QUETTA: Pakistan police have arrested around a dozen children, some as young as 10, suspected of being used to plant bombs for separatist militants, officers said yesterday.
The arrests were made in raids over the past 24 hours, local police chief Mir Zubair Mahmood said while presenting the children at a news conference in Quetta, the capital of the restive province of Baluchistan.
A Baluch militant organisation had lured the children, who came from poor families, to leave packages containing home-made bombs in markets, dustbins and on routes used by police and security forces, Mahmood said.
He said the militants knew that police would not suspect small children or garbage collectors. “Some children said they did not know what the packets contained and what they were doing,” he said.
Overseas Pakistanis remit $9.23bn
KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan reported that overseas Pakistanis remitted $9.23bn during July-February, up 7.5 percent or $641m from the same period last year — almost half the growth witnessed in the last fiscal year.
The remittances for the first eight months were higher than last year but those for February was less than February last year. The monthly average for July-February 2013 comes to $1.15bn compared with $1.07bn during the corresponding period last year. About $1.03bn was remitted in February as against $1.16bn in the same month last year. In January this year remittances totalled $1.09m.
Anti-measles
drive hits snag
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan government’s initiative to launch a programme to control the outbreak of measles in flood-prone areas received a severe blow after international donors failed to pledge funds at a meeting at the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination. Sources said the amount required by the government to successfully launch its Supplementary Immunisation Activity adds up to $6m.
The campaign will cover around 62 million children aged nine months to 10 years. Of the bulk, $35m is being paid by Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, while the federal government has to generate the remaining $30m.
The programme will be carried out in two phases — in June and the fourth quarter.
Agencies
