Two suspects held, weapons seized in Hangu search operation

HANGU: The security forces claimed to have arrested two suspected persons and seized a huge cache of weapons during the search operation in the district on Friday. Talking to reporters, Col Afrasiyab said that acting on a tip-off, the security forces raided the dens and hideouts in various areas of the district and arrested two suspects.

Three machine guns, seven SGP-9 machine guns, 98 rocket shells, two rocket launchers, 10 sophisticated machine guns, 10 detonators, explosive materials used in improvise explosive devices (IEDs), five suicide vests, huge quantity of explosives, six masks, hundred of handgrenades and thousands of cartridges had been recovered from their possession, he said. The official said timely action by the security forces had saved the area from destruction and massacre.

Rangers raid in Nazimabad, 11 suspects detained

KARACHI: Rangers detained 11 suspects during a raid in Karachi’s Nazimabad area on Sunday.

According to sources, the suspects belong to a religious political party and the paramilitary force has recovered arms and ammunition from their possession.

The Rangers spokesperson adds that an investigation is underway.

Five suspects in custody over India cousins gang-rape

KATRA SHAHADATGUNJ: Five men have been arrested over the gang-rape and deaths of two girls found hanging from a mango tree in a northern Indian village, police said Saturday.

The discovery of the two cousins, aged 14 and 12, in the Budaun district of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday is the latest sexual violence case to have stirred national outrage.

"Rape on both the girls has been confirmed. The cause of their death was asphyxia," Budaun district police superintendent Atul Saxena told.

Saxena said preliminary cases had been filed against five men who were all being held in custody. Three are accused of rape while two policemen face charges of conniving with criminals and neglecting their duties. Two other men were also named in a police complaint filed by the victims´ families but their whereabouts were unknown, Saxena added.

The farming family of the two cousins from the lowest Dalit caste told police could have "saved" the girls but claimed they refused to help when they found they were from a lower caste.

"She was my everything, my world -- and now my world has come to an end," the grief-stricken father of one victim said. The alleged attackers were also from a higher caste.

There is a long history of women and girls from India´s lower castes -- especially those who belong to the Dalit caste who were previously known as "untouchables" -- of being sexually abused by people from higher castes.

Uttar Pradesh is deeply divided along caste lines.

"These policemen didn´t act for hours when they could have saved two young lives. Why is caste everything?" said the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Medical tests showed the victims had been sexually assaulted multiple times.

India toughened its laws on sex attacks in the wake of the December 2012 gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi which triggered nationwide protests, but the move has done little to stem the tide of sex attacks.

The father said his daughter and her cousin were attacked when they went to the fields to relieve themselves as there was no toilet in their house.

The father told his brother heard screams from the field where the girls had gone.

The brother got into a scuffle with five men, trying "to get them to leave the daughters who were being molested", but fled when they threatened to shoot him, the father said.

The family reported the crime to police who told villagers the girls were with an upper caste village man and would be back "in a couple of hours", the father said.

Then they got a call from a woman saying their daughters´ bodies were hanging from a tree.

"This was nothing but plain murder and (caste) conspiracy," he said.

Indian families forbids naming of the victims or their families.

"The cops were totally hand-in-glove in getting our daughters killed," said the father of the other victim.

Rights activists said the crimes highlighted Uttar Pradesh authorities were "not serious" about tackling sexual crime.

Amnesty International said lack of toilets across India forced women to answer the call of nature outside, "making them more vulnerable to violence.”

Army kills 37 Qaeda suspects in south Yemen: ministry

ADEN: Yemen’s army killed 37 Al-Qaeda suspects and wounded dozens on Sunday as part of an offensive launched in the south of the country last week, the defence ministry said.

The "terrorists" were killed in an operation that took place in the Maifaa region of Shabwa province in southern Yemen, the ministry said in text messages sent to journalists. (AFP)

Police nab 40 suspects after Delhi colony blast

KARACHI: Police rounded up more than 40 suspects after bomb blast that killed six people in Delhi colony, Geo News reported.

Police team led by SP Saddar Salman Hussain and Frere ASP Shahla Qureshi conducted targeted operation in the area and detained more than 40 suspects.

SP Salman said there were reports of presence of the accused involved in the Friday’s blast. The suspects have been shifted to Frere police station for interrogation.

Thai forces shoot dead seven drug suspects

BANGKOK: Thai security forces shot dead seven suspected drug smugglers and seized hundreds of thousands of methamphetamine pills after a firefight in the Golden Triangle border region, an official said Saturday.

The clash broke out late Friday in the mountains of northern Chiang Rai province after a border patrol spotted about 10 hill tribe people who refused to stop after crossing the frontier, according to the authorities.

"When we cleared the clash site we found seven men shot dead and we seized six bags of methamphetamine," a local border task force official said by telephone, adding that each bag contained an estimated 100,000 tablets.

"Sporadic shooting continued through the night," said the official, who did not want to be named.

Clashes between security forces and drug traffickers are fairly common in the kingdom´s border regions including in the Golden Triangle, where the remote edges of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet.

Thailand has seen a marked increase in seizures of methamphetamine, which is relatively cheap and easy to make.

Known as yaba -- "crazy medicine" -- the pills are often smuggled from neighbouring Myanmar where armed rebels use profits from narcotics to fund their operations.

There are an estimated 600,000 yaba users in Thailand.General Pongsapat Pongcharoen, commander of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board, said the traffickers probably wanted to take advantage of Thailand´s Songkran New Year holiday which starts this weekend.

"They thought that police are busy directing traffic or taking days off during the holidays but in fact we intensify the crackdown during this period," he said.

"This fatal incident may deter them for a while but it will not root out the drugs problem," he added.