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.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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