ISLAMABAD: The city of Kasur in Pakistan’s Punjab province has exploded into violence following the sexual assault and murder of six-year-old Zainab Ansari, whose body was found in a rubbish dump on Tuesday. She is reportedly the 12th child to have been murdered in the last year in, or close to, Kasur — a city with a long history of pedophile scandals.
Protesters infuriated by perceived government inaction over this latest crime attacked a hospital, a police station, and government offices, bringing public transport to a halt and forcing the closure of the courts. On Thursday, residents attacked the homes of politicians.
While the restive city calmed somewhat on Friday, the nation remains enraged over the police’s failure to arrest the perpetrator of the crime.
“We want justice, and we hope that the killer of our daughter will not go scot-free,” Zainab’s father, Muhammad Amin, told Arab News.
“We hope the killer will not only be arrested but also given exemplary punishment.”
Zainab is believed to have been abducted outside a religious tuition center she attended just 100 meters from her home on Thursday, Jan. 4. Her parents were in Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah at that time, and she was in the care of her maternal aunt.
A number of social, political and religious figures have visited the bereaved parents in recent days. And Chief of Army Staff Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa assured Zainab’s family that the criminal would be caught and punished.
Kasur resident Mohammed Junaid said police had not taken the spate of child murders seriously and that no arrests have been made during their investigations.
“The people of Kasur are left with no option but to protest against the inaction of the government and the police,” he told Arab News, adding that they would “set all government buildings in the city on fire” if the culprit was not arrested soon.
The police aggravated the situation further on Wednesday when they shot and killed two protesters. Later, Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif apologized to the families of the victims and promised compensation.
“The whole nation should come out to express solidarity with Zainab’s parents and demand the rulers to take cogent measures to put an end to such incidents,” Shakil Iftikhar, a businessman in Kasur, told Arab News.
There are signs, though, that the government may finally have been jolted into action.
Talking to Arab News, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb emphasized that all political parties should join together to create awareness about child abuse and help the government enact effective legislation.
“We will try our best to include the issue of child abuse in the curriculum by taking all parties on board,” she said, while urging the nation to stay calm as the government was doing its best to live up to people’s expectations.
It is not just Kasur that has witnessed an alarming increase in the sexual assault of minors. According to Sahil, a non-governmental organization for victims of violence and sexual abuse, there were 4,139 cases of child sexual abuse — including abduction, missing children and child marriage — in Pakistan in 2016, an average of 11 incidents per day and a 10 percent increase on 2015.
Sahil’s annual report, “Cruel Numbers,” revealed in 2016: “Following the previous year’s data, more girls have been sexually abused this year as well. The reported cases under major crime categories are: abduction 1,455, rape 502, sodomy 453, gang rape 271, gang sodomy 268 and 362 cases of attempted (child sexual abuse). An even more serious crime is committed when the victim is murdered. A total of 100 victims were murdered after sexual assaults.”
As tensions continued to run high on Friday, the Punjab government appointed Regional Police Officer Multan Idrees Ahmad as head of the joint investigation team for Zainab’s murder.
Punjab Government spokesperson Malik Ahmed Khan told Arab News that the police have unearthed a connection between Zainab’s killing and recent incidents of a similar nature in Kasur.
Khan said that experts from the forensic science laboratory had been working on the magnification of an image of the suspect.
“We are establishing a criminal database for the first time in the country’s history to identify suspects through facial recognition,” he said.
He claimed police were “close to the suspect now.”
Murder of Zainab, 6, stirs outrage in Pakistan
Murder of Zainab, 6, stirs outrage in Pakistan
European parliament's largest far-right bloc to rally in Madrid next week
- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and France’s Marine Le Pen are attending the rally
- Patriots for Europe is third-largest faction in the EU parliament
MADRID: The European Parliament’s largest far-right bloc will hold its first summit in Madrid next week with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and France’s Marine Le Pen in attendance, Spanish party Vox said on Monday.
Patriots for Europe will meet on February 7 and 8 under the presidency of Vox leader Santiago Abascal to outline their strategy for the coming months, party spokesman Jose Antonio Fuster told reporters.
The group has realigned the EU far right and became the parliament’s third-largest force after Orban helped launch it last year to shift Brussels rightwards.
Its 84 lawmakers include France’s National Rally, the Party for Freedom of Dutch anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders, Vox, Austria’s Freedom Party and Chega from Portugal.
The bloc overtook the European Conservatives and Reformists, associated with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, after last year’s EU elections, in which the far right performed strongly in several countries.
Fuster said there was an alternative to the coalition between the European People’s Party of European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and the Socialists and Democrats.
Slamming “their climate fanaticism and their open-door policies to mass immigration,” Fuster said his group “represents millions of Europeans who want common sense to return to European institutions.”
India and China agree to resume air travel after nearly five years
- Tensions soured between the two nations after a 2020 border clash, following which India made it difficult for Chinese companies to invest in the country
- Relations have improved over the past four months with several high-level meetings, including talks between President Xi Jinping and Indian PM Modi in Russia
BEIJING/NEW DELHI: India and China have agreed to resume direct air services after nearly five years, India’s foreign ministry said on Monday, signalling a thaw in relations between the neighbors after a deadly 2020 military clash on their disputed Himalayan border.
Both sides will negotiate a framework on the flights in a meeting that will be held at “early date,” the ministry said after a meeting between India’s top diplomat and his Chinese counterpart.
Tensions soured between the two nations after the 2020 clash, following which India made it difficult for Chinese companies to invest in the country, banned hundreds of popular apps and severed passenger routes, although direct cargo flights continued to operate between the countries.
Relations have improved over the past four months with several high-level meetings, including talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Russia in October.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in Beijing that the two countries should work in the same direction, explore more substantive measures and commit to mutual understanding.
“Specific concerns in the economic and trade areas were discussed with a view to resolving these issues and promoting long-term policy transparency and predictability,” the Indian foreign ministry statement said in a statement.
Their meeting was the latest between the two Asian powers following a milestone agreement in October seeking to ease friction along their frontier.
Reuters reported in June that China’s government and airlines had asked India’s civil aviation authorities to re-establish direct air links, but New Delhi resisted as the border dispute continued to weigh on ties.
In October, two Indian government sources told Reuters that India would consider reopening the skies and launch fast-tracking visa approvals.
Both nations have also agreed to resume dialogue for functional exchanges step by step and with an early meeting of the India-China Expert Level Mechanism, India’s foreign ministry said.
China and India should commit to “mutual support and mutual achievement” rather than “suspicion” and “alienation,” Wang said during the two officials’ meeting, according to the Chinese foreign ministry’s readout.
German Holocaust remembrance under fire from far right
- US tech billionaire Elon Musk told AfD supporters that “children should not be guilty for the sins of their great grandparents"
- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticizes slogans made at a far-right rally without mentioning Musk by name
FRANKFURT: As the world remembers Auschwitz, the German far right has pushed back against the country’s tradition of Holocaust remembrance, now with backing from US tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“I think there’s too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that,” the ally of US President Donald Trump told an Alternative for Germany (AfD) rally in a video discussion at the weekend.
“Children should not be guilty for the sins of their great grandparents,” he told supporters of the AfD, an anti-immigration party he has strongly supported ahead of February 23 elections.
Musk’s comments flew in the face of those made by Chancellor Olaf Scholz to mark 80 years since the liberation of the extermination camp in what was Nazi-occupied Poland and on the “civilizational rupture” of the Holocaust.
“Every single person in our country bears responsibility, regardless of their own family history, regardless of the religion or birthplace of their parents or grandparents,” Scholz said in a speech.
Musk’s comments were all the more divisive as they came ahead of Monday’s 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, where more than one million Jewish people and over 100,000 others died between 1940 and 1945.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country is hosting commemorations, was quick to criticize slogans made at Saturday’s rally, although he did not mention Musk by name.
“The words we heard from the main actors of the AfD rally about ‘Great Germany’ and ‘the need to forget German guilt for Nazi crimes’ sounded all too familiar and ominous,” the Polish leader wrote on X.
“Especially only hours before the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.”
Scholz, who went to Poland for the anniversary events, responded to Tusk’s message: “I couldn’t agree more, dear Donald.”
India, China agree to resume flights 5 years after stoppage
- Around 500 monthly direct flights operated between China and India before the pandemic, according to Indian media outlet Moneycontrol
NEW DELHI: India and China agreed in principle on Monday to resume direct flights between the two nations, nearly five years after the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent political tensions halted them.
The announcement came at the conclusion of a visit to Beijing by New Delhi’s top career diplomat and heralds the latest signs of a thaw in the frosty ties between the world’s two most populous nations.
Indian foreign ministry secretary Vikram Misri’s trip to the Chinese capital marked one of the most senior official visits since a deadly Himalayan troop clash on their shared border in 2020 sent relations into a tailspin.
A statement from India’s foreign ministry said a visit by a top envoy to Beijing had yielded agreement “in principle to resume direct air services between the two countries.”
“The relevant technical authorities on the two sides will meet and negotiate an updated framework for this purpose at an early date,” it said.
India’s statement also said China had permitted the resumption of a pilgrimage to a popular shrine to the Hindu deity Krishna that had also been halted at the start of the decade.
Both sides had committed to work harder on diplomacy to “restore mutual trust and confidence” and to resolve outstanding trade and economic issues, the statement said.
Around 500 monthly direct flights operated between China and India before the pandemic, according to Indian media outlet Moneycontrol.
A statement from China’s foreign ministry did not mention the agreement on flight resumptions but said both countries had been working to improve ties since last year.
“The improvement and development of China-India relations is fully in line with the fundamental interests of the two countries,” the Chinese statement said.
India and China are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia.
Flights between both countries were halted in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
Services to Hong Kong eventually resumed as the public health crisis receded but not to the Chinese mainland, owing to the bitter fallout of the deadly troop clash later that year.
At least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed in the skirmish in a remote stretch of the high-altitude borderlands along their 3,500-kilometer (2,200-mile) frontier.
The fallout from the incident saw India clamp down on Chinese companies, preventing them from investing in critical economic sectors, along with a ban on hundreds of Chinese gaming and e-commerce apps, including TikTok.
Beijing and New Delhi agreed last October on a significant military disengagement at a key flashpoint of their disputed border.
The accord came shortly before a rare formal meeting — the first in five years — between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Misri’s visit to Beijing came weeks after a diplomatic tour by India’s national security adviser Ajit Doval, a key bureaucratic ally of Modi.
Egyptian teenagers ‘left to die’ by Bulgarian border police: Report
- 3 boys crossed into Europe via Turkiye late last month and were later found dead
- Authorities concealed evidence that they obstructed rescue efforts, humanitarian groups say
LONDON: Authorities in Bulgaria have been accused of letting three Egyptian teenagers die by ignoring emergency calls and delaying attempts to rescue them, The Guardian reported.
The incident took place in sub-zero temperatures near the Bulgarian-Turkish border late last month.
Evidence of the authorities’ failure to save the boys was collected in a dossier produced by two humanitarian organizations, No Name Kitchen and Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche.
The dossier, seen by The Guardian, contains photos, geolocations and personal testimonies, and reveals a wider pattern of brutality against migrants on the borders of Europe.
The Bulgarian border with Turkiye is a common crossing point for asylum-seekers but contains treacherous terrain, as well as freezing winter weather.
The two humanitarian organizations said that they were first alerted that an appeal for help had been made on Dec. 27 by the Egyptian trio.
Calls had been made to an emergency charity hotline, referring to three teenagers “at immediate risk of death.”
The GPS location of the three Egyptians, who were lost in the forests of southeastern Bulgaria, was sent to the hotline.
Charity workers then forwarded the information to the official 112 emergency number and attempted to locate the boys themselves.
But Bulgarian border police allegedly hindered the charity rescue attempts even after being shown a video of one of the Egyptian teenagers in the snow.
The boys were later identified as Ahmed Samra, 17, Ahmed El-Awdan, 16, and 15-year-old Seifalla El-Beltagy.
They were later found dead, with the former having “dog paw prints and boot prints around his body.”
This “indicates that the border police had already found him, maybe still alive or dead, but had chosen to leave him there in the cold,” the dossier said.
After charity staff later returned to the scene, they discovered that all traces of the prints had been removed.
One of the bodies of the deceased was found to have been partly eaten by an animal.
The dossier released by the two organizations also details harassment of charity rescue teams as well as vandalism of one of their cars.
Staff belonging to one rescue team had their passports and phones seized by Bulgarian police.
Human rights organizations have warned that authorities in European border countries are deploying tactics to target humanitarian groups helping asylum-seekers.
No Name Kitchen and Collettivo Rotte Balcaniche called for an “independent, formal investigation” into “systemic violence and negligence by Bulgarian authorities” and “degrading treatment of people on the move.”
Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry rejected the allegations and said that investigations into the case continued.
“In 2024, there were 515 search-and-rescue operations conducted by (the) general directorate border police of Bulgaria with the purpose (of providing) medical assistance to third-country nationals who managed to enter the country irregularly,” the ministry said.
“Our patrols reacted to all of those signals in a timely manner, considering how crucial this is when a person is exposed to extreme weather conditions.”
One activist described the reaction of Bulgarian border police to the three Egyptian teenagers as “utterly shocking.”
They said: “It should not be the responsibility of worried activists to reach people in the forest — border police are trained and paid to do so.
“It is utterly shocking that three minors froze to death in the forest even though multiple alerts to 112 had been placed. This is a huge failure for everyone.”
