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Ownership row over India’s ex-consulate
deepens India, Pak release 167 fishermen 500 Sikhs to visit Pak for
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Bush gets $ 87b for Iraq, Afghanistan Australia to ban Hamas, Lashkar
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Ownership row over India’s ex-consulate deepens Karachi, November 4 The government’s Central Record Office (CRO) said its records showed the property, in the upscale Clifton neighbourhood, changing hands but wasn’t too sure of the circumstances under which this had happened. However, the Attorney-General of Sindh, Anwer Mansoor Khan, told the Sindh high court that the property was still in the name of the Indian government and all documents presented in the court relating to its sale were fake, Daily Times reported on Tuesday. Karachi’s deputy district officer, revenue, has backed the Attorney-General. “One of the assistant district officers had illegally issued an approval for the sale of property,” he said in an affidavit filed in court. Judge Ataur Rahman of the Sindh High Court is hearing a request from Ali Baqar Naqvi, who claims to be the current owner of the property, to declare that the property is in his possession. The building housed the Indian consulate here till it was shut down in 1995 in the wake of deteriorating India-Pakistan relations. Mr Naqvi said in an affidavit that the property was leased out by the defunct Karachi Metropolitan Corporation to a man named Parmanand Kundamal in 1946 for residential use. “Without further elaboration of facts, the plaintiff stated that the property came into the possession of Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, who later sold it to Lateefan Begum for Rs 28,610 in 1952,” Daily Times said. “Latfeen Begum sold the property to Manzoor Hussain in 1964, who then sold it to Karim Ghulam Hussain Jiva in 1979. “Naqvi claimed that he entered into an agreement to purchase the property from Jiva for Rs 3.3 million and eventually paid Rs 2 million. “However, he claimed that on a complaint by the Indian authorities, the police and other law enforcement agencies began harassing him and raided his house several times during the past few months,” the newspaper said. The CRO confirmed it did have a copy of the power of attorney executed by the then Indian President in favour of Lateefan Begum. The other documents the CRO said it had were the lease of the plot awarded by the Karachi Development Authority to Manzoor Hussain, a power of attorney document showing its transfer to Abdul Majid and then to Ghulam Hussain Jiva. “The CRO’s reply did not mention how the property was transferred to Manzoor Hussain and how it was transferred to its subsequent owners,” Daily Times said. —
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India, Pak release 167 fishermen Islamabad, November 4 Seventyfour Indian fishermen, along with 23 of their boats, were freed in Karachi while India simultaneously released 93 Pakistani fishermen held in prisons in Por Bundar in Gujarat, Pakistani officials said here. The Indian fishermen were handed over to Indian Naval Attache in the Indian High Commission, Capt Ravidra Barutrahari Pandit, who flew into Karachi to receive them. The fishermen of both the countries would be formally exchanged at a pre-designated point between Gujarat and Karachi coasts between the Indian Coast Guard and Pakistani naval officials. This was the first batch of fishermen to have been released by the two countries after India recently proposed close co-ordination between their coast guards and liberalisation of stringent fishing norms for the fishermen, who often cross into the other country’s waters due to lack of clear demarcations. —
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500 Sikhs to visit Pak for Gurpurb Islamabad, November 4 "The Indian Government has allowed 500 Sikh yatrees (pilgrims) to visit Pakistan on a 10-day tour," Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) quoted Azhar-ul-Hassan, Additional Secretary of the Evacuee Trust Property Board, as saying. The board is a government body that deals with the property left over by migrants to India from Pakistan when the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947. It also deals with religious shrines and sites. The Indian Sikhs are expected to arrive at the Wagah border, near Lahore, where they will be received by Pakistani officials and leaders of Sikh organisations, Hassan said. At Lahore pilgrims will board a train for Nankana Sahib, 220 km south-east of Islamabad, where an expected 5,000 Sikhs from all over the world will take part in anniversary rituals from tomorrow until Sunday. Some 2,000 Sikhs have already arrived in Nankana Sahib’s Gurdwara Janam Asthan, the birth place of Guru Nanak. Pilgrims will visit Gurdwara Saucha Sauda in neighbouring Shikhupura district on Friday. —
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170 feared dead in Indonesia flash flood Bahorok (Indonesia), November 4 Rescuers said 86 bodies had been recovered but 80 to 100 others were unlikely to be found after they were swept away when a wall of water struck this North Sumatra town late Sunday. Disaster relief coordinator Bonar Pasaribu said relatives reported 132 unaccounted for but upto 50 of these might have been out of town at the time. “We will try hard to find these people but the chance of them being alive is slim,” Pasaribu said, one woman’s body was found after it was carried dozens of kms downstream, he said. Two German women aged 20 and 26, a 63-year-old Singaporean man, a 30-year-old Dutchman and another 30-year-old man from Austria were among those killed when the flood hit the town on the banks of the Bahorok river. —
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Bush gets $ 87b for Iraq, Afghanistan Washington, November 4 About $ 60 billion of the package would be for military
operations. The amount voted was $ 1.7 billion less than Bush had asked for rebuilding efforts in Iraq, including health facilities, power and water supplies, and police training. Another $ 1.2 billion has been set aside for reconstruction in Afghanistan, along with additional amounts for Pakistan, Jordan and other supportive countries in the region.— PTI |
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UN evacuates staff from Baghdad United Nations, November 4 The evacuated personnel are now in Cyprus where they are expected to review security with experts from the headquarters in New York over the next two week. —
PTI |
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Australia to ban Hamas, Lashkar Canberra, November 4 Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he would introduce legislation in Parliament tomorrow. —
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