KARACHI: Authorities in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday warned that more restrictions could be put in place as members of the public and businesses flouted coronavirus standard operating procedures (SOPs) and positivity rates climbed in a number of cities, including to as high as 22 percent in parts of Karachi.
Sindh reported 895 new infections in the last 24 hours, with 11 deaths, the chief minister said. Pakistan is currently battling a third wave of the coronavirus, and in the last 24 hours recorded 4,213 new infections and 79 deaths.
“The situation of coronavirus is getting dangerous with each passing day and to tackle the dangerous situation, the government had taken some strict decisions in the people’s best interest and at the same time people were given some concessions to live their normal life with SOPs,” government spokesman Murtaza Wahab said in a video message posted on Twitter. “But it has been noticed that these SOPs are being violated.”
He said offices, restaurants and markets had been allowed to remain open subject to following health guidelines, but they continued to violate rules: “If you keep violating the SOPs, the government will be forced to impose harsher restrictions.”
A statement released by the Sindh chief minister’s office said the province’s second largest city, Hyderabad, which earlier had a coronavirus positivity rate of less than five percent, was now recording a ratio of 19 percent, whereas the detection rate in parts of Karachi had climbed to 22 percent.
In light of this, the statement said, the chief minister had directed the administration to take strict measures to implement SOPs announced by the government.
“The district administration and the police must take coercive action against business units defying government orders in respect of working hours and enforcement of SOPs,” the chief minister said at a meeting on Monday, directing the commissioner of Karachi “to launch an awareness campaign.”
Pakistan’s Sindh province warns of ‘harsher’ COVID restrictions over violations, case surge
https://arab.news/4thte
Pakistan’s Sindh province warns of ‘harsher’ COVID restrictions over violations, case surge
- Sindh spokesperson says restaurants, offices, grocery, and medical stores continuing to violate standard operating procedures
- Positivity rates climb in a number of Sindh cities, including to as high as 19 percent in Hyderabad and 22 percent in parts of Karachi
No casualties as blast derails Jaffar Express train in Pakistan’s south
- Passengers were stranded and railway staffers were clearing the track after blast, official says
- In March 2025, separatist militants hijacked the same train with hundreds of passengers aboard
QUETTA: A blast hit Jaffar Express and derailed four carriages of the passenger train in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday, officials said, with no casualties reported.
The blast occurred at the Abad railway station when the Peshawar-bound train was on its way to Sindh’s Sukkur city from Quetta, according to Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division controller Muhammad Kashif.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but passenger trains have often been targeted by Baloch separatist outfits in the restive Balochistan province that borders Sindh.
“Four bogies of the train were derailed due to the intensity of the explosion,” Kashif told Arab News. “No casualty was reported in the latest attack on passenger train.”
Another railway employee, who was aboard the train and requested anonymity, said the train was heading toward Sukkur from Jacobabad when they heard the powerful explosion, which derailed power van among four bogies.
“A small piece of the railway track has been destroyed,” he said, adding that passengers were now standing outside the train and railway staffers were busy clearing the track.
In March last year, fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group had stormed Jaffar Express with hundreds of passengers on board and took them hostage. The military had rescued them after an hours-long operation that left 33 militants, 23 soldiers, three railway staff and five passengers dead.
The passenger train, which runs between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and Peshawar in the country’s northwest, had been targeted in at least four bomb attacks last year since the March hijacking, according to an Arab News tally.
Pakistan Railways says it has beefed up security arrangements for passenger trains in the province and increased the number of paramilitary troops on Jaffar Express since the hijacking in March, but militants have continued to target them in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the site of a decades-long insurgency waged by Baloch separatist groups who often attack security forces and foreigners, and kidnap government officials.
The separatists accuse the central government of stealing the region’s resources to fund development elsewhere in the country. The Pakistani government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan.
