ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government has introduced an ambitious plan for the first time through which a designated “nazim” or administrator will assist a group of 188 Pakistani Hajj pilgrims during the peak days of the pilgrimage as they travel from Mina to Muzdalifah and back to Makkah, state-run media reported on Monday.
“Mashair days” is a term used to refer to the dates from 8 to 13 Dhul Hijjah, the last month of the Islamic lunar calendar. These are the peak Hajj days when pilgrims from all parts of the world move between Mina, Arafat, Muzdalifah, and then return to Mina, performing religious rituals at sacred sites in Makkah.
Pakistan’s Coordinator Facilitation Makkah Sajjad Haider Yaldram said that as per the government’s ‘Ghar Se Ghar Tak’ (Home to Home) plan, each nazim or Hajj administrator will assist a group of 188 Pakistani Hajj pilgrims throughout the Mashair days this year.
“The nazim will accompany the group from Mina to Arafat, Muzdalifah to Jamarah and back to Makkah,” Yaldram was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.
Each nazim will be assisted by two assistants, along with three personnel from the Saudi Tawafa company Al-Rajhi during these days.
He said the Punjab Information Technology Board has also developed an online mobile application, “Pak Moavin,” which enables real-time monitoring of all Hajj support staff personnel from their place of deployment.
Speaking about the “Pak Hajj 2025” app, he said it provides essential information, including the personal details of pilgrims, group information, building locations and other services.
“We have received great feedback from pilgrims about the app,” Yaldram said. “It’s a source of satisfaction and motivation for us. All the information is centralized, notifications are integrated, and maps help locate missing pilgrims.”
This year, Hajj rituals will commence on June 4, with the Day of Arafah on June 5, and Eid Al-Adha to be observed on June 6 in .
Pakistani university lecturer arrested for planning foiled Balochistan attack — officials
Usman Qazi is claimed to have links with outlawed Majeed Brigade, suicide squad of Balochistan Liberation Army
Arrest comes week after US State Department designated BLA and Majeed Brigade a foreign terrorist organization
Updated 40 sec ago
AP
QUETTA, Pakistan: Security forces in southwestern Pakistan arrested a university lecturer accused of planning a foiled suicide attack that would have targeted last week’s Independence Day celebrations in insurgency-hit Balochistan province, officials said Monday.
The suspect, Usman Qazi is claimed to have links with the outlawed Majeed Brigade, the suicide squad of the Balochistan Liberation Army, according to the province’s Chief Minister, Sarfraz Bugti.
During a press conference in the city of Quetta, Bugti showed video footage with Qazi admitting to planning the thwarted attack as well as aiding militants in recent years. It was unclear whether Qazi made those remarks under duress.
Bugti did not clarify when the arrest was made, and only said the man was still being questioned.
The arrest comes a week after the US State Department designated BLA and the Majeed Brigade a foreign terrorist organization. The group is already banned at home.
Bugti said it was the first time security forces acting on intelligence had captured a senior member of the Majeed Brigade. He said Qazi confessed to involvement in past attacks, including last year’s railway station bombing in Quetta that killed 32 people.
There was no immediate comment from the BLA about the arrest.
Balochistan has long seen violence blamed on separatist groups, including the BLA. The province is rich in natural resources and home to projects tied to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, where Chinese nationals and Pakistani security forces have also been targeted by insurgents.
The separatists demand independence from Pakistan’s central government in Islamabad. Though the government said it had quelled the insurgency, violence persists there.
ISLAMABAD: Torrential monsoon rains and subsequent floods have killed almost 670 people in Pakistan since late June, with the disaster management authority warning on Monday that at least two more heavy spells are expected before the season tapers off in September.
Heavy rain in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province halted rescue and relief operations for several hours on Monday before resuming in a region where flash floods have killed over 300 people since Friday. Officials fear the toll, already among the deadliest in recent years, could rise further as dozens remain missing.
“We are going through the seventh spell of monsoon of 2025,” National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) Chairman Lt. Gen. Inam Haider Malik told a press briefing.
“The predictions that we made about the monsoon from June to September, there will be at least 9 to 10 spells, which will impact different areas of Pakistan.”
He said approximately 670 people had died and about 1,000 had been injured since the monsoons began in the last week of June. Up to 90 people were also still missing.
Malik cautioned that the situation could intensify, with cloudbursts and localized rains forecast from Aug. 23 through early September.
“If horizontal flows mix with vertical flows, this can be a more dangerous situation, which we have seen in 2022,” he said, referring to devastating rains and floods that killed over 1,700 people and caused over $30 billion in losses three years ago.
The NDMA chief explained that “horizontal flows” caused by rapidly melting glaciers in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir regions had already destroyed bridges and other infrastructure. Vertical flows, he said, came in the form of cloudbursts and prolonged rains.
“When these flows converge, they trigger serious emergencies,” Malik said.
An aerial view shows houses partially submerged in sludge along a riverbed in the aftermath of flash floods at the Buner district of mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on August 17, 2025. (AFP)
He said 425 relief camps had been activated and convoys of trucks carrying food were being dispatched to badly hit districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Buner.
The Pakistan Army had deployed engineers and special units for search and rescue, while field hospitals and Combined Military Hospitals were on alert to treat the injured.
“By September 10, we will have comprehensive national data on casualties and damages,” Malik said.
Separately, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who chaired a high-level meeting in Islamabad, announced that the federal cabinet would donate one month’s salary to flood victims in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“This is not the time for politics, it is the time for service and to heal people’s wounds,” Sharif said, according to an official statement.
He directed federal ministers to personally oversee the restoration of electricity, roads, water and other infrastructure in the affected regions. The Minister for Kashmir Affairs was tasked to supervise distribution of relief goods, while the finance ministry was instructed to provide NDMA with additional resources.
“Until the last affected person is helped and basic infrastructure is restored, the relevant federal ministers will remain in the field,” the statement quoted Sharif as saying.
The PMO said 456 relief camps had been set up nationwide and more than 400 rescue operations conducted so far, with losses to public and private property estimated at Rs126 million ($455,000). Aid distribution under the Prime Minister’s relief package, alongside medical teams and medicines, was ongoing, it added.
BUNER
Buner district in KP province has been the worst hit in the latest rains that began on Friday, with over 200 deaths.
Heavy rain in the flood-hit areas, including Buner, forced rescue teams to halt relief efforts for several hours on Monday, a regional government officer, Abid Wazir, told Reuters.
“Our priority is now to clear the roads, set up bridges and bring relief to the affected people,” he said.
Villagers look on as floodwater levels rise in the Buner district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on August 18, 2025. (AFP)
Residents in Buner’s Bayshonai Kalay village panicked and ran to higher ground after a water channel that had earlier overflowed and caused major devastation started swelling with the fresh rain on Monday, according to Reuters witnesses.
Rescuers from local government, the disaster management authority and the army used excavator machines to clear the roads and streets from mud, fallen trees and electric poles.
Relief goods have been sent to the affected areas, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a recorded video statement on Monday.
Food, medicine, blankets, camps, an electric generator and de-watering pumps are included in the relief goods, the authority said in a statement.
Buner, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from the capital Islamabad, was hit by a cloudburst, a rare phenomenon in which more than 100 mm (4 inches) of rain falls within an hour in a small area, officials said.
In Buner, there was more than 150 mm of rain within an hour on Friday morning, they said.
More heavy rain was expected across Pakistan until early September, officials said.
“The current weather system is active over the Pakistan region and may cause heavy to very heavy rainfall during the next 24 hours,” the disaster management authority said on Sunday.
PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s National Institute of Health (NIH) reported two new cases of the poliovirus on Monday, taking the total number of cases of the disease reported this year to 25 as Islamabad struggles to stem its spread of the infection.
Polio is a highly infectious and incurable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. Experts say the only effective protection is through repeated doses of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) for every child under the age of five, alongside timely completion of all routine immunizations.
The two new cases were reported from Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, in a 21-month-old girl from Badin district, and in a 72-month-old girl from district Kohistan in northwestern Pakistan.
“With these detections, the total number of polio cases in Pakistan in 2025 has reached 21–including 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, six from Sindh, and one each from Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan,” Pakistan’s polio program said in a statement.
The program said continued detection of polio cases shows that children remain at risk in areas with low vaccine acceptance. It said a Sub-National Polio Vaccination Campaign will take place from Sept. 1-7, targeting more than 28 million children under the age of five, in 99 districts across all provinces and regions.
He said the campaign in southern KP will be conducted from Sept. 15, adding that the goal was to ensure every child in these districts receives the vaccine to protect them from polio.
“Parents and caregivers are strongly urged to ensure their children receive the polio vaccine during this and every campaign,” the statement said.
Over the past year, the polio program has conducted six high-quality vaccination campaigns, four of them nationwide, each reaching over 45 million children.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic.
Islamabad made significant progress in curbing the virus, with annual cases dropping from around 20,000 in the early 1990s to just eight in 2018. Pakistan reported six cases in 2023 and only one in 2021 but the country saw an intense resurgence of the poliovirus in 2024, with 74 cases reported.
Efforts to eradicate the virus have been repeatedly undermined by vaccine misinformation and resistance from some religious hard-liners, who claim immunization is a foreign plot to sterilize Muslim children or a cover for Western espionage. Militant groups have frequently targeted polio vaccination teams and the security personnel assigned to protect them, particularly in KP and Balochistan.
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday demanded a collective response from the nation to climate change impacts, state-run media reported, as Pakistan reels from devastating floods that have killed at least 657 since the onset of the monsoon rains in late June.
Deadly floods in the country’s northern region, especially its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, have killed at least 323 people and injured 156 since Aug. 15, as per the provincial disaster management authority (PDMA). Raging hill torrents flattened several homes and swept away dozens of people in KP’s Swat, Buner, Bajaur, Torghar, Mansehra, Shangla and Battagram districts last week. Officials said several bodies were found on Sunday in the worst-hit Buner district.
Pakistan’s government launched a Monsoon Tree Plantation Drive on Monday, with state broadcaster Radio Pakistan saying more than 41 million saplings will be planted across the country during the campaign.
“President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif have called for collective response to climate change through advancement of Green Pakistan Programme,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported.
In his message, Zardari said the Green Pakistan Programme is a national initiative to expand forest cover, rehabilitate degraded lands, restore the balance of nature and promote nature-based solutions.
“The President said the well-being and progress of any nation are grounded in the preservation of its forests and natural environment,” the statement added.
In his message, the prime minister called on federal and provincial governments, social and religious leaders, and citizens of all ages to renew their commitment to planting more trees.
“Tree plantation campaigns are not merely symbolic actions; they are a national duty aimed at protecting a healthy, natural environment for future generations and at preventing the destruction caused by climate change,” he added.
The prime minister said increasing Pakistan’s tree plantation rate is “critically important” to counter the harmful effects of climate change, noting that the South Asian country ranks among nations most severely affected by climate change.
“The recent abnormal monsoon rains and the resulting floods and loss of lives and property once again underscore the fact that proactive measures against climate change are essential for Pakistan,” he added.
KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Sunday visited Buner, where he promised survivors compensation for their financial losses, urging residents of disaster-prone areas to relocate from there.
“The data of all the losses is being compiled,” CM Gandapur told reporters in Buner. “It is beyond our power to compensate the loss of lives, but we will compensate financial losses, damages to private property.”
Several people were still missing on Sunday and search efforts were focused on areas where homes were flattened by water torrents that swept down from the mountains, carrying massive boulders that smashed into houses like explosions.
The NDMA has forecast more “heavy to very heavy rainfall” in parts of the country over the next 24 hours, particularly in Islamabad, KP, Punjab and Azad Kashmir, under the current weather system.
The monsoon season brings South Asia about three-quarters of its annual rainfall, vital for agriculture and food security, but also brings destruction.
“The intensity of this year’s monsoon is around 50 to 60 percent more than last year,” NDMA chief Lt. Gen. Inam Haider told journalists in Islamabad on Sunday.
“Two to three more monsoon spells are expected until the first weeks of September.”
Pakistan is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change and is contending with extreme weather events with increasing frequency. Monsoon floods in 2022 submerged a third of the country and killed around 1,700 people.
Pakistan tell Babar to improve strike rate for T20 comeback
Babar Azam is Pakistan’s batting mainstay in other formats but has not played a T20I since South Africa tour last year
Thirty-year-old could not find a place in Pakistan squad for Asia Cup next month as team looks for aggressive batters
Updated 18 August 2025
Reuters
LAHORE: Former Pakistan captain Babar Azam has been told to improve his batting against spin and boost his overall strike rate to be considered for Twenty20 Internationals, coach Mike Hesson said.
Babar is Pakistan’s batting mainstay in other formats but has not played a T20 International since their tour of South Africa late last year.
The 30-year-old could not find a place in the Pakistan squad for the Asia Cup next month as the team management showed faith in rising players such as Sahibzada Farhan.
“There’s no doubt Babar’s been asked to improve in some areas around taking on spin and in terms of his strike rate,” Hesson said of the top-order batter who has a modest strike rate of 129 in T20 Internationals.
“Those are things he’s working really hard on. But at the moment the players we have, have done exceptionally well.
“Sahibzada Farhan has played six games and won three player-of-the-match awards.”
Babar should use the Big Bash League in Australia to improve his 20-overs batting and stage a comeback, Hesson said.
“A player like Babar has an opportunity to play in the BBL and show he’s improving in those areas in T20s. He’s too good a player not to consider,” he said.
Pakistan will begin their Asia Cup Group A campaign against Oman in Dubai on September 12 before meeting arch-rivals India at the same venue two days later.
