Indian Sub-continent

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen shot and killed a member of Pakistan’s minority Sikh community in an overnight attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said Sunday.

Gauher Khan, a local officer, said the attack on Manmohan Singh, 35, appeared to be a targeted killing. A police investigation continues, Khan said, into the motive.

Khan said the assailants opened fire at Singh while he was returning home from a suburban area. The assailants fled the scene.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The supreme leader of the Taliban released a message Sunday claiming that his government has taken the necessary steps for the betterment of women’s lives in Afghanistan, where women are banned from public life and work and girls’ education is severely curtailed.

The statement from Hibatullah Akhundzada was made public ahead of the Eid al-Adha holiday, which will be celebrated later this week in Afghanistan and other Islamic countries.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Properties and goods worth more than 1 million U.S. dollars have been burned to ashes as a hotel caught fire in Jalalabad city, the provincial capital of Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, a provincial government official said Thursday.

Qurishi Badlon, a public relations officer of the provincial government, confirmed to Xinhua that the fire broke out in the Chardehi Hotel in Police District 1 of Jalalabad city on Wednesday afternoon, burned the goods and belongings to ashes within an hour.

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber struck in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least one police and wounding five others in an attempt to target a paramilitary convoy, an official said.

Authorities recovered the remains of a female bomber following the explosion in the southwestern city of Turbat, said Bashir Ahmed, a top administrative officer.

Jeeyand Baloch, spokesman for the separatist Baluch Liberation Army, later claimed responsibility for the attack.

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Muslim pilgrims streamed into the holy city of Mecca on Friday ahead of the start of Hajj next week, as the annual pilgrimage returns to its monumental scale after three years of heavy restrictions because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Saudi officials say close to 1.5 million foreign pilgrims have arrived in the country so far, the vast majority by air. More are expected, and hundreds of thousands of Saudis and others living in Saudi Arabia will also join them when the pilgrimage officially begins on Monday.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Indian troops fired without provocation across the Line of Control separating Indian and Pakistani Kashmir on Saturday, killing two civilians and injuring another, Pakistan’s military said.

The Indian troops fired indiscriminately on a group of shepherds around noon killing one of them on the spot and critically wounding two others, the military said in a statement. It said one of the wounded later died at a hospital.

ISLAMABAD, June 23 (Reuters) - At least 350 Pakistanis were on an overloaded boat that capsized and sank in open seas off Greece last week, Pakistan's Interior Minister said on Friday, promising to arrest and prosecute the human smugglers responsible.

ISLAMABAD, June 23 (Xinhua) -- One man was killed and three others were injured in an attack in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, local police said.

The deceased was heading towards home after hearing a court case when unidentified gunmen sprayed bullets at him outside the court, killing him at the spot, the police said.

Three people, including a policeman, were injured in the attack and shifted to a nearby hospital. The attackers fled the scene following the attack, and a search operation is underway.

GUWAHATI, India (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have taken shelter in government-run relief camps as heavy monsoon rains batter villages in India’s northeast, and one person has died in the floodwaters this week, a government relief agency said Friday.

Assam state is on red alert and bracing for more downpours this weekend by evacuating people from low-lying areas.

KARACHI, Pakistan, June 22 (Reuters) - At least 209 Pakistanis were on an overloaded boat that capsized and sank in open seas off Greece last week, according to data shared with Reuters on Thursday by a Pakistani investigative agency.

The figure of 209 is based on information provided by families who came forward to say a relative of theirs had boarded the boat heading from Libya towards Greece and were still missing, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said.