Nine killed in explosion as children play with rocket shell in Pakistan's Sindh
Karachi (PTI): At least nine people, including five children, of the same family were killed on Wednesday when a rocket launcher's shell exploded at a house when the kids were playing with the ammunition in Pakistan's Sindh province, police said.
Kashmore-Kandhkot Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rohil Khosa said children found a rocket shell while playing on the ground and brought it home where it exploded, killing nine people, including five children, two women, and two men, of the same family.
He said besides the casualties five others were injured in the explosion and rushed to hospital.
"This is an area on the riverine belt and the rocket shell must have been left there by dacoits who hide out deep into the riverine belt areas," Khoso said.
The SSP said the police had reached the site and further investigation was underway and an "emergency" had been declared at the Kandhkot Civil Hospital.
Pakistan Peoples Party's Chairman and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in a tweet that the riverine areas of Sindh and Punjab had become a safe haven to many criminal gangs and urged the government to clear the region from such elements.
Sindh Chief Minister Justice Maqbool Baqar has sought a report from the provincial inspector general on how a rocket launcher reached the Zangi Subzwai Goth village in Kashmore district's Kandhkot tehsil of the province, Dawn News reported.
"Was any stock of weapons being smuggled to the Kutcha areas? Are there enablers of the dacoits present in the goth (village)?", he asked.
Expressing his grief over the incident, Baqar directed the inspector general to submit a "detailed report" into the incident.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
