All eyes on Pakistan Supreme Court, set to rule on parliamentary reserved seats case

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan reopened its airspace to all domestic and international flights on Saturday and resumed Hajj operations after a ceasefire agreement with India put pause to cross-border missile and drone attacks that disrupted regional travel and raised fears of a wider conflict this week. 

The reopening was announced after the two nations agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire deal that came less than 24 hours after Pakistan said India had struck three of its air bases, which led Islamabad to hit multiple bases in India in response, including a missile storage site in India’s north.

“Pakistan’s airspace has been completely restored for all types of flights,” the Pakistan Airports Authority said in a statement. 

“All airports in the country are available for normal flight operations,” it added, asking passengers to contact their airlines for updated schedules.

The religious affairs ministry separately said Hajj flights would now resume as per schedule. 

“A total of 10 Hajj flights were canceled due to the closure of flight operations from time to time,” a spokesman for the ministry said. “Flights cancelation affected the schedule of 2,290 pilgrims.”

So far, 19,669 Pakistani pilgrims had arrived in Saudi Arabia ahead of the Hajj pilgrimage in early June, the spokesman added. 

Flights were grounded, rerouted or delayed across South Asia this past week as tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors escalated.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) suspended operations after halting ground services, while several foreign airlines — including Korean Air, EVA Air, and China Airlines — opted to avoid Pakistani airspace, citing security concerns.

The standoff between the two South Asian nuclear states was sparked by a deadly attack in Indian-administered Kashmir last month that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. India blamed Pakistan for the incident, though officials in Islamabad repeatedly denied any involvement and called for a neutral and impartial probe.

However, New Delhi launched missile strikes on what it called “militant training camps” in at least five Pakistani cities on Wednesday and the two nations have since variously exchanged drone and missile attacks as well as seen increased gunfights on their de facto border at disputed Kashmir. 

QUETTA: Gunmen killed three people, including two barbers from the eastern Punjab province, and set a police vehicle ablaze in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province in the southwest, police and paramilitary Levies officials said on Saturday.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s most impoverished province, has been the site of a decades-old insurgency, where separatist militants often target security forces, police, foreigners and ethnic Punjabi commuters and workers, who they see as “outsiders,” by wresting control of highways and remote towns.

In this first attack, gunmen shot dead three people and injured another one inside a barber shop in Lasbela, a district adjacent to Pakistan’s commercial capital of Karachi, according to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Atif Amir.

“Two of the deceased hailed from Bahawalpur (Punjab) and one from Quetta,” the official told Arab News. “Hunt for the attackers is underway.”

In another incident, dozens of armed men entered the Panjgur district late on Friday night and attempted to seize control of the Panjgur city and nearby areas.

“The armed men set a police vehicle and record of the Panjgur police station on fire,” Abdullah Baloch, an official at the Panjgur Levies control room, told Arab News.

“No casualty was reported despite an exchange of fire between security forces and armed men in Panjgur city and Goran, another area located 15 kilometers from Panjgur.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Baloch separatists have carried out similar assaults on law enforcers and ethnic Punjabis in the past.

The separatists accuse Islamabad of exploiting the province’s natural resources, such as gold and copper, and accuse foreigners and people from other province of backing the Pakistani state. Successive Pakistani governments have denied the allegations and said they only worked for the uplift of the region and its people.

The latest attacks come at a time, when Pakistan is fighting another insurgency by religiously motivated militant groups in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, while the country’s eastern border with India has also flared up in recent weeks over an attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists last month.

Islamabad has variously accused Afghanistan and India of supporting the Pakistani Taliban and Baloch separatist groups, an allegation denied by Kabul and New Delhi.

In March, the Baloch Liberation Army separatist group hijacked a train with hundreds of passengers aboard near Balochistan’s Bolan Pass, which resulted in the deaths of 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers. At least 33 insurgents were also killed, according to officials.

Late last month, police killed nine suspected militants in an intelligence-based operation in Balochistan’s Pishin district.