Pakistan finance minister Dar put forward as leader of caretaker government
The move is aimed at helping with continuity of economic reforms under an IMF deal
Pakistan secured the badly needed $3 billion short-term financial package last month
Updated 24 July 2023
Reuters
ISLAMABAD: One of the main parties in Pakistan’s ruling coalition has proposed that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar lead the incoming caretaker government, party sources said, a move aimed at helping with continuity of economic reforms under an IMF deal.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) put forward Dar’s name to its coalition partners, said the sources who were not authorized to speak to media and declined to be identified. An agreement has yet to be reached, said one of the sources.
“We think he could be the best bet to continue with the economic reforms agreed with the IMF,” a PML-N member told Reuters.
Pakistan secured a badly-needed $3 billion short-term financial package from the IMF last month, a much-awaited respite as it teeters on the brink of default.
When asked about the proposal by Reuters, Dar said only: “Let’s wait.”
Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb did not respond to a request for comment.
Local media have reported that the ruling coalition will dissolve parliament on Aug. 8, after which the caretaker government will have 90 days to hold a general election.
The ruling coalition replaced former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s administration after he lost a parliamentary vote of confidence in April 2022, having lost favor with the country’s powerful military. The military denies having a role in his ouster.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said that having Dar helm the caretaker government would mean it could not be impartial.
“If Ishaq Dar is to be made a caretaker prime minister, then there will be no elections but only a selection,” said PTI spokesman Farrukh Habib.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said on Tuesday Islamabad would not be the first to strike India despite heightened tensions following a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, though it would respond forcefully to any escalatory move by its eastern neighbor.
India has blamed Pakistan for the April 22 assault in the Pahalgam area of the disputed Himalayan region that left 26 tourists dead, an allegation Islamabad has categorically rejected.
In the aftermath, New Delhi suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) and expelled Pakistani diplomats. The latter move was reciprocated by the administration in Islamabad, though it also called for a “neutral” international investigation into the Pahalgam incident.
Dar, who also serves as his country’s foreign minister, shared the details of Pakistan’s diplomatic outreach while addressing the Senate earlier today.
“As of now, we’ve spoken to the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, the United Kingdom, Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Hungary — except in the case of Qatar, where I spoke directly to the prime minister,” Dar told lawmakers.
“I walked them through what happened — India’s psyche, its history and our concerns about what intentions it may have in light of that history,” he continued.
Dar said Pakistan’s intelligence indicated that India was contemplating some form of escalation.
“We will not be the first one [to strike],” he said. “But if India does it, then this time there will be no tit-for-tat. Our response will be stronger than the Indian action.”
Referring to the 2019 Pulwama attack that killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel and was blamed on a Pakistan-based militant group, the Pakistani deputy prime minister noted that New Delhi had used the incident as a pretext to revoke Article 370 of its constitution, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
The region was subsequently absorbed into India’s union territory framework, a move Pakistan has repeatedly condemned.
Dar also claimed that India had been attempting to alter the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, which determines the river water sharing mechanism between both countries, for the past two years, citing changing circumstances.
“I have my doubt, much like other people, that this drama was staged to suspend this treaty,” he said while referring to the Pahalgam attack.
“We obviously don’t have evidence that they have staged this drama,” he continued. “What we do say with full confidence is that Pakistan has nothing to do with this [attack].”
Dar also applauded China and Türkiye for expressing clear support for Pakistan since the crisis began.
Detained Pakistan rights activist ends hunger strike
Mahrang Baloch, 32, was arrested last month on charges of terrorism, sedition and murder
The judiciary has declined to rule on Baloch’s detention for over a month, halting any appeal
Updated 24 min 6 sec ago
AFP
QUETTA: Jailed activist Mahrang Baloch, a leading campaigner for Pakistan’s Baloch minority, has ended a hunger strike after a court asked authorities to justify her detention, her lawyer told AFP on Tuesday.
Mahrang Baloch, 32, was arrested last month on charges of terrorism, sedition and murder.
Security forces are battling a growing insurgency in her native Balochistan, an impoverished province that borders Afghanistan and Iran.
Rights groups say the violence has been countered with a severe crackdown that has swept up innocent people.
Mahrang and four other detained activists from her organization, the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), had stopped eating on Thursday in protest against alleged misconduct by police and ill-treatment the activists claim to have been subjected to in detention.
The judiciary has declined to rule on Mahrang’s detention for more than a month, effectively halting any appeal and placing the matter solely in the hands of the provincial government.
But the Balochistan High Court agreed on Monday to consider an application to overturn her administrative detention, her lawyer Imran Baloch told AFP. Mahrang’s detention was renewed for a second month a week ago.
“Petition got admitted by high court and notices were issued to government,” the lawyer said, adding that a hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.
Mahrang and the other activists agreed to end their hunger strike after meeting with her family and lawyers on Monday, Imran Baloch said.
A group of 13 UN human rights experts expressed concern on Tuesday over the detention of BYC leaders and their supporters.
“Pakistan appears to conflate legitimate human and minority rights advocacy and public demonstrations with terrorism, threatening freedoms of expression, assembly, and association,” the independent experts, who are appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, said in a statement.
They also noted the ban on several Baloch activists from leaving the country, which includes Mahrang.
A dozen UN experts called on Pakistan last month to immediately release Baloch rights advocates, including Mahrang, and to end the repression of their peaceful protests.
For two decades, members of the Baloch minority have denounced extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests in Balochistan — Pakistan’s most resource-rich province, where 70 percent of inhabitants are poor.
Pakistani authorities say the accusations are unfounded.
Insurgents in Balochistan accuse outsiders of plundering the province’s natural resources and launched a dramatic train siege in March, during which officials said about 60 people were killed.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Monday dismissed India’s accusation about an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, saying “no shred of evidence” had been shared by New Delhi even after a week of the killing of over two dozen tourists in Pahalgam.
New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing the deadliest attack in Indian-administered Kashmir since 2000 that killed 26 tourists on April 22. Islamabad has denied the Indian claims. Both countries have announced a series of punitive measures against each other amid heightened tensions over the attack.
Last week, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the tragic incident in Pahalgam was yet another example of New Delhi’s “perpetual blame game” that must come to a halt, adding that Islamabad was “open to participate in any neutral, transparent and credible investigation.”
On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, a spokesman of the Pakistani military, briefed local and foreign media journalists in Islamabad about the situation after the Pahalgam attack, describing the Indian allegations against Pakistan as “baseless.”
“Seven days have passed since Pahalgam incident, but so far, there has been no shred of evidence that has been provided to support the baseless allegations being made against Pakistan,” he said.
A day after the attack, India suspended the World Bank-mediated Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 that ensures water for 80 percent of Pakistani farms, saying it would last until “Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.” Islamabad described India’s move as an “act of war” and closed the Pakistani airspace for India airlines among other tit-for-tat moves.
Tensions remain heightened between the two nuclear-armed neighbors amid fears that India may conduct limited airstrikes or special forces raids near its border with Pakistan. There have also been reports of crossfire between the two border forces along their de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region.
Chaudhry said there would be a detailed briefing into the post-Pahalgam attack situation and that India had mobilized a “terror network inside Pakistan, in which explosives, IEDs and other materials are being provided to terrorists to target not only [Pakistani] military but innocent civilians.”
The military spokesman showed purported audio clips, screenshots of WhatsApp conversations between Indian handlers of the network and their operatives in Pakistan as well as receipts of payment transfers, which could not be independently verified.
Pakistan and India have fought multiple wars, including two of them over Kashmir, since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both rule the region in part but claim it in full.
Amid heightened tensions, the United Nations (UN) and several countries, including China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt, have called on both sides to exercise restraint and resolve the latest crisis through dialogue.
Kashmiris fortify bunkers, bracing for clashes between Pakistan and India
1.5 million residents live along de facto border, relying on bunkers and homemade shelters to weather perennial bouts of unrest
India says its army has been exchanging fire with Pakistani military for the past five days as both countries remain on edge
Updated 29 April 2025
AFP
CHAKOTHI, Pakistan: Pulling logs and dusty building materials from a storage bunker outside his home in Kashmir, Riaz Awan readied the underground space to house his family as they braced for clashes between Pakistan and India to reach their border village.
Kashmiris living on both sides of the de facto border — the Line of Control — have been caught in the barrage of shells and bullets for decades as the nuclear-armed archrivals fight over the disputed region.
The long history of clashes has pushed many residents to build bunkers for shelter should their homes be caught in the crossfire.
“We’ve endured cross-border firing, which has been a tough experience, and we don’t want our children to go through the same,” Awan, a 51-year-old farmer, told AFP as he and his children cleared the bunker that had until recently stored straw.
This photograph taken on April 27, 2025 shows a family laying carpets inside an underground bunker in the Chakothi village of Azad Kashmir, about 3kms from the Line of Control (LoC). (AFP)
In Chakothi village, around three kilometers (two miles) from the Line of Control, there are around 30 bunkers for a community of 60 families overlooked by Indian army check posts atop the surrounding green mountains.
Awan and his cousin Shabbir share the bunker they built in 2017, which cost them 300,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,000) — a substantial amount in their impoverished village.
But they pulled together the funds to pay for safety.
A militant attack last week killed 26 people in Indian-administrated Kashmir, the worst attack on civilians in a Muslim-majority region in a quarter of a century.
India blamed the attack on Pakistan and accused it of “cross-border terrorism,” a charge Islamabad vehemently denied.
In response, New Delhi and Islamabad downgraded diplomatic ties, withdrew visas and announced the closure of the main land border. India has also suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that governs the sharing of river water between the two nations.
India says that its army has been exchanging fire with the Pakistani army for the past five days as both countries remain on edge, bracing for a potential military confrontation.
“Every day, India makes various threats, saying they will do this and that,” said 52-year-old retired soldier Shabbir Awan.
“That is why we are cleaning these bunkers today, so that if needed, we can use them and make our lives safer.”
This photograph taken on April 27, 2025 shows a family walking out an underground bunker in the Chakothi village of Azad Kashmir, about 3kms from the Line of Control (LoC). (AFP)
“NO PROPER SHELTER”
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in full but govern separate portions of it.
Rebel groups have waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan
Ridges and valleys intersected by the Line of Control host tens of thousands of heavily armed troops, with some rival outposts just a few dozen meters apart.
The Pakistan military says about 1.5 million residents live along the ceasefire line, long relying on a network of community bunkers and homemade shelters to weather the perennial bouts of unrest.
An average underground bunker is around 2.5 meters deep, 3.5 meters wide and 3.5 meters long. Those who can afford it reinforce all four sides with concrete, while others simply use mud walls.
“Our main concern is the safety of our children, protecting them is our biggest priority,” said Saleema Bibi, a 40-year-old mother of four.
This photograph taken on April 27, 2025 shows local children walking past their houses that comprise of underground bunkers in the Chakothi village of Azad Kashmir, about 3kms from the Line of Control (LoC). (AFP)
In 2017, “they even hit directly on top of our houses,” she told AFP.
“We have no proper shelter or protection. We are living here — where else can we go?” she said.
Naseema Bibi, a 46-year-old mother of four, owns a cow and two buffalos, making it hard for her to leave.
“We have livestock. We can’t move anywhere,” she said. So she is also working to clear a bunker.
“We are around eight families and it is difficult to adjust in one bunker,” she told AFP.
“But children get panicked so we are concerned because of them.”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan told the United Nations on Monday it had “credible evidence” that a deadly attack on a passenger train in its southwestern region last month was externally sponsored, as it called for stronger global efforts to hold perpetrators behind such incidents accountable.
The statement referred to the March hostage-taking on the Jaffer Express passenger train in Balochistan province, which lasted about 36 hours before security forces launched an operation that killed more than 30 militants from the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).
Pakistan’s decision to highlight the passenger train incident at the world body came at a time when tensions remain high in the region following the killing of 26 tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir last week, an attack India blamed on Pakistan, despite Islamabad’s categorical denial.
“Just last month, Pakistan suffered a heinous terrorist attack by the BLA on Jaffar Express passenger train, which included the taking of hostages in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, which resulted in the loss of at least 30 innocent Pakistani nationals,” Jawad Ajmal, Counsellor at Pakistan’s UN Mission, said at the launch of the Victims of Terrorism Association Network at the UN. “Pakistan has credible evidence that this attack had external sponsorship from our adversaries in the region.”
Ajmal stressed the international community must do more to support survivors of such militant attacks and the families of victims whose lives are permanently altered after such developments.
He urged a collective approach to prevent future attacks, emphasizing the need to hold militants and their backers accountable without political selectivity.
“If we are to chart a way forward for victims, we must look beyond narrow political interests and geopolitical agendas,” he said. “We must examine why, despite global strategies, terrorism threats continue to proliferate and give rise to an ever-increasing number of victims.”
Commenting on the recent attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, Ajmal said Pakistan extended condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.
He noted that Pakistan joined other UN Security Council members in condemning the attack.
The Pakistani diplomat added that his country was one of the worst victims of militant violence over the past two decades and had lost more than 80,000 lives to it.
He paid tribute to the families of his country’s law enforcement and armed forces personnel who had made “countless sacrifices” to defend the nation.
