Lead Pakistan

NORTH WAZIRISTAN: Unidentified armed men killed a policeman after he was forcibly taken away along with other worshippers from a mosque in Jailor area of North Waziristan tribal district on Wednesday evening. Sources said a group of masked men entered the mosque and took away a policeman, Safeer Rehman, and few other worshippers. The body of the policeman was found dumped in a deserted area on Thursday, while the other people were freed. The body was shifted to a hospital in Mirali for postmortem. An official said a case had been registered against unknown persons.

  It was the third attack in two months in France that authorities have attributed to Muslim extremists, including the beheading of a teacher. It comes during a growing furor over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were republished by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo — renewing vociferous debate in France and the Muslim world over the depictions that Muslims consider offensive but are protected by French free speech laws. Other confrontations and attacks were reported yesterday in the southern French city of Avignon and in the Saudi city of Jiddah, but it was not immediately clear if they were linked to the attack in Nice. French President Emmanuel Macron said he would immediately increase the number of soldiers deployed to protect schools and religious sites from around 3,000 currently to 7,000. French churches have been ferociously attacked by extremists in recent years, and yesterday's killings come ahead of the Roman Catholic All Saints' holiday. “He cried ‘Allah...

ISLAMABAD: Markets, shopping malls and wedding halls across Pakistan will be closed by 10pm and wearing masks has been made mandatory from tomorrow (Thursday). The NCOC issued a new set of directives, fearing a second wave of the novel coronavirus. In recent days, the COVID-19 positivity rate and number of deaths due to the virus have increased. The NCOC has directed restaurants to close by 10pm whereas public parks and recreational places will not be allowed to remain open after 6pm. The apex body tasked to combat coronavirus further said that wearing masks has been made mandatory for people across the country from tomorrow.

  PESHAWAR: A powerful bomb  blast  ripped through an Islamic seminary on the outskirts of the northwest Pakistani city of  Peshawar  on Tuesday morning, killing at least eight children and wounding 93 others, police and a hospital spokesman said .