Lahore, Nov 24: Pakistan’s investigating agency, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has said that the number of illegal immigrants entering Iran from Pakistan had increased compared to last year.

FIA Director Ahsan Shujaat Ali said that in 2008 the Agency intercepted more than 8000 people trying to illegally enter the country.

In 2007 Iranian authorities had handed over more than 6000 illegal immigrants to the FIA at the Pak-Iran border at Taftan, the Daily Times quoted him as saying further.

Lahore, Nov 24: An Indian team headed by its Indus Waters Commissioner is scheduled to arrive in Pakistan this Saturday, and would visit Head Marala the following day in connection with Pakistan’s demand for compensation for the 200,000-acre feet shortfall in Chenab river water caused by the filling of Baglihar Dam this year, said Pakistan’s Indus Waters Commissioner Syed Jamaat Ali Shah.

Addressing a seminar at the Lahore press club last evening on threats to the country’s agriculture sector, he said that under the Indus Basin Treaty, India could build dams for storing 2.85 million acre feet of water for power generation on the rivers entering Pakistan but it could not utilise it.

Lahore, Nov. 22 : Former Pakistan cricket captain and now Director-General of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Javed Miandad, has joined a chorus of former and current players in questioning the logic behind the International Cricket Council''s (ICC) ban on the Kapil Dev-led rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL).

According to the CricInfo web site, Miandad believes there is immense "public pressure" on the PCB to bring ICL players back into the Pakistan fold and "past decisions by past [PCB] administrations" have "nothing to do with the new set-up".

Lahore, Nov 22: The father-in-law of banned Pakistani opener Imran Farhat, Muhammad Ilyas, has been appointed by the PCB as chairman of the national junior selection committee.

Illyas, a former opener, has played 10 official and unofficial Tests, with a combined average of 43.2 for Pakistan.

Farhat is currently playing with his brother Humayun in the ICL.

Lahore, Nov 22: The South Asia Free Media Association (SAFMA) has said that al Qaeda can take over Pakistan’s Punjab province at any time, as it has appointed Ameers (presidents) and Naib Amirs (vice presidents) in all 34 districts of the state.

Punjab Police have been providing protocol to ‘jihadis’, said SAFMA General Secretary Imtiaz Alam while addressing a condolence conference in memory of poet and former professor of Punjabi Ali Arshad Mir.

He said the right and left wings in Pakistan had unfortunately united and were jointly terming the United Sates an enemy of Pakistan, adding that this ideology was further being fuelled and propagated by the ‘mujahideen’ in the media.