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During their numerous conquests across much of the known world, Alexander the Great and his horse Bucephalas led the elite Macedonian cavalry. According to one legend, they even discovered Himalayan salt, famous today for its pinkish tint and its essential trace elements required by the body. The horses had worked hard in battle and on the trail and during a moment of respite licked the salt-covered rocks in the hills overlooking the Hyaspes River. This alerted the soldiers to the salt deposits there. Whether the anecdote is true or not, it speaks to the bond between horse and rider and...

Lahore -- At least 15 minor male students at a seminary were allegedly raped by two teachers in Pakistan’s Punjab province, police said on Monday, days after the suspects were arrested. The incident took place in Chakwal district, some 275 km from Lahore, Punjab Inspector General Police (IGP) Usman Anwar told reporters here. Both the teachers, identified as Zeeshan and Anis, have been arrested and are being interrogated, he said. “The two teachers of a seminary in Chakwal district sexually assaulted at least 15 male students, aged between 10 and 12. The number may increase during the course of the...

New York -- The Sikh turban does not mean terrorism but symbolises faith, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said, as he described the recent attacks and hate crimes against the community as a “stain” on the country and vowed to protect its members. He also gave a clarion call for educating people about Sikhism. “You are not about terror; you are about protector. That is what needs to be taught throughout this entire city. Our young people need to know that, our adults need to know that,” Adams said while addressing members of the Sikh community at the Baba...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that Canada has credible information that the government of India was involved in the murder of a prominent British Columbia Sikh leader on Canadian soil in June. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead in his truck by two masked gunmen as he left his Sikh temple in Surrey, B.C., on June 18. He was the president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara and a vocal supporter of the establishment of a separate state, called Khalistan, for Sikhs in India... Canada recently cancelled trade talks with India and a proposed Team Canada trade mission was...

For the second time in his tenure, an official trip to India by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become defined by a cascading series of gaffes, snubs and diplomatic embarrassments... After a short meeting between Trudeau and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying that Modi spent most of the encounter reprimanding Trudeau for allegedly letting Canada become a safe haven for secessionist extremists... And all of this was before Trudeau’s aircraft broke down, stranding the Canadian delegation in New Delhi until a rescue plane could be dispatched from CFB Trenton... Trudeau had...

In 1984 the prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, allowed government officers to storm one of Sikhism’s holiest temples in a search for separatists who were agitating for a new country. In response, her bodyguards assassinated her. That led to a multiple-day attack across India by the authorities and citizens against Sikhs. When it was over, the government said 3,300 Sikhs had died. Estimates by independent observers put the toll between 8,000 and 17,000. Other estimates put the number at about 30,000 people who lost their lives in the ethnic killing. No matter the number, Sikhs worldwide have considered the...

Amritpal Singh, who has revived calls for the state of Punjab to secede, had been on the run since last month after capturing national attention in February. Indian police on Sunday arrested a separatist leader who has revived calls for an independent Sikh homeland and the secession of India’s northern Punjab state, which has a history of violent insurgency. Amritpal Singh had been on the run since last month after capturing national attention in February, when hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station in Ajnala, a town in Punjab state, with wooden batons, swords and guns to demand the...

Investigators in California are working to determine the motive behind the killing of a family of four – including an 8-month-old baby – as the bodies were recovered Wednesday in a rural farm area after they were kidnapped earlier this week by an armed man at their business.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- South Asia Analysis Group -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper no. 439 08. 04. 2002 AL QAEDA'S SHADOWS ON INDIA & S.E. ASIA by B.Raman There are indications that to avoid detection of their presence in Pakistani territory by the US intelligence agencies and possible cross border (Pakistan-Afghan border) punitive strikes by the US forces operating in Afghanistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan has started shifting important elements of the Al Qaeda, including surviving leaders of its brains trust, to Pakistani Punjab and the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), including the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan). Since December, 2001, sections of the Pakistani media...

Natural News has been de-platformed by Facebook. Authoritarian tyranny accelerates.

A Pakistani woman separated from her family during the 1947 Partition met her Indian brothers for the first time last month after 75 years. Mumtaz Bibi, who was separated from her Sikh family during the turmoil, met her brothers Gurmukh Singh and Baldev Singh for the first time at the Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan in April. "We are so happy that we've been able to meet our sister in our lifetime," Gurmukh Singh said. In 1947, the Partition led to the creation of two independent nations - India and Pakistan. It was the biggest movement of people in history,...

Ali Hassan’s father, a young man who stabbed two people in a meat-cleaver attack outside the former Paris office of controversial Charlie Hebdo magazine last week, said to himself ” proud ”of his son. In an interview with online channel Naya Pakistan, the father, whose name is withheld, said his son had “done a great job” and was “very happy” with the attack. The French government condemned Friday’s stabbing in front of the former office of the satirical magazine as an act of “Islamist terrorism”. The man, previously identified as Ali Hassan, seriously injured two employees of the Premieres Ligne...

Naseem was charged with denigrating the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad. Two years later, awaiting his bail hearing surrounded by police and lawyers, he was gunned down. Faisal Khan, a 15-year-old Pakistani, beams for selfies with lawyers and police. Thousands hail him in the streets as a “holy warrior.” His claim to adulation? Allegedly gunning down in open court an American accused of blasphemy, a capital crime in this Islamic republic. Khan is charged with murder, which also carries a death sentence. But while lawyers line up to defend him, the attorney for Tahir Naseem, the U.S. citizen, has gone...

At Least 12 Killed as Pakistani Military Plane Crashes During Routine Training - Reports © Sputnik / 03:17 30.07.2019(updated 03:20 30.07.2019) MOSCOW (Sputnik) - At least 12 people, including two pilots and three crew, were killed and 12 other injured after a small plane of the Pakistan Army Aviation crashed in the Rawalpindi city of Pakistan's Punjab province during a routine training flight, local media reported on Tuesday. Shortly after, a massive fire broke out at the crash site near the Rabi Center shopping mall, engulfing several houses and leaving at least 12 people injured, the News International newspaper reported,...

It’s 7:20 p.m. when he rolls into Spicy Bite, one of the newest restaurants here in rural northwest New Mexico. Locals in Milan, a town of 3,321, have barely heard of it. The building is small, single-story, built of corrugated metal sheets. There are seats for 20. The only advertising is spray-painted on concrete roadblocks in English and Punjabi. Next door is a diner and gas station; the county jail is across the road. Palwinder Singh orders creamy black lentils, chicken curry and roti, finishing it off with chai and cardamom rice pudding. After 13 hours on and off the...

Christians Left Voiceless Amidst Land-Grabbing in Pakistan 03/15/2019 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – Christians in Pakistan have a history of being discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens. This takes the form of limited job opportunities, social barriers, and preventing believers from engaging with society. Because of this mentality, some Muslims believe that they have more rights to a plot of land than the Christian who owns it. Occasionally, this leads to violence against Christian landowners as a ploy to force them off of their property. Although this practice is illegal, Christians often do not have the option to...

The victims were standing on the railway tracks watching celebrations for the Hindu festival of Dusshera, eyewitnesses told BBC Punjabi. They did not hear the train approach as they watched a firecracker-filled effigy of the demon king Ravana burn. Officials said the priority now was to take the injured to local hospitals. Footage posted to social media showed the fast-travelling train hitting the crowd. The incident happened at about 18:30 local time (13:00 GMT), said local journalist Ravinder Singh Robin. Just moments before, crowds watching the firecrackers show were asked by organisers to move back - towards the railway tracks,...

No attempt was made to save the dying manA Pakistani Christian man has died after receiving a torturous beating at the hands of guards and staff at a hospital in the Punjab capital, Lahore. Sunil Saleem, 26, was visiting his sister, Kiran, who was hospitalized during the later months of her pregnancy. Kiran was supposed to be visited by a gynecologist, who was on the phone and asked a nurse to make the visit. The trouble began when Kiran insisted on being see by the doctor rather than the nurse. An argument broke out between Kiran’s family and hospital staff....

Activists from various religious parties thronged the Faisal Chowk (Charing Cross Chowk) on Mall Road on Saturday afternoon on the call of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYR) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi on the social media following the government’s crackdown on the participants of the protest sit-in at Faizabad Interchange in Islamabad on the orders of the Islamabad High Court (IHC). Surprisingly, there was no police presence in the most sensitive location in Lahore which houses the Punjab Assembly, headquarters of the Lahore Police, and provincial headquarters of the country’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). ... One of the...

Victims are a group of Sikh individuals from Punjab, India who were actively and peacefully advocating the call given by SFJ to hold referendum for Sikhs' right to self determination and to liberate Indian Occupied Punjab. The demand for referendum is based on the right to self determination guaranteed by the UN Charter and International Convent on Civil and Political Rights on the basis that Sikhs are indigenous people of Punjab, with a separate and distinct religious, cultural and linguistic identity. Sikh Referendum Campaigners were actively involved in "Referendum 2020" campaign by coordinating, participating and holding gatherings in the villages...