ISLAMABAD, 08 OCT (DNA) – Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Senator Pervez Rashid on Thursday claimed that the rallies and public meetings of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) were organized in Pakistan with financial assistance from Jewish and Hindu lobbies in the US.At a press conference here, Pervez Rashid said PTI spent millions of rupees on its rallies in Pakistan, claiming they were all arranged with the help of dollars coming from America-based Jewish and Hindu lobbies.

He said all the political parties of Pakistan are bound under the law not to receive any funds from foreigners. Pervez Rashid said the ECP was trying to conceal Imran Khan’s crime of taking funds from foreigners which he used for political purposes. “We have a documentary proof of Imran Khan’s signatures acknowledging receipt of funds,” he added.

The Information Minister waved in the air a bunch of documents he held in one of his hands, saying his claims were based on documentary proof obtained from a US department. He said this file contains names of all those firms Jewish, Hindu and Sikh firms which ‘sent their donations to the PTI’.

He said the PTI Chairman Imran Khan not only kept the ‘funds from foreign firms’ hidden from the ECP but also used them on his protest sit-ins. “Imran Khan hurls allegations at others, he too will have to answer my questions,” he snapped.

The Information Minister went on to say that Imran Khan staged the sit-ins in Islamabad with an aim to stop the scheduled visit of Chinese President to Pakistan. “Imran Khan, you are functioning as a tool for Pakistan’s enemies,” he added. DNA

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Indian lawmaker attacked, UN intervention sought as beef row grows

SRINAGAR, 08 OCT (DNA) – Lawmakers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party tried to assault an opposition member in a state parliament Thursday over eating beef, as debate rages in India over intolerance of religious minorities.

Television footage showed several Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators, who consider cows sacred, pushing and shoving Abdul Rashid, a Muslim, in the Jammu and Kashmir state assembly for holding a provocative “beef party”.

“No amount of condemnation can be enough for what happened today,” opposition leader Omar Abdullah told reporters outside the assembly in the northern region’s main city of Srinagar.

“Trying to beat up a member, this is the first time I have ever seen something like this in any house,” Abdullah, whose party walked out of the chamber over the attack. “Do I assault everyone who eats pork or alcohol?”

Rashid served beef kebabs at the “party” this week in protest against a ban on killing and eating cows in India´s only Muslim-majority state. The issue ignited in the region after a top court last month ordered the long-standing but little enforced prohibition be strictly implemented.

The attack comes as a wider debate rages in Hindu-majority India over hardliners´ intolerance of Muslims and other religious minorities, many of whom eat beef as a source of protein.

Late last month, a mob beat a Muslim man to death in Uttar Pradesh state over rumours that he had eaten beef. The man was dragged from his home and attacked while his 22-year-old son was also severely injured.

Modi, a staunch Hindu nationalist, is under growing pressure to condemn that attack and defuse the growing row, amid accusations that his silence so far is only emboldening hardliners, including those from his own party.

Modi´s government wants a nationwide ban on the slaughter of cows, which is prohibited in only some states. India is the world´s biggest exporter of buffalo meat, an industry mainly run by Muslims.

President Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday called for officially secular India´s tradition of tolerance to be upheld, in what was seen as an attempt to calm raging anger over the issue.

UP minister Azam Khan seeks UN intervention Meanwhile, Indian media reported that senior UP minister Azam Khan has sought the intervention of United Nations to look into the “miseries” of minorities in India.