KARACHI: Jamaat-i-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Monday forfeited a Sindh Assembly seat he had won after the February 8 elections over alleged rigging. According to the provisional results released by the Election Commission of Pakistan for the February 8 general elections, Naeem had won from the PS-129 constituency (Karachi Central VIII) with 26,296 votes. Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s (MQM-P) Muaz Muqaddam …

RAWALPINDI: Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmed was released on Saturday as an anti-terrorism court approved bail in a case related to the attack on the office gate of a security agency building. The court mandated a Rs200,000 surety bond from Rashid. The hearing, presided over by Judge Malik Aijaz Asif, proceeded after a recess, addressing the former …

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) stopped the Returning Officer (RO) on Sunday from issuing the final notification for election results of NA-47 and NA-48 Islamabad after PTI-backed candidates Shoaib Shaheen and Ali Bukhari challenged them. The ECP also halted final results for PK-79 and PK-82, following challenges from Taimur Saleem Jhagra and Kamran Bangash – also PTI-backed candidates. …

RAWALPINDI: A militant ringleader was killed during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Khyber district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday, the military’s media affairs wing said. According to a press release issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), security forces conducted an IBO on the reported presence of a “high-profile terrorist”. “During the conduct of operation, after intense fire exchange, high-value …

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, on Sunday replied to a Chinese New Year greeting card from teachers and students of U.S. Lincoln High School, extending their best wishes of the Year of the Dragon. In a greeting card sent to the teachers and students, Xi and Peng invited them to visit China more often, including …

NORTH WAZIRISTAN: Two National Democratic Mov­e­­ment workers were killed and 15 others, including party cha­irman Mohsin Dawar, injured when police allegedly opened fire on a protest in Miramshah Cantonment on Saturday. The protest was being held outside the RO’s office over delayed election results in the National Assembly constituency NA-40, where Mr Dawar was a candidate. NDM’s provincial chairperson Bushra …

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Saturday voiced its surprise over the international critique of the way elections were conducted, emphasising that such criticisms overlook the intricate nature of holding polls in the country. “We are surprised by the negative tone of some of these statements, which neither take into account the complexity of the electoral process, nor acknowledge the free …

ISLAMABAD: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court to bind the elected independent candidates to join a political party within three days of the official notification of their victory. The petition has been filed two days after the general elections, the unofficial result of which shows PTI-backed independent candidates in clear majority in the National, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies …

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Pr­im­e Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has expressed his best wishes and prayed for political and economic stability of Pakistan, adding that he anticipated a coalition government, but it was up to the political parties to negotiate. He said voters exercised their constitutional rights in the general elections, and by and large, “they voted for their favorite candidates despite …

ISLAMABAD: President Arif Alvi on Saturday stressed digitalising the voting process and, without naming any person or authority, said that the country could have been saved from the current election results controversy if the EVMs had been in place. “Remember ‘our’ long struggle for Electronic Voting Mac­hines. EVM had paper ballots that could be counted separately by hand (like it …