Story Highlights
By-Polls Follow Up
Local body elections in Punjab last month were followed by controversies and allegations of rigging. After losing National Assembly seat from NA- 122 in Lahore, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf accused ruling party of rigging and demanded Election Commission to initiate probe. Meanwhile this week when PTI chief Imran Khan requested to meet Chief Election Commissioner Justice (r) Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan, he turned down Imran Khan’s request citing a busy schedule. According to reports the PTI chief was to provide the CEC evidence of alleged rigging in the NA-122 by-polls during the requested meeting. PTI spokesman confirmed that the CEC had declined the meeting request, citing shortage of time, and has, instead, asked the party to submit a written memorandum.
In a close contest, ruling party PML-N’s Sardar Ayaz Sadiq had retained his NA-122 Lahore seat by defeating PTI’s Abdul Aleem Khan in the by-election last month. Following the by-polls, the PTI alleged that a large number of votes from NA-122 constituency were transferred to other constituencies or even deleted from the voter lists. The party wrote to the ECP to obtain the computerised voter lists used for the by-polls on October 11.
War Against Terrorism
In a recent terror activity in the country, a local tribal journalist, Dr Zaman Mehsud, was killed when unidentified gunmen opened fire on his vehicle in Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this week. According to media reports two motorcycle-riding armed men opened fire on his car, leaving him seriously injured. He was rushed to the hospital where he succumbed to injuries. A faction of Taliban claimed the responsibility of the attack later.
Meanwhile Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other senior ministers where they discussed matters of bilateral defence and security cooperation. They also re-emphasized the need to join hands to eliminate the menace of terrorism. General Raheel Sharif was on a two-day official visit to Saudi Arabia, days after a contingent of Special Forces of Saudi Arabia left for home after completing Pak–Saudi Joint Training Exercise, Al – Shihab. The exercise focused on counter-terrorism training of the special operation forces of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia which included cordon and search operations and heli lifting of Special Forces for operations against terrorists.
Lahore Factory Collapse
In a tragic incident in Lahore, a four-storey under-construction factory collapsed in Sundar Industrial area on Wednesday with over a 100 workers still buried inside the rubble. Over 40 workers are reported to have killed but the death toll is expected to rise.
Rescuers have pulled more than 100 survivors and are searching for dozens of others who are still trapped. The factory manufactured shopping bags and was a three-storey building, while the fourth storey was currently under construction. According to media reports as many as 200 workers were inside the building when it collapsed.
Meanwhile police claimed they were making all-out efforts to arrest the owner of the factory. However, some reports said that the owner too had been killed in the tragic incident. Soldiers and rescuers in Lahore were carefully cutting through steel and using cranes to lift the debris of the building in a bid to find people still alive, with survivors saying that many of the workers had been children. The cause of the collapse is currently not clear.
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