycle is being repeated with regularity for the last seven decades. The current JUI-F effort is aimed at breaking the cycle: demolishing illegal results of the last manipulation, ensuring fresh and legal mandate and securing commitment on part of the stakeholders to respect the constitution,” Fazl explained.
He said the public mandate had been hijacked in the last general elections, adding that the nation should once again be given the right to chose and change should come through ballot to put an end to the prevailing sense of uncertainty among people.
“Only two persons, including the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the chairman of FBR [Federal Board of Revenue], have got employment in the country so far,” he said and added that the entire nation and opposition parties were on the same page against the government.
Earlier, SAFMA Secretary General Imtiaz Alam urged political parties to extend support to Fazl and sign a charter of democracy-like agreement to reject and discourage any anti-democratic regime in the country.
A “civil society declaration” on civil, political, social and human rights of the oppressed people, women and minorities was also presented to the JUI-F chief with a demand that an all parties conference must make a commitment to the people of Pakistan to make them sovereign.
GOVT READY FOR ACTION?
The capital will likely be sealed from Oct 31 onwards by either the police or the JUI-F as preparations on both sides for the Azadi March gain momentum, Dawn reported.
According to police officers, the Islamabad police have demanded more than 550 shipping containers to intercept the march before it enters the city. The demand was made by zonal superintendents of police City, Saddar, Industrial Area and Rural to the police’s logistics division, they said.
The police have decided to block each of the Expressway’s connecting roads from both sides from Faizabad to the Koral flyover, they said, as this area becomes ‘Waterloo’ for them during protests and law and order problems.
All the connecting roads of Rawalpindi to I.J. Principal Road will also likely be sealed, the officers said, and steps will be taken to intercept people trying to join the march or gather in the capital.
The police have more than 1,000 gas masks, 200 teargas launchers and 13,000 shells available in the logistics division armoury, they said, along with enough batons, plastic helmets, riot jackets, riot shields, shin guards and arms, if needed.
More riot gear was demanded to cope with a deteriorating situation, if it arises.
The police have also threatened local traders with legal action if they do business with the organisers or participants of the Azadi March, the officers said.
These traders include catering services, tent services, hotels, motels, guest-houses and inns, generators, workshops, hardware stores, welding workshops, sound system services, excavator owners and crane owners.
Rawalpindi police, on the other hand, have requested 6,000 shells of tear gas, 1,600 rubber bullets, batons, masks and shields. Anti-riot exercises have begun in Police Lines Headquarters and special squads have been formed to be deployed at sensitive locations.
