In ancient Pakistani town, ‘healing’ hot springs bring hope

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Fatima Baloch, a long serving woman guard at Mama Bath, says she has witnessed patients healing in the baths during her 55 years in service. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo) 
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Amjad Ali (left) buys a ticket for his sister at Mama Bath, the only functional hot springs at Manghopir, Karachi on Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)
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Abdullah Khan, a believer in the hot springs’ healing powers, poses with a bottle of water from Mama Bath to send for a relative in his faraway hometown of Hangu town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)
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Madeshwar Mahadev Mandir, a Hindu temple built in 1896, is believed to be among the oldest existing places of worship in the area, a few hundred yards inside the boundary of the leprosy hospital of Manghopir. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)
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A view of Sultanabad from the shrine of Manghopir. Sultanabad was a Taliban stronghold in 2013, where the Wali-ur-Rehman faction of the Pakistani Taliban set up a multipurpose office. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)
Updated 25 November 2019
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In ancient Pakistani town, ‘healing’ hot springs bring hope

  • For centuries, people have believed Manghopir’s sulfur springs can cure skin and other diseases
  • The ancient town has seen disease, poverty and recent violence when it became temporary Taliban stronghold in 2013

KARACHI: Two years ago, Abdullah Khan, his skin ridden with infection, arrived from Hangu town in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to Pakistan’s seaside metropolis of Karachi to be cured.

But Khan didn’t travel the length of the country to see a credible skin doctor in the megacity, home to state of the art hospitals and medical experts. Instead, he went straight to Manghopir- an ancient 13th-century town that gained notoriety as a Taliban stronghold in 2013. 




A board hanging near Manghopir’s hot spring reads “Black soil to heal itches, rashes and allergies is available at the shop. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)

However, Manghopir owes its most lasting fame to its hot sulfur springs, which, legend has it, have miraculous healing powers that can cure most diseases of the skin.

For Khan, the springs worked their magic, and he said he was cured soon after bathing in their waters.

“I healed and then I stayed back here for work. When my relatives have skin problems now, I say board the bus and come to Manghopir!” Khan told Arab News. A few minutes later, he introduced a relative, Khattab Jan, a partially recovered stroke survivor. 




A group of men take a bath in Manghopir’s ‘healing’ hot springs as women wait for their turn outside Mama Bath on Nov 23, 2019. This is the only functional spring as other springs have dried up due to the pumping of underground water (AN Photo)   

“After a bath or two, his arm will work fully,” Khan said with confidence, as a hopeful Jan nodded beside him at the entrance to Mama Bath.

Mama bath is one of the Manghopir’s six hot sulfur springs, but it is the only functional one, and every year for centuries, patients of stroke, leprosy and skin diseases from Afghanistan, Iran, and parts of Pakistan have thronged here to take a dip in its waters to heal themselves.

 “In 1896, Dr. B.L. Roy, a Bengali alongside some British doctors came here for a picnic and they were astonished to see so many lepers of then British India, Iran and Afghanistan, laying on the grounds around the hot springs, hoping for a cure,” a Manghopir local, Noor Islam said, citing a book on the town.




Muhammad Asal, (left) who is admitted at the KMC Leprosy Hospital in Manghopir Karachi, says he first came to the health facility during the India Pakistan war of 1965. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)

“The doctors decided to raise funds and open a hospital for lepers,” he said.

It is hard to tell whether the stories surrounding the waters are folklore or whether there is any truth to them-- but it is certain that for the locals of Manghopir, the hot sulfur springs are a miracle of God thriving in their small town ridden with disease and poverty, and still reeling from the violence of the Taliban.

“This water belongs to Allah, who has kept in it Shifa (healing) for patients,” Fatima Baloch, a woman guard at the springs for the last 55 years, told Arab News. “I was a young girl when I joined it... I have seen people healing fast,” she said. 




The Hiranand Leper hospital, now called KMC Leprosy Hospital, was established in 1896 by Dr B.L. Roy when him and some British doctors visited the hot springs for a picnic and saw the lepers laying at the ground near the springs, hoping for a cure. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)

“People have come in on wheelchairs and have gone back on foot,” she said.

Amjad Ali, from the Liaquatabad neighborhood of Karachi, took his sister to the springs on Saturday in hopes she might be healed of a skin infection. 

“We showed her to the doctors,” Ali said. “Someone suggested she should take a bath in Manghopir’s springs... so here we are.”




The Kutchi Memon Musafarkhana (guesthouse) built in 1939 to facilitate visitors from Afghanistan, Iran and far flung areas of Pakistan, who travelled to the hot springs for healing baths. The guesthouse is now on the verge of collapse. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo)
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“This does miracles. We are hopeful,” he said.

However, medical experts said patients with skin diseases who relied solely on the hot springs for treatment, needed proper medical checkups.

“The springs have been an attraction for patients for centuries,” Dr. Asif Usman Shaikh, a medical superintendent at KMC Leprosy hospital, told Arab News. “Maybe the water can heal some. But all skin related diseases can’t be healed with sulfur water,” he said. 




The bath, inaugurated in 1920, is officially named after J.R. Martin, ‘collector of Karachi’ in recognition of services rendered and interest taken by him in the development and improvement of Manghopir and the baths. Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo) 

“Leprosy patients can have skin diseases, but leprosy is not a skin disease,” Shaikh said and added that there was a lack of awareness and a misconception regarding the disease that the founding doctors of the leprosy hospital had hoped to address. 

“For (other) skin patients, the springs may be therapeutic, but a proper investigation by a skin doctor is mandatory,” he said. 

Now, a rising population and the excess pumping up of water to meet the needs of a rising population are leading to the last remaining hot spring of Manghopir showing signs of drying up-- with five before it already relegated to the pools of history.

“Even today, a large number of people – between 200 to 300 people– come from different parts of Pakistan (to the springs). On Saturday and Sunday, that number can reach 500 people,” Mehroz Rind, the caretaker whose family has looked after the springs for the last 70 years, told Arab News.




A church, mosque and Hindu temple behind the church [not pictures] depicts values of interfaith harmony among the community of lepers. “Even Taliban, who would summon courts in Sultanabad, a settlement a little over a kilometer away from the leprosy hospital, couldn’t disturb the interfaith harmony among the followers of Islam, Christianity and Hinduism,” Noor Islam, a local, told Arab News on Nov 23, 2019 (AN Photo) 

Arab News could not independently verify that number.

He added: “But well-drilling due to a sprawling population is drying the natural springs up.”

“We charge Rs. 20 ($0.13) as determined by the Karachi district council, but this meager amount is not a source of earnings. We just hope the water will continue to benefit the people,” Rind said.

“For them, we pray the springs stay alive,” he said, looking worriedly around at the throngs of people heading to the water, hoping for a miracle.


Pakistan’s northwestern province urges public to expose proxy ownership, help curb tax evasion

Updated 07 November 2024
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Pakistan’s northwestern province urges public to expose proxy ownership, help curb tax evasion

  • KP chief minister promises 40 percent share to people for identifying ‘benami’ properties in the province
  • CM Gandapur says while addressing a seminar his administration wants to introduce a whistleblower law

PESHAWAR: In an effort to document the economy and broaden the tax net, the chief minister of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province announced Wednesday that attractive rewards would be offered to whistleblowers who assist the government in identifying instances of proxy ownership, locally known as benami properties, in the province.
Benami properties are assets registered under another person’s name to disguise the actual owner’s identity, often used to conceal movable or immovable assets for tax evasion or other purposes.
Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur outlined his plan to introduce a whistleblower law at a seminar on combating drugs in Peshawar aimed at rooting out corruption from the province.
“Anyone providing information in helping the government identify a benami property will get 40 percent share,” he said.
Gandapur maintained people should help out the government, adding they should benefit from the opportunity that his administration was providing.
Pakistan’s tax collection body, the Federal Board of Revenue, announced in 2019 it would confiscate vehicles and properties with proxy ownership, as well as fictitious bank accounts.
The chief minister said public cooperation was crucial to the government, which could not advance without their support.
He also spoke out against the widespread availability and use of drugs in the province.
“The KP government has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs, and we have issued clear directives to relevant departments and institutions to crack down on the drug trade,” he added.
He stressed the government should deal sternly with those involved in drug trafficking. Gandapur described the drug trade as a heinous crime and vowed to impose exemplary punishment on those engaged in it.
“During our tenure, we have rehabilitated 2,400 drug users, including individuals from other provinces and even Afghan nationals,” he said, adding that the rehabilitation program would continue until drug users take control of their lives and become responsible citizens.


Bomb and mortar attacks in northwest Pakistan kill four security officers, two schoolchildren

Updated 07 November 2024
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Bomb and mortar attacks in northwest Pakistan kill four security officers, two schoolchildren

  • Pakistan has launched dozens of operations against militants, but they continue to carry out attacks
  • The bomb attack took place in South Waziristan while the children were killed by a mortar in Tirah valley

PESHAWAR: A roadside bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying security forces in northwestern Pakistan, killing four officers and wounding five others, officials said Thursday, while two schoolchildren also lost their lives when a mortar exploded nearby elsewhere in the region.

The roadside bombing happened Wednesday in South Waziristan district, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, local police officer Dilawar Khan said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, has stepped up its assaults in the region since its ally the Afghan Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.

Later the same day, a mortar fired by insurgents landed near a road in the Tirah valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday, killing two schoolchildren who was going to school on foot, police said.

The Pakistani military has launched dozens of operations against the Pakistani Taliban and other insurgents in South Waziristan and other former tribal regions nearby, but the militants continue to carry out frequent attacks.

On Thursday, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met with Chinese ambassador Jiang Zaidong in Islamabad to brief him about an investigation into an attack Tuesday in which a guard shot and wounded two Chinese nationals at a textile mill in the port city of Karachi, allegedly over a private dispute.

China has frequently demanded better security for its nationals who are in Pakistan to work for Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.


Pakistan condemns Israeli efforts against operations of UN agency for Palestinian refugees

Updated 07 November 2024
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Pakistan condemns Israeli efforts against operations of UN agency for Palestinian refugees

  • Israel’s parliament voted last month to ban UNRWA from operating within Israel and occupied East Jerusalem
  • Almost all of Gaza’s population of more than two million people are dependent on aid and services from UNRWA

ISLAMABAD: Acting Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, Ambassador Usman Jadoon, has “strongly condemned” Israel’s attempts to dismantle the operations of the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), calling it a part of Israel’s “genocidal campaign” against the people of Palestine.

Israel’s parliament voted last month to ban the UNRWA from operating within Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, crippling its ability to work in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Almost all of Gaza’s population of more than two million people are dependent on aid and services from the agency.

The move has faced widespread condemnation, with UNRWA warning the new law could see aid supply chains “fall apart” in the coming weeks. Israel has defended the move, repeating its allegation that a number of the agency’s staff were involved in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks last year, which killed 1,200 people.

“The adoption of the law by the Israeli parliament [is] a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international law, provisional measures set by the International Court of Justice, and the ICJ’s advisory opinion issued on July 19,” Jadoon said while speaking at a UN General Assembly meeting, calling on the international community, in particular the UN Security Council, to hold Israel accountable for its actions and ensure unimpeded operations of UNRWA.

Jadoon demanded a stop to the “demonization and delegitimization” of UNRWA.

“By targeting the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, Israel not only obstructs vital humanitarian assistance but also threatens the collective effort to uphold the Palestinian people’s identity, rights and aspirations for justice and peace,” Jadoon added.

Founded in 1949, UNRWA works in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, initially caring for the 700,000 Palestinians who were forced from or fled their homes after the creation of the state of Israel. Over the decades, the agency has grown to become the biggest UN agency operating in Gaza.

Since the war in Gaza began in October last year, the agency says it has distributed food parcels to almost 1.9 million people and also offered nearly six million medical consultations across the enclave over the course of the conflict.

More than 200 UNRWA staff have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 2023 in the course of those duties, according to the agency.
 


Pakistan, China to form joint security strategy following attack on Chinese workers in Karachi

Updated 07 November 2024
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Pakistan, China to form joint security strategy following attack on Chinese workers in Karachi

  • Mohsin Naqvi says ensuring the safety of Chinese citizens and projects is Pakistan’s top priority
  • Chinese envoy maintains Beijing is ready to enhance bilateral security cooperation with Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and China agreed on Thursday to develop a joint security strategy, following an incident where two Chinese nationals suffered gunshot wounds in an attack by a security guard at a factory in Karachi, an official statement said.
An unknown number of Chinese nationals work in Pakistan, primarily as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a multibillion-dollar energy, infrastructure development, and regional connectivity initiative.
Chinese workers have increasingly come under attack in Pakistan in recent years, with notable incidents including a suicide bombing in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that killed five Chinese engineers in March 2024 and an October blast near Karachi’s airport that left two other Chinese nationals dead.
The latest shooting occurred earlier this week, when a Pakistani security guard opened fire at a factory in Karachi, wounding two Chinese employees.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met with Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong to discuss the situation and Pakistan’s response to the rising security risks faced by Chinese nationals.
“We fully agree with China’s vision of integrating development and security,” he was quoted as saying in a statement released by his office after the meeting. “Ensuring the safety of Chinese citizens and projects is our top priority. Those involved in the incident will be brought to justice.”
The interior ministry informed the two officials “agreed to develop a joint strategy to prevent such incidents in the future.”
Ambassador Jiang also underscored the need for a stable environment for ongoing bilateral cooperation and expressed his country’s readiness to strengthen bilateral security ties.
“China is ready to enhance bilateral security cooperation and build the capacities of Pakistani institutions,” he said.
Attacks on Chinese nationals have put the bilateral relations between both states under increasing stress, with the Chinese envoy previously calling such incidents “unacceptable” publicly.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif personally visited the Chinese embassy in Islamabad on Wednesday to offer sympathies to the families of the Chinese who got injured in the recent shooting incident.
Pakistan and China have been discussing to upgrade CPEC in recent months, hoping to launch yet another phase marked by enhanced business-to-business relationships and further Chinese investment in the country.


Pakistani wife of jailed Kashmiri leader urges Indian politician to debate husband’s imprisonment

Updated 07 November 2024
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Pakistani wife of jailed Kashmiri leader urges Indian politician to debate husband’s imprisonment

  • Mushaal Mullick tells Rahul Gandhi her husband gave up arms to pursue a non-violent freedom struggle
  • Indian authorities are seeking death sentence for Yasin Malik on the basis of a ‘three-decades-old’ case

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani wife of a prominent Kashmiri leader in Indian-administered side of the Himalayan territory wrote Wednesday to opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi, urging him to initiate a parliamentary debate on her husband’s incarceration following his hunger strike at the beginning of this month.
Mushaal Hussein Mullick, former assistant on human rights and women’s empowerment in Pakistan’s last caretaker administration, is married to Yasin Malik, leader of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), who, along with other activists, was incarcerated after India revoked Kashmir’s special constitutional status in August 2019.
She said the Indian authorities had filed a case against him on the basis of a “three-decades-old sedition case” in which they were demanding death sentence for him.
The letter noted this was despite the fact that her husband had long given up arms to fight for freedom struggle, following the path of non-violence which was highlighted by several high-profile Indian officials and journalists themselves.
“I request you to bring to use your high moral and political influence in the Parliament and to initiate a debate in the case of Yasin Malik, who could become an instrument for bringing organic and not cosmetic peace back to the Jammu & Kashmir — paradise on earth,” she wrote.
Mullick said her husband “stood by his end of the bargain,” though the same thing “cannot be said for the Indian state” that did not pay attention to his pleas and “victimized” him under the current Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
Her letter to the Indian opposition leader follows the recent elections in Indian-administered Kashmir in which Gandhi’s allies displayed a good performance while the BJP could not make any impressive electoral gains.
The government in New Delhi has, however, used the polls to suggest that the situation in Kashmir is gradually improving, though the large number of the people of the area have long opposed the Indian rule.