PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Gunmen shot and killed a member of Pakistan’s minority Sikh community in an attack Thursday in the deeply conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan. The gunmen fled the scene, according to the police and a community leader.
Nauman Khan, a local police official said it wasn’t clear if the attack on Satnam Singh, 45, was a targeted killing. Singh, a herbalist, had been living in the city for the past 20 years and ran a small clinic selling herbal medicine.
The assailants opened fire at Singh inside the clinic, said Sardar Harpal Singh, a local community leader. He denounced the incident and demanded the arrest of those involved in the killing. The herbalist and the community leader are not related.
The majority of Sikhs migrated to neighboring India in 1947, the year British rule of the subcontinent ended and Pakistan was created as a homeland for Muslims in the region. Thousands of them stayed in Pakistan, where they generally live peacefully. But isolated attacks on minority Sikhs, Christians and members of the Ahmadi sect have continued.
Gunmen kill Sikh man in northwestern city — police
https://arab.news/c337g
Gunmen kill Sikh man in northwestern city — police
- Satnam Singh, a herbalist, was killed by unknown gunmen inside his clinic in Peshawar
- According to local authorities, no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack
Bangladesh treads carefully as it explores closer defense ties with Pakistan
- Air force chiefs of Pakistan and Bangladesh discussed potential defense pact last week
- Dhaka says plan to procure fighter jets still in early stages, discussions ongoing with several countries
DHAKA: Bangladesh appears to be moving with caution as Dhaka and Islamabad forge closer ties and explore a potential defense deal, experts said on Friday.
Following decades of acrimonious ties, relations between Bangladesh and Pakistan have been growing since a student-led uprising ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2024.
Talks on a potential defense deal covering the sale of Pakistan’s JF-17 fighter jets to Dhaka emerged after Bangladesh’s Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan visit to Rawalpindi last week, where he met with his Pakistani counterpart Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, Pakistan’s chief of defense forces.
Bangladesh’s military media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations, said the procurement of fighter jets for the Bangladesh Air Force is “in the very rudimentary level,” and currently “under an evaluation process.”
“The evaluation process will determine which country’s offer proves befitting for us. The Air Chief’s visit to Pakistan is part of the evaluation process … earlier he visited China, Italy (too),” ISPR Director Lt. Col. Sami Ud Dowla Chowdhury told Arab News.
“Discussions are underway with different countries. Nothing concrete has come yet.”
Talks between the high-ranking military officials are the latest development in Bangladesh-Pakistan ties, which have included resumption of direct trade for the first time since the 1971 war and the expected launch of a regular route from Dhaka to Karachi at the end of this month, following over a decade of suspension.
Though efforts to expand relations can be seen from both sides, the current interim government of Bangladesh led by economist and Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has been “showing some kind of pragmatism,” said Prof. Delwar Hossain of Dhaka University’s international relations department.
“Bangladesh is stepping very cautiously in comparison with the advancement from the Pakistan side. Bangladesh is trying to make a balanced approach,” he told Arab News.
“The present government is always saying that the development of a relationship with Pakistan doesn’t necessarily mean that Bangladesh is moving toward a particular camp. Rather, Bangladesh is interested in having a balanced relationship with all the great powers.”
Trade and economy are “naturally” more preferable areas of cooperation for Dhaka, Hossain said, adding that “we need more time to determine” how far military cooperation will be expanded.
Ishfaq Ilahi Choudhury, a defense expert and retired air officer of Bangladesh Air Force, said that Bangladesh is “very much in need of advanced aircraft” because its military has not procured new fighter jets in at least two decades.
“Air frigate fighters are badly needed for the Bangladesh Air Force. We had some F-7 produced by China, but they stopped producing these fighters nowadays. Here, Pakistan can be a source for our fighter jets, but it involves … geopolitics,” he told Arab News, alluding to how Dhaka’s defense ties with Pakistan may be perceived by its archrival neighbor India.
Pakistan’s JF-17 fighter jets, a multi-role combat aircraft jointly developed with China, has drawn international interest following its success last May, when Pakistani and Indian forces engaged in their worst fighting since 1999.
Islamabad said it shot down several Indian fighter jets during the aerial combat, a claim Indian officials later acknowledged after initially denying any losses, but without specifying the number of jets downed.
“We shouldn’t also forget that both India and Pakistan are at each other’s foot. Here, our friendship with Pakistan shouldn’t go at the cost of our friendship with India,” Choudhury said.
“With this (potential) defense purchase deal with Pakistan, we have to remain very cautious so that it proves sustainable in the long term.”
