Pakistan slams Israel’s attacks in Lebanon and Iran, warns of escalation in Middle East

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb will represent Pakistan at the funeral tomorrow, Saturday, of the late Prince Karim Al-Hussaini Aga Khan IV who died this week after nearly seven decades as the spiritual leader of the global Ismaili Muslim community, state-owned Pakistan Television reported on Friday.

After a funeral ceremony at the Ismaili Center in the Portuguese capital on Saturday — to be attended by leaders of the community, Portuguese government members and foreign dignitaries — Aga Khan IV will be laid to rest at a private burial ceremony in Aswan, Egypt on Sunday, according to the Ismaili Imamat.

Prince Rahim Al-Hussaini was named the 50th hereditary Imam, or spiritual leader, of Ismaili Muslims on Wednesday after the will of his late father was unsealed, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) said.

“Aurangzeb will represent Pakistan during the last rites of Prince Aga Khan, who passed away at the age of 88,” PTV reported. “He will also participate in the prayer congregation for the departed soul in Lisbon.”

The government of Pakistan has announced a day of national mourning on Saturday for the funeral of Aga Khan IV. The national flag will fly at half-mast throughout the country that day.

Known for his wealth and development work around the world through the Aga Khan Development Network, Prince Karim died in Lisbon, the seat of the Ismaili Imamat. As Aga Khan — derived from Turkish and Persian words to mean commanding chief — he is believed by Ismailis to be a direct descendant of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) through his cousin and son-in-law, Ali, the first Imam, and his wife Fatima, the prophet’s daughter.

The world’s Ismaili community, a branch of Shiite Islam, comprises around 15 million people who live in Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and North America.

Set up in 1967, the AKDN group of international development agencies employs 80,000 people helping to build schools and hospitals and providing electricity for millions of people in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia. 

Aga Khan IV also kept up his family’s long tradition of thoroughbred racing and breeding. His stables and riders, wearing his emerald-green silk livery, enjoyed great successes at the top international derbies.

With inputs from Reuters

ISLAMABAD: The deputy commissioner’s office in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore has denied permission to jailed ex-premier Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to hold a rally tomorrow, Saturday, to mark the one-year anniversary of a general election the party says was rigged.

Khan last month called on his party’s leaders and supporters to mark Feb. 8 as a “Black Day” and hold protests across the country to protest alleged rigging in polls last year. The PTI also sought permission to hold a main gathering on the grounds of the iconic Minar-e-Pakistan monument in Lahore on Saturday. 

The national polls were marred by a countrywide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by opposition parties like the PTI and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) headed by Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman. The caretaker government which oversaw the electoral exercise, and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), deny the charges. The US House of Representatives and several European countries have called on Islamabad to open a probe into the allegations, a move that Pakistan has thus far rejected.

In a notification dated Feb. 6, the Lahore deputy commissioner said he would not grant PTI permission to hold a rally at Minar-e-Pakistan due to, among other reasons, security concerns and in view of important events that were scheduled to take place in Lahore in February, including the ICC Champions Trophy, an eight-team cricket tournament that will be first global competition held in Pakistan in 28 years.

“Deputy commissioner Lahore refused to grant permission to PTI to hold jalsa [rally] at Minar-e-Pakistan Lahore on Feb 8, which is otherwise a democratic right of any political party holding a peaceful rally,” the PTI said in a statement sent to media.

Zulfikar Bukahri, a PTI spokesman, said the denial was “not exactly a surprise.”

“There is no freedom of any sort left in Pakistan,” he told Arab News. 

In a separate text message to journalists, the PTI said it would hold a “massive” rally in Swabi in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the party is in power, calling on supporters from other parts of Pakistan to gather there. 

The party has held multiple rallies at the huge park surrounding the 70-meter tall monument since 2011. Many political parties in Pakistan’s history have used the Minar-e-Pakistan ground to hold protests and power shows. 

Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The party, as well as the Jamaat-e-Islami and other opposition outfits, have alleged mass rigging in the polls, which authorities deny.

Khan himself has been jailed in a slew of cases since August 2023 which he says are politically motivated to keep him out of office.