Clashes leave 10 injured, 35 nabbed in Sialkot, G’wala

TrendPK.com

GUJRANWALA: Consequent to fierce clashes, featuring pelting stones and firing between armed groups in Sialkot and Gujranwala, up to 10 clashers were injured and at least 35 were booked for resorting to panic, police sources said.  

Meanwhile in Mansehra, a man was killed and another seven were injured.

CPO Gujranwala told media two rival groups clashed in Shahrukh Colony of Baghbanpura with adversaries being pelted with stones and firing, causing up to six people to receive injuries. Wounded have been hospitalized, he said.

Meanwhile, heavy police contingents, having seized control over the entire haunted area, took at least nine suspected offenders under arrest. The wave of panic and tension has blanketed the locality, sources described, adding that police have managed to establish several checkpoints to keep the situation under control.

In Sialkot, on the other hand, four clashers were injured after being hit by stones amid fierce skirmishes over trivial disputes, prompting police officials to place strict cordon around the area. Injured have now been discharged from hospital after treatment, sources claimed.

Also, at least 26 alleged lawbreakers were thrown behind the bars but police have yet to book them under any case, witnesses said adding that, ferocious mob subsequently blocked a  main road and set tires on fire in protest against incompetence and negligence of police department for failing to register any case against the lawbreakers

In Mansehra, a man was reportedly killed and seven injured amid armed clashes between two rival groups near Punjab Chowke at Shahrah-e-Karakoram. Shortly after the offense, police resorted to aerial firing and shelling to scatter the furious mob.

A large number of security men stand guard in the locality now to thwart any eventuality. TrendPK

13 killed in Kurram tribal clash

Staff Report

KURRAM AGENCY: At least thirteen people were killed and nineteen injured in a tribal clash in Upper Kurram Agency, said sources Thursday.

According to sources, a bloody clash has been continuing between Shalozan and Shalozan Tangi tribes for the last two weeks over a water row.

Fresh clashes killed thirteen people and seriously injured nineteen others.

The clash erupted over water distribution as Shalozan Tangi tribe stopped water supply to the Shalozan tribe.

The ongoing dispute has claimed at least 49 lives over the past two weeks, while over 90 have been injured.

Residents have asked the government to end the clashes, and demanded immediate supply of water. SAMAA

Seven killed in Kurram tribal dispute

Staff Report

KURRAM AGENCY: At least seven people were killed and eleven injured in a tribal dispute in Upper Kurram Agency, said sources Wednesday.

According to sources, a bloody clash has been continuing between Shalozan and Shalozan Tangi tribes for the last two weeks over a water row.

Fresh clashes killed seven people and seriously injured eleven others.

The clash erupted over water distribution as Shalozan Tangi tribe has stopped water supply to the Shalozan tribe.

The ongoing dispute has claimed at least 36 lives over the past two weeks, while 50 have been injured.

Residents have asked the government to end the clashes, and demanded immediate supply of water. SAMAA

Appeals tribunal upholds ban on 2 sprinters

ISLAMABAD: An appeals body has upheld two-year bans on Pakistan sprinters Sadaf Siddique and Javeria Hassan.

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Appeals tribunal upholds ban on 2 sprinters

Indian forces fire on Kashmiri protesters

OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: Clashes erupted again in Indian-occupied Kashmir’s main city Friday after two men were wounded when paramilitary forces opened fire on a group of anti-India protesters.

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Indian forces fire on Kashmiri protesters

15 killed over land dispute in Shikarpur

SHIKARPUR: At least 15 persons have been killed while scores other sustained injuries when armed men, from Magsi and Qumbrani clans, clashed over land distribution row here in Shikarpur on Thursday night, Geo news reported.

According to police source, the exchange of fire, started on late Thursday, is still underway with little recesses in the area.

Contingents from Pakistan Rangers have arrived on the crime site to bring the situation under control, DPO Shikarpur Faiz Ahmed told Geo news

Meanwhile, DIG Larkana Sanaullah Abbasi said heavy police parties have also been called in from Larkana and Jacobabad.

It may be mentioned that the clashes, on the issue of land distribution between two clans, appeared some days ago, which turned violent by late Thursday.

All refugees returned to Kyrgyzstan after unrest

BISHKEK: All of the around 75,000 Kyrgyz refugees who fled to Uzbekistan following this month”s deadly inter-ethnic violence have returned to their homeland, Kyrgyz authorities said Saturday.

“All the (Kyrgyz) refugee camps in Uzbekistan have now been closed,” the deputy director of Kyrgyzstan”s frontier police, Cholponbek Turusbekov, told journalists.

He said that 75,380 refugees had returned to Kyrgyzstan. Around 380 others are still in Uzbekistan because they have been hospitalised there, Turusbekov said.

Deadly clashes between the majority Kyrgyz and minority Uzbek populations forced hundreds of thousands from their homes earlier this month and prompted the imposition of a round-the-clock curfew in the region.

In total around 400,000 people fled their homes southern Kyrgyzstan, with many seeking refuge in Uzbekistan.

Around 2,000 people were killed in the clashes, Kyrgyz authorities said, with many observers fearing that a referendum on a new constitution set for Sunday could herald a return to bloodshed.

Kyrgyz ethnic clashes spread, Russia sends troops

BISHKEK: Tens of thousands of Uzbek refugees Sunday fled raging violence in Kyrgyzstan that left 113 dead as the interim government struggled to stem the worst ethnic clashes since the end of the Soviet Union.

Gunbattles between rival groups turned cities into warzones and marauding mobs torched whole villages on a third day of bloodshed in the Central Asian nation.

Neighbouring Uzbekistan said up to 80,000 ethnic Uzbeks, mostly women and children, had fled the fighting and were being housed in hastily-set up camps along the border as rights groups warned of a looming humanitarian crisis.

Russia sent paratroopers to protect its airbase in Kyrgyzstan but rejected requests from Bishkek to get involved in the unrest that has riven the country since President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in April.

Officials said 113 people were killed in the three days of clashes and 1,400 injured.

Interim Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva”s provisional government late Saturday gave security forces shoot-to-kill orders to protect civilians, amid growing calls from foreign leaders and aid groups to end the clashes.

“If we do not take opportune and effective measures the unrest could become much more serious and descend into a regional conflict,” it said.

It tightened a state of emergency to a 24-hour curfew in the Osh region, where the violence erupted Thursday and extended the emergency rule across the country”s entire southern Jalalabad region as fighting spread there.

Kyrgyz authorities sent five planes of soldiers from Bishkek to Jalalabad, government radio reported, while the defence ministry mobilised all army reservists age 18 to 50.

But the violence raged on, with many of refugees flooding the Uzbekistan border village of Yorkishlok accusing Kyrgyz law enforcement officials of abetting marauding gangs of ethnic Kyrgyz.

“They are killing us — all the Uzbeks — one after the other!,” Rani, 51, said after quitting her home in the Osh region. “I fled. I don”t know what happened to my children and my grandchildren.

Uzbekistan has voiced “extreme alarm” over the situation, calling it an organized bid to inflame ethnic tensions, as it officially allowed people over the border for the first time.

“In the whole of the Andijan region, 32,000 adult refugees have been registered,” Abror Kosimov, the head of the regional emergency services, said, adding that the number of child refugees was in the thousands.

A police official put the total number including children at more than 80,000.

In Kyrgyzstan”s south, panicked residents described mounting chaos.

“The authorities are not doing anything to stabilise the situation…. We are not even able to collect bodies from the streets,” Ruslan, an Osh resident who preferred not to give his surname, said by telephone.

“The truth and the enormity of the tragedy cannot be hidden. The city centre is under the control of bandits.”

In Jalalabad, where the worst of the fighting now appears to be centered, local resident Sergei Kim, described gunbattles throughout the city.

“There are shoot-outs going on in the streets and many people. A gang is moving in the direction of the university,” he said.

Smoke hung over the city as fires raged in several buildings, another local resident, journalist Zhalil Saparov, said.

“The authorities are completely overwhelmed, as are the emergency services,” said Severine Chappaz, the deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) mission in Kyrgyzstan.

The provisional government has struggled to impose order since coming to power during deadly riots that ousted Bakiyev and left dozens of people dead.

Bakiyev, exiled in Belarus, himself denied any link to the violence, slamming the suggestion as a “shameless lie.”

Since April”s uprising, foreign leaders have warned of the risk of civil war in the strategic state, which hosts both a US airbase outside the capital Bishkek that is vital to its operations in Afghanistan and Russian bases.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed alarm Sunday at the scale of the clashes, the inter-ethnic nature of the violence, the mounting casualties and the large number of displaced people, his spokesman said in a statement.

The UN is urgently assessing humanitarian aid needs, it added.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Kyrgyzstan to “restablish order as soon as possible”, the Kremlin said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.

Death toll reaches 82 in Kyrgyzstan unrest: ministry

BISHKEK: Ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan has left 82 dead and more than a thousand wounded, according to revised figures released Sunday by the Kyrgyz health ministry.

The previous death toll stood at 79.

Since Thursday evening, “82 people have been killed” during the clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbek in and around the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad, the ministry said.

According to their latest figures 1,076 have been wounded in the violence.

The interim government on Saturday expanded a state of emergency in Osh to the neighbouring region of Jalalabad, imposing curfews in a bid to contain the spreading unrest.

Since April”s deadly uprising, which ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, foreign leaders have warned of the danger of civil war in the strategically vital state, which hosts both US and Russian military bases.

Thai soldiers did not fire live bullets at protesters: govt

BANGKOK: Thai soldiers did not fire live bullets at anti-government protesters in violent clashes in the capital that left 19 people dead and over 800 injured, a government spokesman said Sunday.

“There were no live bullets fired at protesters,” Panitan Wattanayagorn said in press conference shown on national television.

Fourteen civilians, including a Japanese TV cameraman, and five soldiers were killed in Saturday”s crackdown on red-shirted supporters of fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra in Bangkok, emergency services said.

“Weapons were used only in self-defence and to fire into the air. We don”t find any evidence that soldiers used weapons against people,” said Panitan.

The violence erupted when troops tried to clear one of two sites in the centre of the capital occupied by the protesters for the past month.

As the clashes intensified gunshots echoed around the city and both sides accused the other of using live ammunition.

The army has said some soldiers fired live ammunition into the air to try to disperse demonstrators while others used blanks and rubber bullets.

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