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92-year-old Indian woman arrives in Pakistan to visit ancestral home after 75 years

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The Pakistani High Commission, as a goodwill gesture, issued a three-month visa to a 92-year-old Indian woman, Reena Chhibar, who reached Pakistan on Saturday to see her ancestral home, media reports said.

As she made her way through the Wagah-Attari border to see her ancestral home, Prem Niwas, in Rawalpindi, she urged the governments of both the countries to “work together” to ease visa restrictions to make “coming and going easy for us”, the Express Tribune reported.

Reena reminisced of a multi-cultural diverse community that was thriving in ‘Pindi before the Partition as she was driven from the border to Rawalpindi. “My siblings had friends who would come over to our house from various communities, including Muslims,” she said, remembering that “our house-help was also a diverse mix of people”.

In 1947, after the partition, her family moved to India. She was 15 years old at the time, and though over 75 years have passed since then, she said she “could not remove her ancestral home, her neighbourhood and the streets from her heart”, Express Tribune reported.

Reena had applied for visa in 1965 to visit Pakistan, but she says she could not acquire permission amid high tensions due to the war between the two neighbours. She still managed to visit Lahore to watch a match between Pakistan and England as Pakistan had issued visas to Indians to watch the match.

Reena claims that she had expressed the desire to visit her ancestral home on social media in 2021, upon which a Pakistani citizen named Sajjad Haider contacted her and sent her images of the house. In a video on social media, she claimed that she had applied for a visa to visit the place in 2021 which was rejected, Express Tribune reported.

The 92 year-old then turned to social media and expressed her desire to visit Pakistan. She also tagged the now Pak Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar in her post.

According to Reena, the minister immediately directed the Pakistani High Commission to issue her a visa and soon after, she was contacted by the high commission in New Delhi. After meeting with the Commission’s Aftab Hassan Khan, she was issued a visa for 90 days.

As Reena arrived in Pakistan via Wagah border on Saturday morning, her eyes became moist. She left for Rawalpindi where she will visit her ancestral home Prem Niwas and her childhood friends from the neighbourhood, Express Tribune reported.

International News

23 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza

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Gaza, Dec 23: At least 23 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported.

At least nine people, including three children and two women, were killed, and some others were injured as a result of the Israeli bombing of the Musa bin Nusayr School on Sunday, which houses displaced people in the Al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.

Four more people were killed when the Israeli army bombed a vehicle on the Al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City, it added.

Five citizens, including four children, were killed on Sunday morning in Israel’s shelling of the Jabalia town, north of Gaza City, WAFA said in a separate report.

In the southern Gaza Strip, two people were killed when the Israeli army bombed their apartment west of Khan Yunis, and three others died in the Israeli bombing of the city of Rafah, WAFA said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Sunday that with the direction of intelligence, the air force conducted a “precise strike” on Hamas militants who were operating inside a command-and-control center in the Gaza Strip.

The command-and-control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served as the Musa bin Nusayr School, was used by the militants to plan and execute attacks against IDF troops and the State of Israel, it added.

Israel has been on a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on October 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 45,227, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Saturday.

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Crime

At least 18 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza

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Gaza, Dec 21: At least 18 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the central and northern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian sources.

Local sources and eyewitnesses reported that Israeli warplanes targeted an apartment in the multi-story “Yaffa” tower in the al-Nuseirat camp, located in central Gaza.

A statement from Al-Awda Hospital in the camp confirmed that eight people were killed and 14 others injured, some seriously, in the attack.

In northern Gaza, Israeli shelling struck a house belonging to the “Khilla” family in Jabalia Al-Balad, killing 10 people and injuring several others, according to the Gaza Strip’s Civil Defence.

The Israeli army has not commented on these incidents.

Also on Friday, the military wing of Hamas, Al-Qassam Brigades, announced that one of its fighters had carried out a suicide attack targeting an Israeli force of six soldiers in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza.

The Israeli army has not issued a comment on this incident.

Earlier on Thursday at least 16 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombings in northern Gaza, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported.

At least 10 people were killed on Wednesday night and some others injured when the Israeli aircraft bombed the house of the Al-Najjar family in the town of Jabalia, WAFA said.

Six more people were killed due to Israeli bombing on the house of the Al-Zaytouniya family near the Al-Tabi’in School in the Al-Daraj neighborhood, east of Gaza City, it added.

The Israeli army has not commented on these incidents.

Israel has been conducting a large-scale offensive against Hamas in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel, which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths and 250 hostages taken.

As of Friday, the Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza has risen to 45,206, according to Gaza-based health authorities.

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International News

Khalistani separatist Pannun’s threat to Indian ambassador ‘serious’ issue, taken up with US: MEA

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New Delhi, Dec 20: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday revealed that New Delhi has taken “seriously” the latest threat issued by the US-based Khalistani separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun against India’s Ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra and raised it accordingly with the authorities in Washington.

In a recent video, Pannun threatened that Kwatra is on the radar of pro-Khalistani Sikhs in America for allegedly coordinating with Russian authorities, who in turn were providing inputs to Indian intelligence agencies on the Khalistani network in the United States.

“As and when such threats are issued, we take them very seriously and raise them with the US government. In this particular case also, we have raised it with the US government and it is our expectation that the United States government will take our security concerns seriously and act on it,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during a weekly media briefing in New Delhi on Friday.

A former Foreign Secretary, Kwatra took charge as India’s Ambassador to the United States in August this year, succeeding Taranjit Singh Sandhu.

His appointment came at a time when Khalistani separatists continue to target Hindu community in the country and also the Indian missions.

Khalistanis have been found to be involved in incidents of defacement of temples, including in California and New York, and also in acts of arson and vandalism at the Indian embassy in San Francisco.

Several lawmakers, including Shri Thanedar – a Democrat elected to the House of Representatives from Michigan state – have raised alarm over the “substantial increase” in attacks on Hindus and their places of worship in the United States.

The lawmaker had recently expressed frustration with the investigating agency for their failure to find the culprits behind the incidents at the temples and the consulate.

“It appears to be a very coordinated effort to attack these places of worship which has created a lot of fear in the community. And often what we have seen is that the law enforcement, the local law enforcement enters into these investigations and rarely any suspects have been identified, and that investigation goes nowhere.

“What that does is that it leaves the community feeling like nobody cares about them. Nobody reports back to them on what’s going on. And that means that the community continues to live in fear, the computing community continues to live in an adverse situation with essentially no help from law enforcement,” he said.

The lawmaker went on to state that he and his colleagues are asking the US Department of Justice for “coordinated efforts between the local law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Department of Justice, and higher priority needs to be assigned to such hate crimes against this peaceful community”.

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