KARACHI: Nationwide protests at the police killing of a young ethnic Pashtun man in Pakistan’s largest city have shone a spotlight on allegations of persecution by the authorities against refugees from the country’s conflict-ridden northwest.
The country’s Supreme Court launched an inquiry on Jan. 19 into the death of 27-year-old aspiring fashion model Naqibullah Mehsud. He was one of four men killed six days earlier in what police initially said was a shoot-out with suspected Islamist militants. The Supreme Court plans to begin hearings on the case on Saturday.
The police team that killed Mehsud was under the command of senior superintendent Anwar Ahmed Khan, who has been suspended since Jan. 20 on the recommendation of a police inquiry committee. The committee was set up after Mehsud’s father, Muhammad Khan Mehsud, who denies his son had any militant links, filed a kidnapping and killing complaint against him.
Anwar told Reuters he had done nothing wrong and said the investigation into his officers’ actions could allow the Taliban to regain a foothold in ethnic Pashtun parts of the city.
“I had no knowledge of Naqibullah Mehsud. My staff told me that he is a militant with a criminal history,” he said.
Police data from 2011 reviewed by Reuters shows that in the seven years Anwar has been in charge of Karachi’s Malir district, which has a large Pashtun population, at least 450 people have been killed in 200 clashes with police that involved weapons. The data does not give details of the circumstances of the shootings.
A senior police official, who asked not to be identified, said that the majority of those killed were ethnic Pashtuns. Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun borderlands have been a hotbed of Islamist militancy in recent decades.
Militant policy
Pakistani police refer to any armed clash with suspects as an “encounter.” Some human rights activists and families of victims have for years alleged that such incidents are often staged to cover up extrajudicial killings.
Anwar told Reuters that armed operations to kill suspects were official police policy in Sindh Province, of which Karachi is the capital, to combat the threat from militants.
“There was an on-going official policy ... for carrying out encounters to take out criminals and I have broken no law,” he said.
The provincial police chief denied there was such a policy.
“I don’t need to respond to irresponsible allegations,” Inspector General of Sindh police Allah Dino Khawaja said in a brief text message in reply to Reuters’ questions. “He has to appear before the investigation to defend and prove his claims.”
Sindh police said in a statement on Jan. 20 it had launched an inquiry “to ascertain the facts regarding the police encounter in which Naqibullah Mehsud was killed.”
Some campaigners among the sprawling city’s Pashtun community say the story is not unusual. But it is the first to receive nationwide attention — in part because Mehsud, known as Naqib, does not fit the image of the militant from Pakistan’s lawless northern heartlands.
“He had a passion for wearing good clothes ... even in the picture of his body circulating on social media, he is seen wearing good clothes,” his cousin Noor Rehman told Reuters, while holding back tears.
Another senior police officer said no evidence linking Naqib to militancy had been found.
“His particulars were checked in all the criminal databases of police and nothing came up,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Pakistan’s chief justice on Tuesday summoned Anwar to appear for questioning at its first hearing this weekend. Earlier that day, he was not allowed to board a flight leaving Pakistan for Dubai, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency said.
Anwar told Reuters he does not plan to appear before the court. He said his children are studying in Dubai and he frequently visits.
Target group
Pashtuns are Pakistan’s second largest ethnic group, and many have moved to the country’s big cities to escape violence along the Afghan border.
But since the emergence of the Pakistani Taliban, whose leadership also comes from the Mehsud tribe in South Waziristan, Pashtuns who spoke to Reuters in Karachi say they are all now seen as potential militants.
“This is not just about the fact that police are killing people, it is about racial profiling,” Jibran Nasir, a human rights lawyer who said he was filing a petition with the Senate’s human rights committee, told Reuters.
“Naqib had a very public profile. Looking at pictures of Naqib modelling ... no one is willing to believe he had anything to do with Taliban. The problem here is not every Pashtun killed and profiled here is a model.”
Figures posted by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on its website show 1,226 people were killed in 784 police encounters nationwide in the past two years.
In the days after Mehsud was killed, thousands of activists and Pashtun students staged protests in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad and Quetta.
In Sohrab Goth, the majority Pashtun suburb of Karachi where Naqib’s family live, three families told Reuters they had lost relatives in such incidents.
Reuters was shown death certificates and newspaper clippings, but was not able to independently confirm the circumstances of their deaths.
Sohail Anwer Sial, home minister in the Sindh provincial government whose department is responsible for the police, said the authorities were taking action over the Mehsud case, but that one or two incidents did not mean the entire police force was corrupt.
“The same police force ... eradicated violence from the city during Karachi operation’, which began in 2013 against militants,” he said. “One person’s actions cannot be allowed to malign the system.”
Pakistan police killing of a Pashtun youth fuels anger over “encounters“
Pakistan police killing of a Pashtun youth fuels anger over “encounters“
Canadian university teachers warned against traveling to the United States
- The Canadian government recently updated its US travel advisory, warning residents they may face scrutiny from border guards and the possibility of detention if denied entry
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia: The association that represents academic staff at Canadian universities is warning its members against non-essential travel to the United States.
The Canadian Association of University Teachers released updated travel advice Tuesday due to the “political landscape” created by President Donald Trump’s administration and reports of some Canadians encountering difficulties crossing the border.
The association says academics who are from countries that have tense diplomatic relations with the United States, or who have themselves expressed negative views about the Trump administration, should be particularly cautious about US travel.
Its warning is particularly targeted to academics who identify as transgender or “whose research could be seen as being at odds with the position of the current US administration.”
In addition, the association says academics should carefully consider what information they have, or need to have, on their electronic devices when crossing the border, and take actions to protect sensitive information.
Reports of foreigners being sent to detention or processing centers for more than seven days, including Canadian Jasmine Mooney, a pair of German tourists, and a backpacker from Wales, have been making headlines since Trump took office in January.
The Canadian government recently updated its US travel advisory, warning residents they may face scrutiny from border guards and the possibility of detention if denied entry.
Crossings from Canada into the United States dropped by about 32 percent, or by 864,000 travelers, in March compared to the same month a year ago, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection. Many Canadians are furious about Trump’s annexation threats and trade war but also worried about entering the US
David Robinson, executive director of the university teachers association, said that the warning is the first time his group has advised against non-essential US travel in the 11 years he’s worked with them.
“It’s clear there’s been heightened scrutiny of people entering the United States, and … a heightened kind of political screening of people entering the country,” said Robinson, whose association represents 70,000 teachers, librarians, researchers, general staff and other academic professionals at 122 universities and colleges.
Robinson said the group made the decision after taking legal advice in recent weeks. He said lawyers told them that US border searches can compromise confidential information obtained by academics during their research.
He said the association will keep the warning in place until it sees “the end of political screening, and there is more respect for confidential information on electronic devices.”
Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, aid official says
- More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20 percent from 2024
Afghan children will die because of US funding cuts, an aid agency official said Tuesday.
The warning follows the cancelation of foreign aid contracts by President Donald Trump’s administration, including to Afghanistan where more than half of the population needs humanitarian assistance to survive.
Action Against Hunger initially stopped all US-funded activities in March after the money dried up suddenly. But it kept the most critical services going in northeastern Badakhshan province and the capital Kabul through its own budget, a measure that stopped this month.
Its therapeutic feeding unit in Kabul is empty and closing this week. There are no patients, and staff contracts are ending because of the US funding cuts.
“If we don’t treat children with acute malnutrition there is a very high risk of (them) dying,” Action Against Hunger’s country director, Cobi Rietveld, told The Associated Press. “No child should die because of malnutrition. If we don’t fight hunger, people will die of hunger. If they don’t get medical care, there is a high risk of dying. They don’t get medical care, they die.”
More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20 percent from 2024. Decades of conflict — including the 20-year US war with the Taliban — as well as entrenched poverty and climate shocks have contributed to the country’s humanitarian crisis.
Last year, the United States provided 43 percent of all international humanitarian funding to Afghanistan.
Rietveld said there were other nongovernmental organizations dealing with funding cuts to Afghanistan. “So when we cut the funding, there will be more children who are going to die of malnutrition.”
The children who came to the feeding unit often could not walk or even crawl. Sometimes they were unable to eat because they didn’t have the energy. All the services were provided free of charge, including three meals a day.
Rietveld said children would need to be referred to other places, where there was less capacity and technical knowledge.
Dr. Abdul Hamid Salehi said Afghan mothers were facing a crisis. Poverty levels among families meant it was impossible to treat severely malnourished children in private clinics.
“People used to come to us in large numbers, and they are still hoping and waiting for this funding to be found again or for someone to sponsor us so that we can resume our work and start serving patients once more.”
Magnitude 5.6 earthquake strikes Hindu Kush region, Afghanistan, EMSC says
- EMSC first reported the quake at a magnitude of 6.4
KABUL: An earthquake of magnitude 5.6 struck the Hindu Kush region in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) said.
The quake was at a depth of 121 km (75 miles), EMSC said, and the epicenter 164 km east of Baghlan, a city with a population of about 108,000.
EMSC first reported the quake at a magnitude of 6.4.
US plans to use tariff negotiations to isolate China, WSJ reports
- US officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries and prevent Chinese firms from being located in their territories to avoid US tariffs
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure US trading partners to limit their dealings with China, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday citing people with knowledge of the conversations.
US officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries and prevent Chinese firms from being located in their territories to avoid US tariffs, the report added.
UNICEF projects 20 percent drop in 2026 funding after US cuts
- UNICEF has implemented some efficiency measures but “more cost-cutting steps will be required,” said the spokesperson
UNITED NATIONS: UNICEF has projected that its 2026 budget will shrink by at least 20 percent compared to 2024, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency said on Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump slashed global humanitarian aid.
In 2024, UNICEF had a budget of $8.9 billion and this year it has an estimated budget of $8.5 billion. The funding for 2025 is “evolving,” the UNICEF spokesperson said.
“The last few weeks have made clear that humanitarian and development organizations around the world, including many UN organizations, are in the midst of a global funding crisis. UNICEF has not been spared,” said the spokesperson.
UNICEF did not specifically name the US, but Washington has long been the agency’s largest donor, contributing more than $800 million in 2024. Since UNICEF was established in 1946, all its executive directors have been American.
“At the moment, we are working off preliminary projections that our financial resources will be, at a minimum, 20 percent less, organization wide, in 2026 compared to 2024,” said the UNICEF spokesperson.
Since returning to office in January for a second term, Trump’s administration has cut billions of dollars in foreign assistance in a review that aimed to ensure programs align with his “America First” foreign policy.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week that it will cut 20 percent of its staff as it faces a shortfall of $58 million, after its largest donor, the United States, cut funding.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also last month said he is seeking ways to improve efficiency and cut costs as the world body turns 80 this year amid a cash crisis.
UNICEF has implemented some efficiency measures but “more cost-cutting steps will be required,” said the spokesperson.
“We are looking at every aspect of our operation, including staffing, with the goal of focusing on what truly matters for children: that children survive and thrive,” the spokesperson said. “But no final decisions have been taken.”
