India rejects Pakistan army claim it was behind deadly attack
India has rejected allegations by Pakistan that militants backed by Delhi were behind a deadly car bomb attack that killed at least 13 soldiers on Saturday.Pakistani officials said a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a military convoy in the north-western tribal region of Pakistan's North Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan.Dismissing Pakistan's accusation, spokesman for India's ministry of external affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, posted on X: "We reject this statement with the contempt it deserves".The attack has been claimed by a suicide bomber wing of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, a faction of the Pakistan Taliban.
Pakistan's army, however, said the attack was carried out by militants backed by India, without providing evidence."In this tragic and barbaric incident, three innocent civilians including two children and a woman also got severely injured," the Pakistani army said in a statement.Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the "cowardly act".Relations between the two nations have long been strained, but tensions deepened in April after a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir left 26 people dead.India blamed Pakistan for sheltering members of a militant group it said were behind the attack, and the incident brought the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of another war.Relief in Kashmir - but BBC hears from families on both sides mourning the deadIn May, India launched a series of airstrikes, targeting sites it called "terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir".Pakistan denied the claim that these were terror camps and also responded by firing missiles and deploying drones into Indian territory.The hostilities continued until 10 May when US President Donald Trump announced that India and Pakistan had agreed to a "full and immediate ceasefire".Pakistan has witnessed a surge in terrorist incidents following the collapse of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Pakistani Taliban in November 2022.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Revealed: Notorious Rochdale grooming gang paedophile builds new house in Pakistan village while getting £285k taxpayer handout to fight deportation battle
A ringleader of the notorious Rochdale grooming gang has built a house in his native Pakistan - despite receiving £285,000 of taxpayers' money in a battle against being deported. Furious neighbours of Abdul Rauf in Rochdale say they are terrified to let their children out of sight after the 55-year-old was released having served just two-and-a-half years of a six-year prison sentence. The convicted paedophile was told he would be deported back to Pakistan after completing his sentence in 2014 - but he remains living in the Greater Manchester town more than a decade later. Rauf claims to be stateless after renouncing his Pakistani nationality - however his claim to have cut ties have now been thrown into doubt. Neighbours in the remote village which he left to move to Britain in the 1990s have revealed that the father-of-five has paid for a house to be built there. They said his intention was to live in it when he is finally kicked out of the UK. They also contradicted his claim during his battle against deportation that he would be at risk in Pakistan due to 'public opinion' because of his convictions, saying his family remains 'influential' there. Rauf was one of a nine-strong gang of Asian men who sexually assaulted 47 girls, some as young as 12, after plying them with drink and drugs. Furious neighbours of Rochdale grooming gang ringleader Abdul Rauf (pictured) say they are terrified to let their children out of sight - after discovering he's still living freely on their street, having used a legal loophole to dodge deportation Their conviction in 2012 shocked the country and sparked years of campaigning by victims which earlier this month finally prompted Sir Keir Starmer to agree to a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal. Rauf - who moved to the UK in 1997 - lost an appeal against being stripped of British nationality in 2018. But he appealed against deportation on the grounds he had already renounced his Pakistani citizenship and would therefore be rendered stateless. Rauf has received a staggering £285,000 in legal aid as he bids to avoid being thrown out of the country, it emerged earlier this year. Despite losing the case, he remains in Rochdale where he works as a takeaway delivery driver as Pakistan won't accept him without valid travel documents. But inquiries by MailOnline in his home village of Charhoi in Pakistan-administered Kashmir suggest he has retained close links. According to villagers who know the family, he has sent back money to fund the construction of a new house near the bazaar with the intention of living there himself. They said he initially allowed his elder brother to live there with his family - but had now asked him to vacate the building. The convicted paedophile, 55, was one of nine men jailed in 2012 for raping and trafficking vulnerable girls across northern England in a case that shocked the country. Rauf was told he would be deported to Pakistan in 2014 after serving just two-and-a-half years of a six-year prison sentence – but he remains in the UK more than a decade later Locals in the village of Charhoi in Pakistan-administered Kashmir say convicted paedophile Abdul Rauf has funded the construction of a house with the intention of living there when he is finally deported According to villager in Charhoi, Rochdale grooming gang member Abdul Rauf's conviction would not be widely discussed if he is sent back as his family is 'influential' 'His brother lived there for few months but came back to his old home when his children told him to leave Abdul Rauf's home and go back to his old one,' the resident said. As part of his 2022 appeal against deportation, Rauf claimed that if he was sent back to Pakistan 'I would be at risk due to the public opinion of the criminal conviction' and would not be 'protected' by the authorities there. But a villager cast doubt on his claim, saying that while locals knew about the case, he would be safe as a result of his family ties. 'Since they are influential and financially strong people in their street, this topic was not much discussed,' the resident said. Before his conviction, Rauf was seen as a pillar of Rochdale's Muslim community because of his role as a 'qari', a cleric who reads from the Koran. But the men's trial heard how he trafficked a 15-year-old girl for sex, driving her to secluded areas to have sex with her in his taxi and ferrying her to a flat in Rochdale where he and others had sex with her. This week neighbours of the terraced house in Rochdale where Rauf still lives accused him of throwing parties with 'loads of people' coming and going. One woman said she was told by police that he had 'done his time' when she demanded that they remove him. Angie Harrison, 45, a mum of two girls aged seven and eight, said: 'He has loads of people there, having parties and we don't like the look of the people who come.' Locals spoke of their disgust that he is still allowed to live in the same town where he carried out his vile crimes. One mother, who lives just a few doors away, said: 'Nobody can believe that monster is still here, after what he did to those young girls. 'It's disgusting. What is the country coming to? Why is he still here? 'He was living in that house when he was offending, my kids used to go around and play with his kids.' The case comes amid anger at ministers' failure to deport dangerous foreign criminals. Another member of the paedophile ring, Adil Khan, 55, also remains in Rochdale despite losing an appeal against deportation as he also renounced Pakistani citizenship. One of the ringleaders of the gang, Abdul Aziz, 54, cannot be deported because he renounced his Pakistani citizenship before being stripped of British nationality. Foreign Secretary David Lammy is currently understood to be leading discussions with Pakistan in a bid to secure the return of Rauf and Khan. Just last week a review into the grooming gangs scandal by Dame Louise Casey criticised officials for ' shying away' from 'uncomfortable' questions about the ethnicity of rapists preying on young girls. In one case, the Whitehall troubleshooter revealed she had found the word 'Pakistani' Tippexed out of a child sex abuse file.
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- The Guardian
At least 32 people killed as flash floods hit northern Pakistan
At least 32 people have been killed in Pakistan in recent flash flooding caused by heavy rains, including a family of tourists who died after being swept away by flood waters while apparently awaiting rescue. Videos of the family stranded on a small piece of land as the raging Swat River in northern Pakistan swept them away were shared widely on social media, prompting anger towards the provincial government as witnesses said the family waited helplessly for more than an hour. Flash floods and heavy rains have killed 32 people, including 16 children, in Pakistan in the past 36 hours; 13 were from Punjab province and 19 from the north-west Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the tourist family died. Sheikh Waqas Akram, the central information secretary of the former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which is in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said they had suspended four senior officials from the Swat administration and emergency rescue department. Akram said the chief minister, Ali Amin Gandapur, had ordered an inquiry and asked that the report be submitted in a week, in documents seen by the Guardian. 'The province [held] a meeting on flash floods on 21 June,' Akram told the Guardian. 'Soon after the meeting we issued warnings and announced it through speakers in mosques as well. It was done to spread awareness and ask tourists to be away from the riverbank and never step on the riverbed. At least 71 people were booked in cases in violation of the warnings.' He added: 'It was a tragic and unfortunate incident and the tourists were in the riverbed.' When the flash flood occurred, the family from Punjab province were having a picnic breakfast by the river in the Swat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The family had gone into the river to rescue the children, who had been taking photos, government officials said. According to Akram, at least 17 people were swept away in the flash floods in the Swat River – bodies of nine family members had been recovered and one was missing. Four other people were rescued while three were still missing. He said the rescue efforts were continuing. The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) later issued an alert saying there were high flood levels and warning people to take precautions. Pakistan, with a population of more than 240 million, is one of the world's most vulnerable countries to the effects of the climate crisis. Climate induced flash floods in 2022, killed at least 1,700 people and affected more than 33 million people. The incident prompted discussion in Pakistan on the climate crisis, provincial governments' role in preventing such incidents, tourists avoiding warnings and allegations of incompetence and corruption in local government. The former climate change minister Sherry Rehman said the tourists in Pakistan no longer respond to colonial-era instructions such as section 144 – which allows district administrations to place bans on activities – and they seem not to heed extreme weather warnings. Rehman criticised poor government signalling on the climate crisis and a lack of coordinated efforts, saying: 'Public resources also fell egregiously short in this tragedy. The PDMA should have mobilised a helicopter to get to the marooned family in time. It's outrageous negligence on their part not to have.' Many social media users criticised the government for failing to rescue the stranded family as witness accounts said they were stuck for more than an hour without any help. The PDMAs were created after the deadly 2005 earthquake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and are responsible for responding in a timely way to natural calamities, floods and disasters. The disaster authorities in different Pakistani provinces have been accused of corruption.
BBC News
13 hours ago
- BBC News
India rejects Pakistan army claim it was behind deadly attack
India has rejected allegations by Pakistan that militants backed by Delhi were behind a deadly car bomb attack that killed at least 13 soldiers on officials said a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a military convoy in the north-western tribal region of Pakistan's North Waziristan, near the border with Pakistan's accusation, spokesman for India's ministry of external affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, posted on X: "We reject this statement with the contempt it deserves".The attack has been claimed by a suicide bomber wing of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, a faction of the Pakistan Taliban. Pakistan's army, however, said the attack was carried out by militants backed by India, without providing evidence."In this tragic and barbaric incident, three innocent civilians including two children and a woman also got severely injured," the Pakistani army said in a Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the "cowardly act".Relations between the two nations have long been strained, but tensions deepened in April after a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir left 26 people blamed Pakistan for sheltering members of a militant group it said were behind the attack, and the incident brought the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of another in Kashmir - but BBC hears from families on both sides mourning the deadIn May, India launched a series of airstrikes, targeting sites it called "terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir".Pakistan denied the claim that these were terror camps and also responded by firing missiles and deploying drones into Indian hostilities continued until 10 May when US President Donald Trump announced that India and Pakistan had agreed to a "full and immediate ceasefire".Pakistan has witnessed a surge in terrorist incidents following the collapse of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the Pakistani Taliban in November 2022.
