Islamabad  - Pakistani authorities on Thursday freed the hard-line cleric at Islamabad's radical Red Mosque, Maulana Abdul Aziz, a day after the Supreme Court granted him bail.

Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Asadullah Faiz told German Press Agency dpa that police had been withdrawn from Aziz's residence in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

"He is a free man now, and he can go wherever he wants," he added.

Hundreds of Aziz's followers gathered outside his residence, where he had been in detention, as the hard-line cleric drove away in a vehicle to an undisclosed location.

Islamabad, Apr 16 : Pakistan’s Public Accounts Committee chief Nisar Ali Khan has said that the PAC had found a misappropriation of billions of rupees in 2005-06.

Taking part in a debate on the address of President Asif Ali Zardari to the joint session of parliament, Nisar said the PAC had dug out hundreds of cases in various government departments in which the nation’s money had been plundered.

Islamabad  - A man killed his brother and nine other members of his family in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province Thursday over an inheritance dispute, police said.

The gruesome incident took place in Sialkot district, located some 150 kilometres north of the provincial capital Lahore.

Zafar Hussain went to his elder brother's home, armed with a knife and an axe, at around 3 am (2100 GMT Wednesday) and slew the entire family, police chief Mohammad Amin said.

Islamabad, Apr. 16 : The Sikh community of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) Orakzai Agency has conceded to the demand of the Taliban to pay them 20 million rupees as Jiziya (religious tax) in return for `protection'.

According to the Daily Times, following the community's decision to accept the demands of the Taliban, the outlawed group released Sikh leader Sardar Saiwang Singh from its captivity, and also vacated several houses that they had captured.

Islamabad, Apr. 16 : Both Pakistan and the United States, it seems, have grown accustomed to an unusual diplomatic dance over the deployment of drones over Pakistan's volatile tribal areas.

But according to the New York Times, for all their public protests, behind the scenes, Pakistani officials might accept the reality and necessity of drones more than Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi's strong rebuke last week, saying that American drone strikes against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas were eroding trust between the allies.

Islamabad  - At least two policemen were killed Wednesday in a suicide bombing in Pakistan's North-West Frontier province, media reports and officials said.

The bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a police checkpoint in the Tangi area of the province's Charsadda district, said Mohammad Yar, the district's police officer.