KARACHI: A teenaged Pakistani girl committed suicide after her parents were arrested and held in an Indian jail for nearly six months, police officials in Karachi said. Mohammad Hussain, his wife Yasmeen and eight-year-old son Abdul Karim went to see a family in the city of Jodphur in March but were arrested two months later on visa forgery charges. “One of Hussain's six daughters he left at home, 17-year-old college student Saba, became so distressed at her parents' continued detention that she took her own life,” police official Sajjad Hassan said. "On Saturday, she was found unconscious in her house in the evening and was brought to a hospital where doctors found a heavy quantity of poison in her stomach," he added. The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said in a statement that the girl committed suicide out of desperation and also because the family had little resources to support themselves. "The girl committed suicide to protest against the increasingly desperate situation due to her parents' and brother's detention in India," the AHRC statement said. The group appealed to the Pakistani and Indian prime ministers to help secure the release of Saba's parents and many other Pakistanis whom the Indian authorities had arrested on "dubious charges". Currently at least 61 Pakistanis, including some children, are detained in Indian jails, according to an AHRC count. Hashim said four of Hussain's daughters were schoolgirls who were also distressed at what had happened to their parents and had quit school. "They are mentally disturbed and cry for their parents," Hassan said.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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