A captive, identified as Abdul Wahab, was recovered from their custody, while Gilani’s son remains missing.

DPO Nowshera Waqar Ahmad told reporters that law enforcement agencies and police carried out a mid-night operation that continued till Thursday morning to recover Ali Haider Gilani, who was kidnapped on May 9 from Multan during a corner meeting.

The official said they raided a house in the Marhati Mera area in the limits of Akora Khattak and arrested six abductors, including two women.

Another senior police official of Nowshera, who participated in the sting operation, said that they formed a special squad to track down Ali Haider based on intelligence information. He added that they had blocked all entry and exit routes of Marhati Mera and launched a search operation.

Recovered captive, Abdul Wahab, a resident of Orakzai Agency, said that he was taking part in an election campaign in the agency when he was abducted. “When I was kidnapped and brought here three other persons were already in their captivity while another person was brought sometime after me,” he added.

He said the last person claimed to be a former premier’s son but did not disclose his name. He added that the man was bald.

Wahab confirmed later that the man was in fact Ali Haider after he was shown pictures of the latter.

The police official from Nowshera said that efforts to recover Ali Haider were under way.

The arrested abductors have been identified as Najibullah, his father Mala, his uncle and brother whose name could not be ascertained along with two women, Safia and Saliha. Initial investigations reveal that the abductors are Afghan citizens.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2013.

“When Ahmad was produced before Additional Sessions Judge Rasheeda Bano, an armed man present inside the court opened fire at him, injuring him severely,” said Ishaq Khan of the Cantonment. Ahmad succumbed to his injuries en route to the hospital.

Police official Samiullah and constable Zahoor managed to arrest the assailant identified as Rahim Khan. According to Ishaq, Rahim confessed to being a contract killer during an interrogation, claiming he had served 25 years in jail for a murder case.

Rahim further told police Ahmad had killed a man named Amjad, whose relatives had then hired Rahim to kill Ahmad.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 17^th, 2013.

JUI-F leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmad confirmed this while addressing a condolence ceremony organised by Milli Yakjehti Council for the deceased Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad.

Ahmad said his party’s leader had agreed to make the trip on a special invitation to attend the nascent dialogue process.

The JUI-F chief, according to Ahmed, will discuss the peace process with the Afghan Taliban, adding that negotiations were the best way forward to restore peace in the war-ravaged country.

Similarly, he said, Islamabad should also accept the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s latest peace overture and engage the militia in fruitful negotiations. “If this opportunity is lost, it will badly affect the law and order [situation] in the country,” Ahmad said.

Speaking on the Awami National Party’s (ANP) endorsement for a multi-party conference on terrorism, the JUI-F leader said that if the ANP was serious about dialogue with the Taliban, then their leaders should convince the federal government to take up the Taliban offer without delay.

“The Taliban are sincere in talks [and] so are the mediators, then why [is] the government and army silent over the issue?” asked Ahmad. However, in order to start a constructive dialogue, a truce agreement would have to be in place, he said.

“All parties are serious about initiating the dialogue process but neither the federal and provincial governments nor the military have declared their intent,” Ahmad added.

The JUI-F leader said the government should have nominated its representatives by now if it wished to restore peace.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10^th, 2013.

NOWSHERA: A man was killed and three others were injured when the gas cylinder of a car exploded at a filling station on GT Road.

Nowshera Kalan police official Mumtaz Khan said a huge explosion was heard at 10am in the vicinity of the police station. The police rushed to the site and found a CNG cylinder had exploded in a car.

The impact of the explosion destroyed the car and injured the three men who were sitting inside, including the son of the gas station owner. The official said the driver of a Suzuki van who had parked his vehicle next to the car was killed on the spot.

“According to a witness, there was an explosion after which the car’s cylinder flew out of the car and hit the van. A stock of CNG kits in the compressor room was also damaged in the explosion, which led to station’s wall being destroyed as well.” said Khan.

The body of the van driver Abdur Rasheed, a resident of Takht Bhai, was shifted to his hometown for burial. Both the damaged vehicles were impounded.

The injured Mehmood Ali Shah, Muhammad Ijaz and Azeem Gul were shifted to a hospital in Peshawar. Till last reports, Shah was in critical condition at the Lady Reading Hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2013.

Farzana Kausar had just left her house and was about to board the Suzuki van which took her to the hospital when a masked man approached her and shot her from point blank range, killing her instantly, Cantonment police station SHO Alamzeb Khan told The Express Tribune.

He added the police rushed to the site following the incident and shifted the body to DHQ for autopsy, which revealed that she was shot in the head by a pistol from very close range.

Khan said residents of the area tried to chase the assailant, but he managed to escape.

Kausar’s husband Sajawal Khan told the police his wife was targeted because she was running a maternity centre inside her house for the past eight years. He added that she received threats a month earlier by unknown persons warning her of dire consequences.

Initial investigation carried out by the police, however, stated the nurse was killed over a personal dispute. But SHO Khan admitted the FIR states Kausar had no personal enmity.

Kausar’s colleague at DHQ, Shazia Bibi said the deceased nurse was an enthusiastic woman who performed her duties with great dedication. She added that Kausar worked at DHQ in the mornings and ran her maternity centre in the evenings.

According to Shazia, Kausar and Sajawal tied the knot 14 years ago. They have one son and three daughters, the youngest of which is just six months old.

Following the incident, workers at DHQ locked the doors of the hospital in protest and demanded the government to immediately arrest the culprit.

DHQ Paramedical Union President Nasir Khan led the protest and praised Kausar for her unwavering spirit. He also warned of continued protests in case of the government’s failure to arrest the attackers.

This is the second recent attack in which a health worker has been targeted in the area. Earlier, a female polio worker was also killed in the district in December, 2012.

There has been a sharp increase in attacks on health and aid workers. In December, eight polio workers were gunned down in Karachi and different parts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, while seven NGO workers were gunned down in Swabi on the first day of January.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2013.

Muhammad Ishaq, an officer of the Risalpur police force, told The Express Tribune that two unidentified men on a motorbike approached Gate-III of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Base at around 11 am and the pillion rider threw a hand grenade aimed at people standing in a queue.

“They [the injured] were waiting for the entry passes when the incident happened,” Ishaq said, adding that most of the young men in the queue had come to submit documents for recruitment purposes.

The injured security personnel were rushed to the Combined Military Hospital Risalpur while the civilians were taken to the headquarters hospitals in Mardan and Nowshera. The attackers managed to escape even though security forces had surrounded the area and started a search operation immediately.

Ishaq said that the incident occurred in a sensitive area of the Cantonment because a large number of civilians had entered it without passes seeking employment.

The injured security officials were identified as Pervaiz, Amjad, Mir Hassain, Atif and Abdullah. The name of the sixth injured official could not be ascertained.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2012.

NOWSHERA: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) provincial leader Gohar Ali Khan Khattak injured when assailants opened fire on his car on GT Road near Shaido area of Nowshera district on Sunday.

SHO Fazal Subhan of Akora Khattak while talking to The Express Tribune said that Gohar Ali Khan along with his son Shahbaz and other colleagues were travelling in his car, when three assailants sitting in another car at the opposite side of the road opened fire at them in which Gohar got injured while the other persons narrowly escaped. The official said that the incident occurred at around 3:45pm.

“A bullet slipped at the side burn of the victim while the other bullet pierced through his arm,” said the SHO.

The official added that the injured Gohar was rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital where doctors discharged him after first aid.

An FIR was registered against Abdul Alam, Gul Naras and an unidentified man few days back when Gohar had gone to Shaido to settle a dispute between two rival groups where the accused had threatened him to death.

SHO Subhan said that the vehicle in which Gohar was travelling was hit multiple times, “at least three rounds of bullets have been fired at us from three AK-47s” stated Gohar in the FIR registered against the accused. Police raided the house of the accused, but unfortunately they managed to escape before the police reached the spot.

NOWSHERA: With honour killings on the rise in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), another new incident surfaced on Monday. This time, a newly-wed couple was gunned down in the Pirpai area of the district.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Azakhel police SHO Muhammad Saleem Khan said Musafar Khan and his wife were on their way to a clinic when some armed assailants ambushed and opened on fire on them. The assailants managed to escape subsequently.

Tahir Hussain, a resident of Charsadda, while filing a report against the accused Amanullah, Aashiq, Saifullah and Lal Zada, said that his sister-in-law Zarkaisha, a resident of Lower Dir, eloped with his brother Musafar Khan a year ago and married him.

“The marriage was against the consent of girl’s family,” Hussain told the police, adding that after the marriage, his brother left Charsadda and moved to Pirpai with his new wife. Hussain told police that soon after the marriage, the girl’s family started threatening his brother. He cited this as the reason behind them shifting to another village.

According to SHO Khan, a police van reached the area and took the bodies to District Headquarters Hospital for an autopsy soon after the incident. He confirmed that the accused were relatives of the complainant’s sister-in-law.

The bodies were later taken to Charsadda district’s Dosehra area – the hometown of the deceased, Musafar – for burial.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 14^th, 2012.

NOWSHERA: Hundreds of enraged protestors staged various protests across the province demanding an end to unannounced power outages and claiming they had been suffering from water shortages as well.

Officials in Nowshera said that protestors armed with sticks and small weapons attacked Nizampur Kahi Grid Station, lit fire to the furniture and destroyed the station’s records.  Pesco officials were also assaulted in the attack.

Deputy Police Superintendent Khattak Samad Khan rushed to the area to negotiate, but he was pelted with stones which injured two other police officers.

Officials added that after damaging the grid station, protesters headed towards the Askari Cement Company Nizampur and broke the window panes of the factory. Security guards and watchmen fired gunshots to disperse the crowd.

Arrests

Some protesters attempting to raid the warehouse of the factory were arrested by the police. FIRs have been registered against 400 people for damaging government property, while 10 people were sent on judicial remand for one day.

In another protest, residents of Ghazni Khel area of district Lakki Marwat blocked the Indus Highway for two hours.

Protestors said they would not reopen the highway unless their power supply was restored. A district police officer visited the site and negotiated with the leaders to open the route. However, protesters still warned the government and Pesco officials that if their electricity problems were not resolved they would block the highway for an infinite amount of time.

In a protest at Tordher in Swabi, a camp was set up on Jehangira-Swabi Road and the road blocked for three hours. Protesters chanted slogans against the Awami National Party and held them responsible for the power outages. They threatened the government that if their electricity problems were not solved within three days, they would not pay their power bills this month and burn them instead.

They were also outraged at the fact that the government was still sending them bills of thousands of rupees while they were consuming no electricity.

In an address in Takhtbahi, Jamaat-e-Islami Provincial Chief Muhammad Ibrahim held the provincial government responsible for electricity problems. He said that Pakistan had enough people and resources to overcome the crisis but the current government’s corruption was not letting this happen.

He added that if government does not take practical steps by July 6, “street power” would be used to start a nationwide protest in all major cities of Pakistan.