Punjab worst affected as floods wreak havoc in Pakistan
Islamabad, Sep 13: As floods continue to ravage towns, villages and large swathes of farmlands across Pakistan, especially the Punjab province, the death toll has increased to 964 since the monsoon rains started, officials said Saturday. Of these deaths, at least 101 people died in the Punjab province in the recent spell of rains with the officials describing the disaster as “the largest in Punjab’s history,” with nearly 5,000 villages inundated and more than 4.57 million people affected and 1,00,000 people evacuated to safer places over the last three days. The massive flood waters have been ravaging southern districts of Punjab province where the situation is still precarious and authorities are struggling to shift people to safer places. (PTI)
Indian-origin man gets life term for mother’s murder in UK
London, Sep 13: A 39-year-old Indian-origin man who killed his mother at her home in Birmingham has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 15 years behind bars before being considered for parole. Surjit Singh had pleaded guilty to killing 76-year-old Mohinder Kaur, who was found to have died of injuries consistent with receiving several blows in September last year. The sentence was handed down at Birmingham Crown Court on Friday, when it emerged that a row over a television remote control led to an intoxicated Singh fatally attacking his mother. Singh, who lived as a carer for his widowed mother at the family home in Soho area of Birmingham, is said to have lost his temper after she criticised him for being intoxicated. Cocaine and alcohol were later detected in his blood following the attack, which he informed a relative about before leaving the home. West Midlands Police said the concerned relative phoned the emergency 999 number after which police officers forced their way into the property, where they found Mohinder Kaur lying on the living room floor. She was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where she was later pronounced dead. Singh later returned to the scene of the attack and was arrested by officers who were still at the house. (PTI)
Israel slams Pakistan at UNSC
United Nations, Sep 13: Pakistan cannot change the fact that Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was sheltered and killed on its soil, Israel has said, as it lashed out at Islamabad in the UN Security Council for its “double standards”. “When bin Laden was eliminated in Pakistan,” Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Danny Danon said, pointing his hand towards Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, “the question asked was not ‘why target a terrorist on foreign soil’?” “No one asked that question. The question was, ‘Why was a terrorist given shelter at all?’ The same question must be asked today. There was no immunity for bin Laden, and there can be no immunity for Hamas,” Danon said. The sharp exchange between the envoys of Israel and Pakistan came on Thursday at a Security Council meeting held to discuss the Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital of Doha. (AP)