Category: 1. Pakistan

• Malik Ahmad says he fulfilled his responsibility.
•  Opposes Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution.
• “I can’t allow unparliamentary conduct.”
  

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Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Ahmad Khan on Monday defended his move to file a disqualification reference against 26 opposition members of the provincial assembly (MPAs) over “unparliamentary conduct”.

Addressing a press conference in Lahore, the speaker said he has always tried to fulfill his responsibilities as a good custodian of the House.

“I have always acted as a good custodian of the House, but I cannot permit the use of vulgar language on the assembly floor,” he added.

Malik Ahmad’s presser comes days after he filed disqualification reference against 26 PTI-backed opposition MPAs with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The disqualification reference was filed following the unrest during the Punjab Assembly budget session when opposition members raised slogans and disrupted the proceedings.

In an order dated June 27, the speaker, while exercising powers conferred under Rule 210(3) of the Rules of Procedure 1997, suspended the opposition members for a total of 15 assembly sessions.

He confirmed that some lawmakers had been suspended and others served notices for repeated violations of assembly rules.

PA speaker argued that while protest is a constitutional right, it must remain within certain limits. “Tearing budget documents, climbing on desks, cannot be justified as democratic expression,” he said in the presser today.

Responding to criticism over the use of constitutional provisions, Malik Ahmad said: “While I oppose Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution… they do grant the speaker the authority to take action when lawmakers violate the rules of parliamentary conduct.”

Calling Articles 62 and 63 “remnants of dictatorship”, he said that these clauses remain part of the Constitution and confer authority upon the speaker to take action when needed.

“It cannot be that these articles are selectively used. Either remove them from the Constitution or apply them uniformly,” he stated.

The speaker said MPAs themselves had urged him to take action under Article 63(2), referencing the Panama Papers ruling as a precedent.

“If a prime minister can be disqualified on false statements, then those who disrupt the sanctity of the House must also be held accountable,” he added.

Extending a dialogue offer to the opposition, the speaker said he was still open to talks. “Sit down and talk. There’s still time,” he urged the opposition, adding that the assembly cannot be allowed to become a theatre of chaos.

The reference filed against PTI-backed MPs includes Malik Farhad Masood, Muhammad Tanveer Aslam, Syed Riffat Mehmood, Yasir Mehmood Qureshi, Kaleem Ullah Khan, Muhammad Ansar Iqbal, Ali Asif, Zulfiqar Ali, Ahmad Mujtaba Chaudhary, Shahid Javed, Muhammad Ismael, Khayal Ahmad.

Shahbaz Ahmad, Tayyab Rashid, Imtiaz Mehmood, Ali Imtiaz, Rashid Tufail, Muhammad Murtaza Iqbal, Khalid Zubair Nisar, Ch Muhammad Ejaz Shafi, Saima Kanwal, Muhammad Naeem, Sajjad Ahmed, Rana, Aourang Zaib, Shuaib Ameer and Usama Asghar Ali Gujjar.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has issued a countrywide alert, warning that heavy to very heavy monsoon rains may lead to flash floods, landslides, and urban flooding in several regions over the coming days.

Flash flooding is expected in local nullahs and streams of Murree, Galliyat, Mansehra, Kohistan, Abbottabad, Buner, Chitral, Dir, Swat, Shangla, Nowshera, Swabi, Mardan, Islamabad/Rawalpindi, hill torrents of DG Khan, northeast Punjab, Kashmir, and several districts of Balochistan, including Barkhan, Kohlu, Musa Khel, Dera Bugti, Loralai, Bolan, Zhob, Ziarat, Kalat, Khuzdar, Awaran, and Lasbela.

The PMD said landslides and mudslides may cause road closures in vulnerable hilly areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Murree, Galliyat, and Kashmir.

Urban flooding may occur in low-lying areas of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Lahore, Sialkot, Sargodha, Faisalabad, Nowshera, and Peshawar.

Strong monsoon currents, along with a westerly wave, are currently affecting most central and southern regions of the country.

Rain with wind and thunderstorms is forecast in Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir, Punjab, northeast and south Balochistan, and upper Sindh through today and Tuesday.

Isolated heavy downpours are likely in Kashmir, upper Punjab, the Potohar region, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and northern Balochistan.

Over the past 24 hours, rainfall was recorded in parts of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir, northeast and south Balochistan, and Sukkur.

Heavier showers were observed in Karor (37mm), Kot Addu (31mm), D.G. Khan (22mm), Muzaffarabad (21mm), and Lasbela (15mm). Gilgit-Baltistan remained very hot, with Nokkundi recording the highest temperature at 47°C.

In southern Sindh, weak monsoon currents continue to affect the region, with light rain and drizzle expected in Karachi and nearby districts.

The PMD forecast partly cloudy and humid conditions for Karachi today, with chances of drizzling during the morning and night hours on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The city’s maximum temperature over the next three days is expected to range between 33°C and 35°C.

Light showers are also likely today in Tharparkar, Badin, Thatta, Sujawal, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Jamshoro, Hyderabad, and Tando Muhammad Khan, including areas within the Karachi Division.

Isolated rainfall is expected on Tuesday in Qambar Shahdadkot, Larkana, and Dadu.

Elsewhere in Sindh, the weather is expected to remain partly cloudy, hot, and humid.

Former Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, in an interview, said that Islamabad “would not oppose” the extradition of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar as a “confidence-building measure”. The statement has drawn a strong response from Hafiz Saeed’s son, Talha Saeed, who said that Bhutto’s response is against the “national interest”. 

‘Pakistan would not be opposed to…’

The statement came in response to a question about extraditing Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar. “As part of a comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan, where terrorism is one of the issues that we discuss, I am sure Pakistan would not be opposed to any of these things,” the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

He further stated that the cases against the “individuals of concern” are related to Pakistan, including charges of terrorist financing. However, he added that pursuing charges related to cross-border terrorism is challenging, given what he claimed was “non-compliance” from India.

“India is refusing to comply with certain basic elements that require that conviction to take place,” he further said, before adding, “It’s important… to present evidence within these courts, for people to come over from India to testify, to put up with whatever the counter-accusations will be. If India is willing to be cooperative in that process, I am sure there will be no hurdle in extraditing any individual of concern.”

When he was asked about the whereabouts of both the terrorists, he said that Hafiz Saeed is in the custody of the Pakistani state, while Masood Azhar is believed to be in Afghanistan. He further added that Islamabad would be more than happy to arrest Azhar whenever India pinpoints his location in Pakistan. 

‘Statement against national interest’: Talha Saeed

Talha Saeed lashed out at Bilawal Bhutto saying that his statement was against the national interest and state policy. 

“Bilawal Bhutto should not have talked about extradition of Pakistanis. His statement is against the state policy, national interest and sovereignty, and we strongly condemn it,” Talha Saeed said in a statement on Sunday.

He added that either Bilawal Bhutto is “unaware of ground realities or promoting the enemy’s narrative”, before questioning if a state representative could talk about handing over citizens to what he called the “enemy country”. 

Nacta has banned both LeT, JeM

According to Pakistan’s National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta), both terror outfits – LeT and JeM – have been banned. 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed has been serving a 33-year sentence in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail since 2019. The attack killed 166 people. 

Masood Azhar was in India’s custody until 1999 when he was part of a hostage swap deal during the Flight 814 Kandahar hijack. He is linked to several attacks in India, including the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the 2016 Pathankot airbase strike and the 2019 Pulwama terror attack. 

Both terrorists are on the US and UN lists of international terrorists.

PTI slams Bilawal Bhutto

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) also slammed Bilawal Bhutto’s statement and tagged him as an “immature political child”.

Sheikh Waqas Akram, spokesperson of the jailed former prime minister Imran Khan-led PTI, further said that the PPP leader’s proposal was ill-advised and detrimental to Pakistan’s national security narrative, and such statements humiliate the country on international platforms, he said. 

“We fail to understand why Bilawal is so keen on appeasing India. Bilawal has become a symbol of confusion and contradiction in Pakistan’s foreign policy discourse… PPP was founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the legacy of Kashmir, but today, Bilawal is betraying that legacy by pursuing political gains at the expense of Kashmiri blood,” he said.

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Pakistani officials are desperate to slow a world-leading solar revolution, as a surge in cut-price Chinese panels and batteries bleeds the country’s finances and threatens the viability of its debt-ridden grid.

The power ministry has proposed to reform the country’s “net metering” policy by reducing the amount paid to buy excess solar electricity from households from Rs27 to Rs10 ($0.035) per unit. In June, the government also proposed an 18 per cent tax on imported panels, later revised and passed at 10 per cent. 

Shimmering Chinese panels, blocked from the US by tariffs, have spread across the roofs and backyards of factories, mosques, farms and wealthy neighbourhoods. Last year, the country of 240mn people imported 17GW worth of solar capacity, among the world’s highest, says renewable energy think-tank Ember. Solar units delivered at least a 10th of electricity needs and helped consumers offset power prices that have doubled in three years. 

The surge helped progress towards a target of 30 per cent of power from renewable sources by 2030, but the twin policies aim to stem what analysts have called a “death spiral”, as households who can afford solar switch off the grid, while more bills go unpaid by poorer customers who cannot afford the jump in power prices.

But traders and analysts expect demand for panels and batteries to stay high even if both measures pass. Avinash Kumar, a solar panel trader in the city of Sukkur, says the tax would barely dent demand as panel prices have fallen since last year. 

Fears of net metering reform are spurring customers to buy Chinese hybrid inverters, costing about Rs450,000 ($1,590), which feed energy back to the grid and store it in batteries, Kumar adds. “Sales are doubling every year.”

Demand for lithium-ion batteries is also surging, traders and importers say, in part because households are preparing to lose the payments from selling to the grid that they use to offset high charges during peak usage times in the evening, while industries also want to scale up renewables.

Pakistan introduced net metering 10 years ago to help households defray the costs of installing solar — then 10 times higher — by letting them sell spare power to the grid. The move worked, but policymakers say a surge in installations — net metering capacity was 2,813MW as of March — from 300,000 consumers, mostly households, added a burden of Rs150bn ($529mn) on the other 40mn consumers last year from fixed and buyback costs. The impact could reach Rs4,400bn for the period 2025 to 2034 if current policy persists, officials say. At the same time, demand for grid power has fallen.

Since 2015, Pakistan has drawn in billions of dollars of sovereign-backed loans to build power plants, and signed long-term liquefied natural gas deals. This resolved blackouts but was costly, as economic growth has not kept up with demand projections. The result is a country owing $18bn in mounting power and gas sector debts to finance excess energy supply. According to Arzachel, a consultancy, two-thirds of a household electric bill comes from fixed costs, such as capacity charges even for idling plants. 

In March, the government proposed cutting the electricity buyback rate, reducing the licensing period for net metering contracts, and limiting consumers to installing only as much solar as is authorised by their electricity provider. The plan stalled after it was denounced as “cruel” by politicians, who said consumers and industries would be saddled with power costs of between Rs30 and Rs60 per unit, among the highest in south Asia.

Power minister Awais Leghari says a change is a “necessity” as the “wealthiest households in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad . . . avoid fixed costs while their share is covered by the most vulnerable”. 

“Why should we buy power at a price that is Rs17 more expensive than the national energy pool price I buy from other generators?” Leghari says. He adds that reforms would raise payback periods to four or five years, from two to three currently, which “remains a fair incentive”.

Haneea Isaad of Islamabad-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says there was nearly a nationwide blackout during Eid in March, as solar power surged and the grid could not absorb frequency changes as some backup generators and plants were switched off due to low demand in the holiday. “Technical problems are . . . a ticking time bomb,” she says, and the switch to solar means companies are losing revenues to invest.

The government says imported panels harm prospects of a local industry and it hopes to recoup some of the import bill. Analysts say the proposed levy is aimed at slowing solar adoption. To boost grid use, enabling investment to improve the service, Pakistan is banking on cryptocurrency mining, AI data centres, power cost reductions, levies on industries using captive natural gas plants, and electric vehicles.

Saadia Qayyum, an energy consultant at Canada-based Hatch, says “the government appears to be relying on short-term policy adjustments that risk slowing down solar adoption” among the poorest. “Many consumers are turning to solar because grid electricity is expensive and unreliable — in some areas, supply is limited to just 8 hours a day,” she says. “Policy shifts that make it harder to access or afford solar risk removing that essential lifeline.”

RAWALPINDI: India has acknowledged the deaths of several military personnel, including Rafale fighter jet pilots, by announcing posthumous honours, security sources told Geo News on Sunday, marking a shift from earlier denials of any casualties during Operation Sandoor.

The move, reportedly taken under internal pressure, has lifted the lid on what was previously kept under wraps: India suffered heavy losses during Operation Sindoor.

According to security sources, the Indian armed forces took a major hit in the operation, particularly along the Line of Control (LoC), where over 250 fatalities were reported.

Despite this, the Indian government and military avoided publicly acknowledging the scale of damage until the announcement of honours brought the casualties into the open.

Among those to be awarded posthumously are four Indian Air Force pilots, three of whom flew Rafale jets. The list also includes five operators of the S-400 air defence system who were killed at the Adampur Airbase, security officials say.

Nine more personnel who lost their lives at the Udhampur Airbase, including members of its air defence unit, are also named for honours.

In addition, two soldiers from the Rajouri aviation base and four others from the Uri supply depot, including its officer-in-charge, are reportedly being recognised.

Security sources claim that families of the deceased have been asked not to share photos or tributes on social media, as authorities continue efforts to keep the losses out of the public eye.

Critics are now asking: if there were no casualties, as the Indian government long claimed, why are these honours being handed out now?

India has previously denied any major damage or loss of life during incidents at key installations like Pathankot and Udhampur.

However, international media reports suggest that effective strikes from Pakistan forced India to agree to a ceasefire — a move that followed substantial military setbacks.

Pakistan launched a large-scale retaliatory military action — Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos— and targeted several Indian military targets across multiple regions in response to New Delhi’s multiple unprovoked missile strikes on its soil.

Pakistan downed six IAF fighter jets, including three Rafale, and dozens of drones. After at least 87 hours, the war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States.

According to ISPR, a total of 53 individuals, including 13 personnel of the armed forces and 40 civilians, were martyred in Indian strikes during the recent military confrontation.

• Honourees include Rafale pilots, S-400 operators, and key base staff.
• Families allegedly pressured not to share photos or tributes online.
• Move sparks criticism after official denial over military losses.

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After repeatedly denying any casualties, the Indian military has now indirectly acknowledged the deaths of several personnel, including Rafale fighter jet pilots, by announcing military honours for them, security sources told Geo News on Sunday.

The move, reportedly taken under internal pressure, has lifted the lid on what was previously kept under wraps: India suffered heavy losses during Operation Sindoor.

According to security sources, the Indian armed forces took a major hit in the operation, particularly along the Line of Control (LoC), where over 250 fatalities were reported. 

Despite this, the Indian government and military avoided publicly acknowledging the scale of damage until the announcement of honours brought the casualties into the open.

Among those to be awarded posthumously are four Indian Air Force pilots, three of whom flew Rafale jets. The list also includes five operators of the S-400 air defence system who were killed at the Adampur Airbase, security officials say.

Nine more personnel who lost their lives at the Udhampur Airbase, including members of its air defence unit, are also named for honours. 

In addition, two soldiers from the Rajouri aviation base and four others from the Uri supply depot, including its officer-in-charge, are reportedly being recognised.

Security sources claim that families of the deceased have been asked not to share photos or tributes on social media, as authorities continue efforts to keep the losses out of the public eye.

Critics are now asking: if there were no casualties, as the Indian government long claimed, why are these honours being handed out now?

India has previously denied any major damage or loss of life during incidents at key installations like Pathankot and Udhampur. 

However, international media reports suggest that effective strikes from Pakistan forced India to agree to a ceasefire — a move that followed substantial military setbacks.

Pakistan launched a large-scale retaliatory military action — Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos— and targeted several Indian military targets across multiple regions in response to New Delhi’s multiple unprovoked missile strikes on its soil.

Pakistan downed six IAF fighter jets, including three Rafale, and dozens of drones. After at least 87 hours, the war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States.

According to ISPR, a total of 53 individuals, including 13 personnel of the armed forces and 40 civilians, were martyred in Indian strikes during the recent military confrontation.

The owners of a pet lion that escaped from a farmhouse and injured a woman and her two children in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore have been arrested, authorities said on Sunday.

The arrest came after dramatic video footage emerged showing the lion leaping over a wall and attacking the victims in a residential area.

Faisal Kamran, a police official, said the woman and her five- and seven-year-old children sustained injuries to their faces and arms on Wednesday night when the lion escaped from its cage.

According to a police report, the children’s father said the lion’s owners had stood by and watched as the animal clawed at his family, making no effort to restrain it. The lion later returned to the owners’ farmhouse and was relocated to a wildlife park, police said.

Keeping exotic animals such as lions is considered a status symbol by some wealthy Pakistanis, despite the legal requirements and high fees associated with ownership.

In Turkey, a lion that escaped from a theme park near the resort of Antalya was shot dead on Sunday after attacking a man, the local governor and media reports said.

The lion, reportedly named Zeus, escaped his enclosure at the Land of Lions animal theme park in Manavgat, about 40 miles (65km) east of Antalya, in the early hours of the morning, the governor said.

According to the BirGün newspaper, the lion attacked an agricultural worker called Suleiman Kir who was asleep in a pistachio field with his wife. Kir tussled with the lion before it ran off. He was injured but not badly and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

“We were covered with blankets to protect ourselves from mosquitoes and when the prayer call sounded, I tried to stand up but I couldn’t,” he told the newspaper. “Suddenly I felt something touch my left foot and when I eventually managed to get up, I saw it was something huge – I thought it was a dog.”

In a video posted online, he described the moments wrestling with the lion. “We called for help but there was no one around. As the lion was biting my calf and my neck, I grabbed him around the neck and began to squeeze and he backed off. At that moment, the security forces came,” he said. “If I had not been strong, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

Antalya’s governor said the lion had been tracked down and shot dead. “It was not possible to catch the escaped lion alive because it posed a danger to people and the environment, so it was shot,” he said.

He indicated that an investigation had been opened into the incident. BirGün said there were about 30 big cats at the Land of Lions.