Varthaman was captured by the Pakistani Army on February 27 after his MiG-21 Bison jet was shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani jets during aerial combat.

KARACHI: Pakistan has displayed a mannequin resembling Indian Air Force pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who downed its jet during aerial combat and was held captive for three days, in an exhibit at a museum run by the Pakistan Air Force in Karachi, according to a media report.

Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan this week inaugurated an entire new section of Pakistan Air Force Museum where a mannequin painted to resemble Varthaman with his signature handlebar moustache has been put on display, the Express Tribune reported.

Close to his statue are placed a tea mug and the fuselage and tail of Varthaman’s aircraft, MiG-21.

The gallery named Operation Swift Retort” also contains images re-enacting the moment Varthaman aircraft was shot down, and photographs showing him being handed back to India at the Wagah border crossing.

Varthaman was captured by the Pakistani Army on February 27 after his MiG-21 Bison jet was shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani jets during aerial combat.

Before his jet was hit, he downed an F-16 fighter of Pakistan.

He was released on the night of March 1 by Pakistan.

Varthaman, who showed courage and grace in handling the most difficult circumstances, was conferred the Vir Chakra, India’s third-highest wartime gallantry medal.

The Patek Philippe ‘Grandmaster Chime’ was sold as part of the Only Watch auction held by Christie’s on Saturday to benefit research on Duchenne muscular dystrophy

A one-of-a-kind Patek Philippe watch sold for $31 million (Rs 222 crore) at a charity auction in Geneva, making it the most expensive wristwatch ever auctioned.

The Patek was sold as part of the Only Watch auction held by Christie’s on Saturday to benefit research on Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

For the sale, watchmakers including Patek, Audemars Piguet and F.P. Journe created and donated one-of-a-kind watches, which are coveted by top watch collectors around the world. The fact that the sale was for charity helped boost the bidding prices, according to the auctioneers, CNBC reported.

The buyer of the watch has not been identified.

The Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime reference 6300A-010 is the only one of its kind that will be made in stainless steel.

It has 20 complications, including a grande and petite sonnerie, a minute repeater, instantaneous perpetual calendar with a four-digit year display, second time zone, and 24-hour and minute subdial. The watch’s most unique feature is front and back dials – one salmon coloured, the other black – that can be flipped or reversed.

The steel Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010 smashed the previous record for an auctioned watch – the $17.7 million fetched in 2017 for the Rolex Daytona once owned by Paul Newman.

Dineshwar Budhidat of Queens fatally stabbed his wife Donne Dojoy, 27, who worked as a bartender and then hanged himself from a tree on Friday, a report in The New York Post said.

NEW YORK: A 33-year-old man in the US allegedly stabbed his wife to death and then hanged himself because he was jealous of her liking for Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan, according to a media report.

.Budhidat was “extremely jealous” because his wife was a huge fan of Hrithik, Dojoy’s friends told The Post, adding that her liking for the actor sent him into fits of rage.

She told me when she was at home watching a movie or listening to a song (with Hrithik in it), he would ask her to take it off because he would get so jealous,” Mala Ramdhani, 52, a karaoke singer at Gemini’s Ultra Lounge in Ozone Park, where Dojoy tended bar, said.

“Any movie Hrithik acted in, she wanted to see it,” Ramdhani said.

The report said Dojoy had moved out of her apartment where she lived in with her husband but had agreed to stop by the place to watch a movie and be with Budhidat.

But later in the evening, Budhidat texted his wife’s sister, saying he had killed her, and instructing that the key to the apartment could be found under a flower pot, police sources said later Friday.

He then left behind his wife’s stabbed body and hanged himself from a tree in a field nearby, the report said.

The New York Daily News reported that Budhidat had assaulted her weeks after they got married in July.

Dojoy even had an order of protection against Budhidat that came in a court case which stemmed from his arrest in August for slapping and strangling Dojoy a week earlier inside their Queens apartment.

“I think he loved her but at the same time, he was obsessed with her, because of the type of job she did,” Rodney, a friend of Dojoy’s, said in the report.

“She looked good, she always made her money, so he was probably jealous of her. Dojoy had told her friends that he was controlling and even violent with her at times.”

“She talked about him abusing her, controlling her, beating her, scaring her, threatening to kill her,” Rodney added.

“She never took it seriously because she loved him.”

Dojoy’s aunt, Silvin Dojoy, called her niece “a lovely young lady.”

“A beautiful girl. She was intelligent, and she worked hard.”

Of the husband, she said, “He was a coward. Who acts like that? Lift your hands against a woman? That’s a cowardly act. There is no reason for him to have done what he did. It’s unbelievable. He had no right to do what he did.”

While 225-odd pilgrims were allowed to visit the holy shrine in the neighbouring country through the corridor on Sunday, the number swelled to 400 devotees on Monday.

DERA BABA NANAK/AMRITSAR: A total of about 625 pilgrims were allowed to visit Darbar Sahib Gurdwara at Kartarpur in Pakistan through the Kartarpur Corridor in two days (Sunday and Monday) after its grand unveiling on November 9 by PM Narendra Modi.

While 225-odd pilgrims were allowed to visit the holy shrine in the neighbouring country through the corridor on Sunday, the number swelled to 400 devotees on Monday.

The poor turnout is due to the fact that a large number of pilgrims are still confused about whether or not they require a passport to travel through the corridor.

Besides, they are facing technical problems while applying on the portal. The newly built Integrated Check Post on the Indian side is also incomplete.

On the inauguration of the corridor, Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh led the first jatha of 550 pilgrims, many of them high-profile people.

As per the agreement between Indian and Pakistan, the neighbouring country will allow 5,000 Indian pilgrims daily to visit the gurdwara where Guru Nanak Dev spent last 18 years of his life.

The opening of Kartarpur Corridor has rekindled hope among Sikhs devotees for the revival of ‘Punj-Aab’ bus service between Amritsar and Lahore-Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak.

The bus service was suspended by Pakistan after the Union government revoked Article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

One had to travel to Delhi to get the visa from the Pakistani High Commission, a tedious process. Expressing hope that the bus service would be revived, SGPC chief secretary Roop Singh said, “We can depute our staff to get the devotees’ documents processed from the high commission. We are ready to act as a facilitator if entrusted with the responsibility.”

Dera Baba Nanak: A sea of devotees thronged the historic Gurdwara Ber Sahib here, which reverberated with the sound of Gurbani (hyms), and took a dip in the holy Kali Bein, a day before the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.

More than 25 lakh pilgrims have visited here in last 10 days. Most of the pilgrims are coming from Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Bihar and Maharashtra, apart from the US, the UK, Canada and Australia.

Devotees also thronged Darbar Sahib at Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur, Golden Temple in Amritsar and Nada Sahib in Panchkula.

Before coming to power, Prime Minister Imran Khan often railed at the successive governments of Pakistan for failing to exploit the vast potential of tourism.

ISLAMABAD: For cash-strapped Pakistan, struggling to rebuild its economy and image, the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor is an opportunity to project itself as a moderate nation while earning a tidy sum annually from pilgrims.

Before coming to power, Prime Minister Imran Khan often railed at the successive governments of Pakistan for failing to exploit the vast potential of tourism, including revered religious sites, to attract tourists from around the world.

After assuming last year, among the first things he did was to take steps to attract visitors for sight-seeing and pilgrimage.

Addressing a tourism summit organised by his government here in April, Khan said the God has bestowed Pakistan with diverse kind of landscapes.

“We need to give tourists awareness about the scenic beauty of the country,” Khan said.

He also highlighted religious tourism, especially for the followers of Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

In November last year, he performed the historic groundbreaking of the development work for the opening of the Kartarpur shrine for Sikhs in India and rest of the world.

The construction work has been completed in record time on the corridor.

Khan is set to inaugurate it on Saturday, ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, on November 12.

Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Faisal said that 10,000 Sikhs will attend the opening ceremony and then every day at least 5,000 Sikhs from India and an equal number from Pakistan and other places be allowed to visit the shrine.

“The opening of the corridor for the Sikh community will open vast opportunities for religious tourism,” he said.

During the last two decades, Pakistan has suffered due to violence and terrorism.

The country’s economy nosedived and it lost its image as a business-friendly country.

Government estimates show that over USD 126 billion were lost by the end of 2018.

As Khan struggles to rebuild the shattered economy and visage of the country, he desperately needs to offer better options to the outside world.

With Sikhs coming to Pakistan in droves, Khan’s dream is getting close to realisation.

The quick development work at Kartarpur despite tensions with India is being appreciated.

The corridor will connect the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Punjab with Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur, just 4 kilometres from the International Border, located at Narowal district of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

At Darbar Sahib, Guru Nanak had spent the last 18 years of his life.

Notwithstanding a chill in bilateral ties over Kashmir, Pakistan and India after tough negotiations signed a landmark agreement on October 24 to operationalise the corridor to allow Indian pilgrims to visit the holy Darbar Sahib in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s officials are showcasing Kartarpur as the symbol of religious harmony and representative of the teachings of Islam about showing respect towards non-Muslims.

“We are following the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad regarding the provision of facilities to minorities,” Faisal said.

There seems to be a conscious effort to distance from extremism and terrorism which over the years became synonymous with Pakistan.

By showing the other side of Islam, Khan’s government is trying to build a case to divert pressure that Pakistan was not doing enough to eliminate militancy.

The opening of the corridor may prove handy to wriggle out of the Grey List of the Financial Action Task Force that will meet in February to review Pakistan’s performance on combating terror-financing and money laundering.

As far as the rebuilding of the economy is concerned, religious tourism can directly and indirectly help.

For example, Pakistan decided to levy USD 20 as service charge from every pilgrim coming from India.

Officials are hoping to collect a tidy sum annually that will be handy to support the balance of payment and boost foreign reserves.

Pakistan is expected to earn up to Indian Rs 258 crore per annum — about Pakistani Rs 571 crore — from pilgrims visiting Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur.

Last week, a group of 185 Sikhs were flown to Lahore by Pakistan International Airlines from London to attend the 550 birth anniversary rites of Baba Guru Nanak, indirectly helping the cash-starved national flag-carrier.

As Sikhs flock to Pakistan, Buddhists may not remain far behind.

Last month a group of Buddhist from South Korea visited a stupa in Haripur in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province.

It is believed that after the success of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, Pakistan is also aiming to market Taxila and its vast Buddhist heritage to the followers of Buddhism around the world.

Faisal said tourism is an industry that Pakistan was unable to focus on earlier, however, Khan’s government is making a concerted effort to promote this industry in the country.

“One of the facets of the tourism industry is religious tourism. Sikhs/Nanak NaamLevas (followers), Hindus and Buddhist monks etc have various holy sites in Pakistan and we are trying to tap this potential of religious tourism,” he said.

According to a report, 1.75 million tourists visited Pakistan in 2017.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the direct contribution of travel and tourism to Pakistan’s economy was USD 20,098.9 million in 2019.

Faisal said many initiatives under religious tourism were currently in the pipeline and a great deal of effort was being put in for their fruition.

“The promotion of such initiatives will also help in boosting the economy of Pakistan,” he said.

The migrants, of apparent Afghan origin, were mostly in good condition. Seven of them were given first aid in hospital, the police said.

THESSALONIKI: Forty-one migrants were found alive in a refrigerated truck in northern Greece on Monday, said police, who arrested the driver.

The migrants, of apparent Afghan origin, were mostly in good condition but seven received first aid in hospital, the police said.

“The truck contained men and boys. Identifying their nationality will require a couple of days,” a police source told AFP.

The truck was stopped by police on the Egnatia motorway between the towns of Xanthi and Komotini.

The driver, a man from Georgia, was arrested.

Local media reported that police were also seeking a second man from Turkey in connection with the incident.

The discovery came after 39 people, all believed to be Vietnamese nationals, were found dead in a refrigerated truck in Britain last month, highlighting the risks of illegal migrant routes to Europe, even for those avoiding perilous travel by sea.

Greece is experiencing its highest asylum-seeker arrival figures since 2016, when a controversial deal between the EU and Turkey stemmed previous flows of nearly a million people.

Scores arrive daily, overwhelming camps on Greek islands facing Turkey where over 34,000 people are staying, most of them in deplorable living conditions.

A two-year-old girl from Iraq died Monday when she was hit by a car on the island of Chios, state agency ANA said.

The 6.6-magnitude and 6.5-magnitude quakes hit the island of Mindanao two days apart, destroying buildings and displacing tens of thousands of residents.

MANILA: The death toll in two powerful quakes that struck the southern Philippines in the past week has risen to 21, authorities said Sunday, as survivors struggled to access food and water.

The 6.6-magnitude and 6.5-magnitude quakes hit the island of Mindanao two days apart, destroying buildings and displacing tens of thousands of residents.

Some villagers staying under tents near a highway were begging for help from passing motorists, carrying placards asking for food and water, TV footage showed.

Rescuers had found more bodies, many crushed by falling debris and landslides caused by the violent shaking, the national disaster council said.

The quakes also left 432 residents injured with two people still missing, it added.

Thursday’s big quake was the third since mid-October in the Mindanao region, which makes up a third of the Philippines.

Temporary shelters have been set up to house more than 20,000 displaced individuals — many already there since the first quake struck on October 16, leaving seven people dead.

On Sunday, rescuers continued their evacuation of families whose houses were endangered by landslides, while several residents trapped in mountainous villages had been airlifted to safety.

The government said aid has reached affected communities and instructed people sleeping near the road to go to evacuation centres for help.

The Philippines suffers regular tremors as part of the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Dhaka also refuted Myanmar’s portrayal of Rohingyas as ‘illegal migrants from Bangladesh from the colonial era.’

DHAKA: Bangladesh on Wednesday accused Myanmar of “a persistent campaign” to mislead the international community on the Rohingyas crisis to avoid its obligations for “sustained repatriation”.

“It is a matter of utter dismay to witness persistent campaign on the part of the Government of Myanmar to mislead the international community with fabricated information, misrepresentation of facts, unsubstantial claims and undue accusations on Bangladesh in order to avoid its obligations for the sustained repatriation and reintegration of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas in safety and dignity,” Bangladesh Foreign Office said in a statement.

Referring to the remark of Myanmar’s Union Minister, U Kyaw Tin at the recent 18th Non-Aligment meeting in Baku where Naypyitaw made a statement in regard to Rohingyas which Bangladesh did not appreciate.

Tin accused Bangladesh of mischaracterising the Rohingya crisis as “religious persecution”, “driving an ethnic group out of the country,” “ethnic cleansing”, “genocide” etc.

Dhaka also refuted Myanmar’s portrayal of Rohingyas as “illegal migrants from Bangladesh from the colonial era.”

Bangladesh Foreign office also reaffirmed to Myanmar that there were no Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) activities at its Rohingyas camps, which Naypyitaw often accused it of.

Dhaka further said, “Myanmar must act decisively to address the real causes that are preventing the displaced Rohingyas from going back voluntarily.”

Bangladesh signed a repatriation deal in November 2017 with Myanmar with a plan to return the refugees within two years.

Bangladesh, with the help of the UN refugee agency, started the repatriation of the refugees in August this year for the second time after a failed attempt in November last year, however, none of the refugees agreed to go back voluntarily.

The ISIS chief blew up his suicide vest and died when he was chased inside a dead-end tunnel during a raid by the US Special Operations forces at his hideout on Saturday.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Monday said he was considering releasing a part of the video footage of the US special operations raid in northwest Syria that resulted in the death of elusive Islamic State leader and world’s most wanted terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The ISIS chief blew up his suicide vest and died when he was chased inside a dead-end tunnel during a raid by the US Special Operations forces at his hideout on Saturday.

“We’re thinking about it. We may.

“The question was: Am I considering releasing video footage of the raid? And we may take certain parts of it and release it, yes,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

“We had a great weekend for our country. We captured a man that should’ve been caught a long time ago. Unfortunately, he wasn’t,” Trump said before leaving for Chicago.

“He’s done tremendous damage. But it was an amazing display of intelligence and military power and coordination, and getting along with people. Lots of great things happened.

“So that was a big, big day and a big weekend, and we’re very happy about it,” the US President said.

On Sunday, while announcing the raid and Baghdadi’s death at the White House, Trump said that watching a live feed from the scene of the operation was like watching “a movie.”

Trump announced the success of the raid, saying Baghdadi, who is said to be 48 years old, died “whimpering and crying and screaming”, and “like a dog and a coward”, adding that the ISIS leader and “the losers” under his command “were very frightened puppies”.

Baghdadi came to prominence in 2014, when he announced the creation of a “caliphate” in areas of Iraq and Syria.

ISIS carried out a number of atrocities that resulted in thousands of deaths.

Despite being hunted by the world’s best intelligence agencies and US authorities offering a whopping USD 25 million reward for information leading to his capture, Baghdadi had proved to be incredibly elusive.

The killing of the ISIS leader – the top terrorist leader – comes as a major political victory for President Trump who is facing an impeachment proceeding against him by the opposition Democratic Party, which hold the majority in the House of Representatives.

India and Pakistan on Thursday signed the agreement on the Kartarpur Corridor that will allow Indian pilgrims to undertake a visa-free visit to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib.

WASHINGTON: The US has welcomed India and Pakistan signing a key agreement to operationalise the landmark Kartarpur Corridor next month, saying the building of people-to-people ties between the two neighbours is “good news”.

India and Pakistan on Thursday signed the agreement on the Kartarpur Corridor that will allow Indian pilgrims to undertake a visa-free visit to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, the shrine of the Sikh religion’s founder Guru Nanak Dev in Pakistan, notwithstanding a chill in bilateral ties over Kashmir.

The agreement will allow 5,000 Indian pilgrims daily to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib where Guru Nanak spent last 18 years of his life.

“Welcome news of a finalised agreement that paves the way for a corridor between India and Pakistan, allowing Sikh pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib,” Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice G Wells tweeted on Thursday.

Welcome news of a finalized agreement that paves the way for a corridor between India and Pakistan, allowing Sikh pilgrims to visit Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib. We look forward to the formal opening in November. Building people-to-people ties between neighbors is good news.

“We look forward to the formal opening in November. Building people-to-people ties between neighbours is good news,” she said.

The corridor will connect the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Punjab with Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur, just 4 kilometres from the International Border, located at Narowal district of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

The ties touched a new low when India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August following which Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties and expelled the Indian envoy.

Each visitor would be required to pay USD 20 as fee, though India has requested Pakistan not to charge the Indian pilgrims.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to formally inaugurate the Kartarpur Corridor on November 9, ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak on November 12.