Pakistan court indicts Jud chief Hafiz Saeed on terror financing charges
Indictment came ahead of a world financial watchdog meeting early next year
Saeed is also accused of being the mastermind of 2008 Mumbai attacks
Updated 11 December 2019
Reuters
LAHORE: A Pakistani court on Wednesday indicted Hafiz Saeed, chief of proscribed organization Jamat-ud-Dawah, on terror financing charges, a government prosecutor said.
The charges were read as Saeed was present in the court, Abdur Rauf told Reuters.
Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), or the Army of the Pure, a militant group blamed by the United States and India for the four-day Mumbai siege in 2008, in which 160 people were killed. The dead also included several foreigners, including Americans.
Pakistan’s counter terrorism police arrested Saeed in July. The indictment came ahead of a world financial watchdog meeting early next year to decide whether to blacklist Pakistan on failure to curb terror financing.
KARACHI: A new private airline based in Karachi received its Regular Public Transport (RPT) license from Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) last week, one of its key stakeholders confirmed on Monday, expressing hope the carrier would begin operations soon.
Air Karachi, spearheaded by prominent business leaders from Pakistan’s southern port city, is modeled after the success of Air Sial, another airline launched by industrialists in Sialkot.
The idea, conceived amid growing challenges faced by the country’s national carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), is to develop a business-backed airline that can operate with efficiency and financial autonomy.
“Yes, we got the license from CAA,” Hanif Gohar, one of the airline’s shareholders, told Arab News. “We are looking for aircraft and will start with three aircraft soon.”
Gohar said Air Karachi was issued the RPT license by the CAA on June 5.
According to a copy of the approval letter seen by Arab News, the airline has been directed to deposit a license issuance fee of Rs500,000 ($1,750) and a security deposit of Rs100 million ($350,000). It must also raise its paid-up capital to Rs600 million ($2.1 million) before commencing operations, in line with the National Aviation Policy 2023.
Air Karachi has been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and plans to raise Rs5 billion ($17.5 million) by pooling Rs50 million ($175,000) from each of its 100 shareholders.
Last year, Gohar told Arab News the response from Karachi’s business community was so overwhelming that some families proposed contributing as multiple shareholders.
He informed that aviation veteran Air Vice Marshal (r) Imran Qadir had been appointed chief operating officer of the airline, supported by a team of retired Pakistan Air Force officials.
Once operational, Air Karachi will begin domestic flights with three aircraft and later expand its fleet to seven before launching international flights to the Middle East after the mandatory one-year domestic run.
ISLAMABAD: Several works of Islamic calligraphy, landscape art and whirling dervish paintings hung on the walls of the stall while around a dozen students sat bent over canvases while husband and wife duo Azhar Qureshi and Shagufta watched over them.
The scene is from the Knowledge Art Academy, located in a quiet corner between a long row of stalls at Islamabad’s Sunday, or Itwar, Bazaar, a popular spot for the capital city’s middle classes who come for the affordable shopping and to buy used and cheap items.
Here, nestled between toys, crockery and ceramics kiosks, the Knowledge Art Academy, a tin roof supported by wooden sticks, offers art classes at the affordable price of around $12 for three months of lessons.
The teachers are Shagufta and Qureshi, who has a fine arts diploma from Lahore, and has been running the academy for the past 14 years, offering an attractive alternative to pricey art schools in Islamabad.
“Our aim was to start this so that people who are interested in art can easily join our classes,” Shagufta told Arab News at the stall. “Our fee is also very reasonable. Art is a very expensive hobby which not everyone can afford. Since people from all backgrounds come here, that’s why we opted to arrange our setup here.”
Azhar Qureshi (left) poses for Arab News in his art school, Knowledge Art Academy, in Islamabad's Sunday bazaar on May 30, 2025. (AN Photo)
The academy has students ranging from age five to those in their eighties.
“I was interested in learning how to paint,” Zamad Ahmed, a second year intermediate student who attends the academy with his 15-year-old sister Fatima, told Arab News. “But due to affordability I never learned it. But after my mother stumbled upon this place, I knew I had to attend it.”
Another student is Abdul Bari, an 81-year-old retired bank manager, who visits the academy weekly to pursue his passion for Islamic calligraphy.
“After retiring as a bank manager and marrying off my kids, I have been coming here for a year-and-a-half to learn from the maestro himself,” Bari said.
“It has been 1.5 to 2 years that I have come here to learn. I am retired so I come here to spend time, and by the grace of Allah, I have learned a lot from here also.”
“HEALTHY ACTIVITY”
Art schools in Pakistan, particularly those offering undergraduate programs, can be quite expensive, with some institutions charging upwards of $2,500 per year for tuition alone. The National College of Arts (NCA) is a notable example of a public university that offers art programs and has relatively high tuition fees. Other expenses, such as accommodation and transportation, can further contribute to the overall cost of attending art school in Pakistan.
This attracts many to the low-cost Knowledge Art Academy.
Azhar Qureshi (left) poses for Arab News in his art school, Knowledge Art Academy, in Islamabad's Sunday bazaar on May 30, 2025. (AN Photo)
A middle-aged corporate professional who only identified himself by his first name Ijaz said he had admitted his three daughters to the academy so they could do something “productive” during their summer vacations at an affordable price.
“We have come to generate healthy activities for them,” he said. “Rather than sitting at home and wasting time on gadgets, on mobile or watching movies. I just want to generate some healthy activity so that they can learn something.”
While Qureshi said he had received various offers from prestigious art schools and institutions, he was committed to remain focused on his humble setup.
“I’ve even been told to move to a proper building or classroom and teach from there,” Qureshi said. “But that would increase the fees and affect my students who come here to follow their passion. I don’t want to disturb them.”
And his dedication has borne fruit, with several of his students pursuing fine arts formally while others have become art teachers and freelance artists.
Rabiya Noureen, 34, who learnt to paint at the Knowledge Art Academy, now runs her own classes.
“I learned painting from here and now have my own academy,” she said. “Now, my students even take commissioned painting work and earn money.”
Pakistan economy to grow 2.7 percent in FY25, economic survey shows
The government initially targeted 3.6 percent GDP growth, but lowered it last month
Pakistan’s finance chief says the national economy is on an upward trajectory
Updated 09 June 2025
Reuters
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s economy is likely to expand 2.7 percent in the fiscal year ending June 2025 after growing 2.5 percent during the previous year, the government’s economic survey showed on Monday, a day before the country’s federal budget is unveiled.
The government initially targeted 3.6 percent GDP growth, but lowered it to 2.7 percent last month. The IMF expects real GDP to grow by 2.6 percent in FY25 and for the economy to grow 3.6 percent in FY26.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government aims for 4.2 percent GDP growth next year, the country’s planning minister said last week, amid competing priorities, including stimulating investment, maintaining a primary surplus, and managing defense expenditure amid heightened tensions with India.
Pakistan’s central bank, in a bid to encourage growth, cut its policy rate by more than 1,000 basis points in the current fiscal year. Its latest cut last month brought the key rate to 11 percent, resuming an easing cycle that had brought rates down from 22 percent after a brief pause in March.
Pakistan had a current account surplus of $1.9 billion in the July to April period of the current fiscal year compared to a deficit of $200 million in the same period last year, the survey showed.
“Pakistan’s economy has been globally acknowledged for achieving macroeconomic stabilization in the outgoing fiscal year,” Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said in his foreword to the survey.
“Pakistan is consistently advancing on an upward trajectory, built upon investment friendly reforms, enhanced domestic savings, and increased foreign direct investment, with GDP growth projected at 5.7 percent over the medium term,” he said.
The economic survey, a key pre-budget document, comes at a time when Pakistan’s economy is stabilizing but remains fragile as the country navigates reforms under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund program.
Pakistan’s federal budget for the next fiscal year starting July will be released on Tuesday.
The government’s total revenue for the first three quarters of the current year stood at 13.37 trillion rupees, the survey showed.
Increasing revenue to trim the fiscal deficit, a key demand of the IMF program, is considered challenging for Islamabad.
Other key performance indicators mentioned in the economic survey include fiscal deficit at 2.6 percent of GDP during the first three quarters of the fiscal year.
ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari warned on Monday the threshold for war between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan had significantly dropped following last month’s military standoff during an interview with an international news outlet.
India and Pakistan engaged in their most intense military exchange only a few weeks ago, prompting fears of a full-scale war under the nuclear overhang. Over four days, both countries traded missile strikes, drone attacks and air combat before US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire on May 10.
The crisis erupted after a militant assault killed 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan-based elements, a charge Islamabad strongly denied, calling instead for an impartial international investigation.
As the situation escalated, the global community moved quickly to ease tensions and avert the risk of a nuclear confrontation.
“At the moment, the threshold for conflict between India and Pakistan is the lowest than it’s ever been in our history,” Bhutto-Zardari said in an interview with Sky News in London. “We’ve achieved the ceasefire, but we have not achieved peace as it stands today.”
“If there’s a terrorist attack anywhere in India or India-occupied Kashmir, proof or no proof, that means war,” he added. “That’s not a tenable situation. Pakistan believes there needs to be dialog and diplomacy, where we discuss all issues — terrorism, Kashmir, water — and start moving forward.”
Bhutto-Zardari said Pakistan had long advocated peace through dialogue, as he pointed to India’s refusal to engage diplomatically.
He also criticized New Delhi’s position on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a World Bank-brokered agreement signed in 1960 governing water rights over rivers shared by the two countries.
While India has not stopped water flows entirely, he said, it had delayed releases, a tactic, which he noted, could devastate Pakistan’s agricultural output.
“Even a week’s delay in water supply can destroy crops in a country like Pakistan, which depends heavily on agriculture,” he said, warning that any move by India to build new canals or dams on rivers allocated to Pakistan would cross a red line.
“That would be war,” he said.
Bhutto-Zardari further rejected the idea that Pakistan harbored militant groups involved in cross-border militancy, noting the country had taken significant action under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) framework, a global watchdog that monitors money laundering and terrorism financing.
“When I was foreign minister, Pakistan was on the FATF grey list. By the end of my term, we had successfully moved off that list,” he said, calling the removal an endorsement by the international community of Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts.
Responding to Indian claims over the recent Kashmir attack, he reiterated that Pakistan had no role in the incident and challenged New Delhi to present credible evidence if it had any.
“They went to war with a nuclear power and still cannot name a single terrorist involved,” he said. “If India was being honest, we’d know who they were, where they came from, which border crossing they used. These are basic questions that remain unanswered.”
Bhutto-Zardari is currently leading a nine-member Pakistani delegation to various world capitals to present Islamabad’s position on the recent conflict with India.
The delegation held meetings in recent days with representatives of the United Nations, its member states and US officials before arriving in London a day earlier to continue its mission.
KARACHI: A fire broke out at an oil warehouse near Karachi’s Mauripur truck terminal on Monday, rescue officials said, as firefighters continued battling a separate blaze that erupted a day earlier at the city’s Landhi Export Processing Zone and has yet to be fully extinguished.
Karachi, Pakistan’s financial hub, is home to thousands of industrial units but suffers from outdated firefighting infrastructure and lax safety enforcement.
“Fire and rescue teams were dispatched with one ambulance and two fire brigade trucks immediately upon receiving the alert,” Rescue 1122 said in a statement. “Efforts are under way to bring the blaze under control.”
Meanwhile, firefighting operations at the Landhi zone, which began on Sunday, entered their second day, with flames still active inside some of the affected factories.
Authorities said the fire has been partially contained but full extinguishment and cooling may take additional time.
At least five people were injured on Sunday after part of a building collapsed at the industrial site, which houses multiple textile factories, officials confirmed.
The injured were moved to a nearby hospital.
A total of 11 fire brigade trucks and a snorkel were involved in efforts to control the blaze, which were hindered by thick smoke and water shortages in the city of over 20 million.
Hundreds of fire incidents are reported every year in Karachi.
Last November, a shopping mall blaze killed a dozen people.
In April 2023, four firefighters died responding to a garment factory fire, and in 2021, a chemical factory blaze claimed 10 lives.
The deadliest such incident in the city’s history occurred in 2012, when 260 workers were killed in a garment factory fire.