Train runs over man talking on mobile phone
Reported in Dunya (September 10, 2015) a 25-year-old man in Lahore got run over by a train which he couldn’t see because he was talking on his mobile phone.
PIA plane emergency-lands after engineering blunder
Express reports (September 11, 2015) a PIA engineer forgot to remove the pin from a US-bound flight’s landing gear. The plane had to make an emergency landing in New York.
E-governance projects won’t run in Urdu
According to Nawa-e-Waqt (September 11, 2015) a Supreme Court decision to make Urdu the official language will jeopardize several e-governance and computerization in Punjab. The government has spent billions of rupees on these projects.
Snake in children’s hospital
A five-foot-long snake appeared in a Children’s Hospital in Sialkot, Dunya reports (September 12, 2015). The relatives of the patients picked up their children and began to run (dorrain lag gaeen). When no help arrived for an entire hour, people killed the snake themselves (apni madad aap kay tehet).
135 girls pass out after anti-dengue fumigation
Reported in Express (September 13, 2015) 135 students of a girls high school at a village near Jehlum passed out after anti-dengue fumigation on the campus. Seventy of them had to be sent to bigger hospitals in other towns.
The genius of Peshawar
According to Dunya (September 14, 2015) a youth in Peshawar surprised engineers (barray barray engineers ko hairan kar diya) when he put a motor on his bicycle to make a motorbike. The upgrade cost him only Rs 12,000. He says a round trip to Rawalpindi cost him only Rs 400.
Angry men thrash anti-dengue team
A team of anti-dengue volunteers was attacked by five men in Rawalpindi, who lost their temper as soon as they saw them, Nawa-e-Waqt reports (September 14, 2015). They said they were angry because more than a hundred girl students at a high school near Jhelum ended up in hospital because of anti-dengue fumigation on their campus.
Bureaucrat asked to prove his masculinity
Umar Cheema reports in Jang (September 15, 2015) a bureaucrat is upset (sarapa ehtajaj) after NADRA registered him as a transgender in his new computerized national identity card. When he asked for the error to be fixed, he was told to bring a medical certificate to prove he is not a transgender.
Sarabjeet’s Singh’s sister was fake
Reported in Jang (September 16, 2015) the woman who visited Pakistan to meet Indian terrorism convict Sarabjeet Singh was not his real sister, and had traveled on fake documents. The girl who was given a job in India for being Singh’s daughter is also not related to him.
Briber gets Rs 1 million gas bill
According to Nawa-e-Waqt (September 16, 2015) a man who ran a tandoor in Gujjar Khan went to the Sui Gas office to complain against overcharging, saying his monthly bill was more than Rs 20,000. An agent asked him for a Rs 2,000 bribe. The next month, his bill was changed to Rs 1 million.