Category Archives: South and Central Asia

‘Finally we are together’: partition’s broken families reunite after seven decades

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Social media is helping long-lost relatives discover each other after a lifetime separated by the India-Pakistan border

It was an embrace that held 74 years of pain and longing. As Sikka Khan, 75, fell into the arms of his older brother Sadiq Khan, now in his 80s, the pair wept with simultaneous sorrow and joy. More than seven decades had passed since the brothers, torn apart by the horrors of partition, had seen each other. With Sikka in India and Sadiq in Pakistan, neither knew if the other was alive. Yet both had never stopped looking.

But on a crisp January afternoon this year, the pair were reunited along the border that had so devastatingly fractured their family. “Finally, we are together,” Sadiq told his brother, tears streaming down his face.

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‘They’d come to kill me’: The Afghan tax reformer hunted by the Taliban and abandoned by the Britain he served

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A year after the fall of Kabul, Abdullah Sayyid is in hiding, his wife has been murdered and the Home Office seems to have lost his case file

Abdullah Sayyid often thinks about the moment the Taliban broke down his door, burst inside and shot his wife. The gunmen left, but would soon redouble their efforts to kill him because of his work for the British government.

Sayyid’s wife was murdered during the chaotic aftermath of Operation Pitting, the UK’s emergency mass airlift from Kabul that began on 13 August last year.

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Female protesters beaten by Taliban fighters during rare Kabul rally

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Shots fired into air and rifle butts used to attack dozens of women protesting outside Afghan education ministry

Taliban fighters beat female protesters and fired into the air on Saturday as they violently dispersed a rare rally in the Afghan capital, days before the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists’ return to power.

Since seizing control on 15 August last year, the Taliban have rolled back the marginal gains made by women during two decades of US intervention in Afghanistan.

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An Afghan girl’s despair over school ban: ‘We are wilting away at home’

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Since returning to power the Taliban have banned secondary school-aged girls from getting an education. Here Farzana*, 16, tells her story

Last year I was in 11th grade, the second highest-placed student in my class, with an average grade of 95%. Now I sit at home all day doing almost nothing. Sometimes I help my mum with housework, but really there are no distractions for me.

I can’t even read books, because I have lost the will to continue. After you lose 11 years of effort all at once, you can’t hold on to your dreams to make something of your life.

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‘She asked me, will they kill you if they discover you?’: Afghan girls defy education ban at secret schools

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Girls forced to stop attending school under Taliban are taking huge risks to keep studying – as are the teachers helping them

When inspectors arrive at the school gate, which is most weeks now, the older girls know the drill. They slip away from their classes, race to a musty room and huddle together for long minutes that sometimes stretch into hours, hoping they won’t be discovered by the men who want them shut up at home.

The Taliban have banned secondary education for girls, the only gender-based bar on studying in the world.

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Man overcharged 20 rupees for India train ticket wins 22-year legal battle

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Lawyer Tungnath Chaturvedi took on the might of Indian Railways after being charged 20 rupees – or 21p – too much

An Indian lawyer has won a 22-year legal battle with Indian Railways for overcharging him by 20 rupees (21p or 25c).

When Tungnath Chaturvedi, 66, bought a ticket at Mathura station in Uttar Pradesh in 1999 to go to Moradabad, he was charged 90 rupees instead of 70. He complained there and then but did not receive a refund.

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India’s HIV patients say shortages leaving hundreds of thousands without drugs

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Campaigners say many people have had to stop or switch antiretroviral medication regimes – but the government denies supply crisis

Hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV in India are struggling to access treatment because of a shortage of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, according to campaigners.

Up to 500,000 people have not been able to get hold of free ARVs from government health centres and hospitals over the past five months, they say, as the country experiences stock shortages of key drugs.

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Former Sri Lanka president Gotabaya Rajapaksa turns up in Thailand after Singapore visa expires

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Rajapaksa allowed in on diplomatic passport for ‘temporary’ stay, say Thai authorities

The former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled overseas to escape protests against his government, arrived in Thailand on Thursday night on a flight from Singapore, where he had been staying since mid-July.

Thai television stations showed Rajapaksa and a woman believed to be his wife outside the VIP hall at Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport being led to a limousine, which drove off to an undisclosed destination.

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Australian academic pleads not guilty in trial with ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, official says

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Sean Turnell was arrested and charged with violating the official secrets act five days after Aung San Suu Kyi’s government was ousted in 2021

An Australian academic who is being tried with ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on charges of violating the country’s official secrets law testified in court for the first time on Thursday, a legal official has said.

Sean Turnell, an economist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, had served as an adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, who was arrested when her elected government was ousted by the army on 1 February 2021.

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Afghan cleric killed by explosives in attacker’s artificial leg, say officials

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Taliban in Kabul investigating death of prominent figure they describe as a ‘huge loss’

A prominent Taliban cleric, Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani, was killed in an attack in a seminary in Kabul when the attacker detonated explosives hidden in a plastic artificial leg, according to officials and Taliban sources.

“Very sadly informed that respected cleric (Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani) was martyred in a cowardly attack by enemies,” said Bilal Karimi, a spokesperson for the Taliban administration.

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Indians forced to buy national flag in return for food rations, says opposition

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Shopkeeper filmed telling customer he had been told to deny rations to anyone refusing to buy flag in run-up to Independence Day

India’s opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has accused the government of forcing people entitled to free food at government ration shops to buy flags in return for provisions in the run-up to Independence Day celebrations on 15 August.

India will celebrate 75 years of independence from the Raj on Tuesday, and the streets of cities across the country are full of flags for sale.

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‘The US let him go free’: release of terrorist who killed unarmed Australian soldiers shows contempt for ally, family says

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Exclusive: Father of one of three soldiers slain by Hekmatullah says Australia was ‘sidelined’ in deal between US and Taliban to release terrorist from prison

The family of one of the Australian soldiers killed by rogue Afghan national army sergeant Hekmatullah says Australia was treated with contempt by its closest ally, the US, after it agreed to release the self-professed terrorist from prison.

The Guardian revealed on Monday that the former Afghan national army sergeant, and Taliban plant, Hekmatullah, is again at liberty, and housed under Taliban protection, in the former diplomatic quarter of the Afghan capital Kabul.

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‘I will continue killing foreigners’: soldier who shot dead unarmed Australians treated as ‘returning hero’ by Taliban

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Exclusive: Hekmatullah, who killed three Australian soldiers, is living in a heavily protected luxury Kabul home after being freed from prison

Hekmatullah, the rogue Afghan soldier who killed three unarmed Australian diggers in Afghanistan a decade ago, is living in a luxury home in the capital Kabul, treated as a “returning hero” by the Taliban who released him from prison.

He has said he does not regret killing Australian soldiers, and has vowed he would again kill Australians, or anyone who opposes the Taliban.

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‘They beat girls just for smiling’: life in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban’s return

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Despite their promises of peace and stability, the country is on its knees, and its people are desperate

Maryam* is near the top of her sixth grade class in Kabul, which under Taliban rule means that her education should be ending in a few months.

But the 10-year-old, whose name we have changed to protect her identity, has a strategy to stay in school for another year, and her eyes dance with satisfaction as she explains her plan. “I will make sure I don’t answer too many questions right. I have decided to fail, so I can study sixth grade again.”

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‘Shameful’: Afghans who helped UK abandoned to a life of fear under the Taliban

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Home Office accused of failing to ensure safety of thousands including teachers and translators

Thousands of Afghans who worked for the UK have been abandoned and remain at risk from the Taliban a year after the evacuation from Kabul, a coalition of human rights groups has said.

In a parliamentary briefing, nine expert groups on Afghanistan criticised the British government’s resettlement schemes as “unjustifiably restrictive”. They said it was deeply concerning that the government is currently not offering a safe route for many Afghan women and girls or to oppressed minority groups.

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Afghanistan: bomb in Kabul shopping street injures at least 22 people

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The explosion happened in a western district where the minority Shia Muslim community regularly meet

A bomb exploded in a busy shopping street in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Saturday injuring at least 22 people, hospital officials and witnesses said.

The blast occurred in a western district of the city where members of the minority Shia Muslim community regularly meet.

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Third member of Cardiff family dies from ‘poisoning’ in Bangladesh

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Death of Samira Islam, 20, follows deaths of Rafiqul, 51, and Mahiqul, 16, during holiday

A woman has become the latest family member of a British family of five on holiday in Bangladesh to die from a suspected poisoning.

Samira Islam, 20, died on Friday after she was discovered unconscious in a locked room by police officers on 26 July. Her father, Rafiqul Islam, 51, a taxi driver, and his 16-year-old son, Mahiqul, also died in the rented flat in the eastern city of Sylhet.

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Sri Lankan government accused of draconian treatment of protesters

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New president Ranil Wickremesinghe is attempting to crush mass protests that forced out predecessor

The Sri Lankan government has been accused of a draconian crackdown on protesters who were involved in toppling Gotabaya Rajapaksa as president, with activists facing intimidation, surveillance and arbitrary arrest.

Dozens of protesters have been detained by the police in recent days as the government, led by the newly appointed president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, tried to crush the mass protest movement that forced Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign in early July.

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Taliban claim they did not know Ayman al-Zawahiri was living in central Kabul

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Denial contradicts US officials who say al-Qaida leader was staying at home of Taliban leader’s aide

The Taliban leadership has said they did not know that al-Qaida boss Ayman al-Zawahiri had moved to the Afghan capital, Kabul, where the US president, Joe Biden, said he was killed by a drone strike at the weekend.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has no information about Ayman al-Zawahiri’s arrival and stay in Kabul,” the militants said in a statement, that used their chosen name for their unrecognised regime.

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Hey, that’s my house: US aid worker realises Zawahiri villa is his old home

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The Kabul property hit by a US drone was familiar. It turned out Dan Smock had something in common with al-Qaida’s leader

The balcony in Kabul where the head of al-Qaida was killed was a spot Dan Smock knew well. It used to be his – when he worked in Afghanistan on a US government aid project – and the views were spectacular.

Smock enjoyed starting the day looking out at the Afghan capital, as did the world’s most wanted terrorist, from the villa they both called home, several years apart.

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