4 held in Pak for vandalising Buddha statue

Peshawar, July 18

Four persons have been arrested in Pakistan’s northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province for vandalising a rare statue of Gautam Buddha discovered during excavation at an agriculture farm, the police said on Saturday.

The statue that was discovered in tehsil Takhtbai of Mardan district was destroyed on the orders of a local Maulvi (prayer leader), local residents said. Four suspects have been arrested and an FIR under the antiquity act has been filed, the police said. The arrests were made after a video showing people damaging the statue with hammers went viral on social media. — PTI

2 LeT members jailed in Pak

lahore: Two leaders of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) were sentenced to 15 years in jail in terror financing cases by a Pakistani anti-terrorism court here on Saturday. “The Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Lahore has concluded the trial of two leaders — Luqman Shah and Masoodur Rehman — of proscribed organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in two cases registered, investigated by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police in 2019,” the CTD said in a statement. pti