Pakistan round-up: Plans to bring proscribed groups into mainstream, minister says South Punjab to be new province, & more

Pakistan is planning to bring proscribed religious outfits into the political mainstream.

Sources in the government confided that the idea was reportedly first suggested by intelligence agencies in 2016. In 2017, the Milli Muslim League (MML), a political offshoot of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), was formed, but it failed to get public attention.

This comes on the heels of global terror financing watchdog FATF retaining Pakistan on its 'grey' list.

The World Bank has approved a loan of $800 million to cash-strapped Pakistan, financing schemes on clean energy and human capital development, according to a media report.

The loan amount would be utilised for schemes which are not covered due to the budget deficit for 2021-22 fiscal, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

The financing was approved for two programmes- Pakistan Program for Affordable and Clean Energy (PACE) and Securing Human Investments to Foster Transformation (SHIFT-II).

Prime Minister Imran Khan has said Pakistan believed the Chinese version of events on the Xinjiang situation and highlighted 'Western bias' in this regard.

This is for the first time that PM Imran has publicly spoken on the matter and endorsed Chinese side.

China is accused of gross human rights violations of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province, and attempting to change the demographic and cultural fabric of the region.

The National Accountability Bureau has asked the government to give it access to local and offshore tax records of all politically exposed persons, bureaucrats and their families.

These proposals, if accepted by the government, will allow NAB to even reopen the past and closed transactions of the last 20 years, official documents showed.

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that the government will honour its promise of granting South Punjab the status of a province.

According to the minister, formation of a separate province will be the beginning of the fastest development in the region.

"In order to turn the fate of the area around, it is imperative for all powers to be moved to the South Punjab secretariat," he said.

A former top aide and confidante of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday denied a media report about his covert travel to Israel.


Hebrew newspaper Israel Hayom in a report, quoting an unnamed source in Islamabad, claimed that former special assistant to the prime minister on overseas Pakistanis, Zulfi Bukhari, travelled to the Jewish country last November and also met the Mossad chief. Bukhari dismissed the news by saying that he didn't go to Israel.

Pakistan has no diplomatic ties with Israel and its passport clearly states that it was not for travel to that country. However Bukhari, who is also a British national, and can easily travel to Israel if he wanted.