By Ali Hazrat Bacha

PESHAWAR, March 9: At least five worshippers, including the Imam (prayer leader), were killed and 29 others injured in a bomb blast inside a mosque in Peshawar on Saturday.

The explosive device, planted near the pulpit of the Bilal Masjid, on the city’s residential-cum-commercial Baqar Shah Street, exploded when people were offering Zuhr prayers. The blast left a deep crater in the mosque and damaged walls.

By Mohammad Hussain Khan

HYDERABAD, March 9: President Asif Ali Zardari has said that Pakistan needs more internal and regional trade than external and that was why the Iran gas pipeline and Gwadar projects were being executed.

Gwadar port was being given under the control of the Chinese to achieve this goal, he said.

By Muhammad Faisal Ali

LAHORE, March 9: A mob enraged over alleged blasphemy set on fire a number of houses belonging to Christians in Badami Bagh on Saturday.

There was no casualty as members of the Christian community, including women and children, had left the neighbourhood on Friday night after police advised them to do so.

By Baqir Sajjad Syed

ISLAMABAD, March 9: With the groundbreaking of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project set for Monday despite unrelenting US opposition, the diplomatic community is buzzing over which of the foreign heads of state invited to the ceremony would be turning up.

President Asif Ali Zardari and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is hosting the ceremony, are reported to have sent invitations to eight heads of state and government.

AJMER, March 9: Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Saturday prayed for peace in his country at a 13th-century shrine in northern India during a lightning visit.

Mr Ashraf and his family prayed at the revered shrine of Hazrat Moinuddin Chishti, also known as Khwaja Gharib Nawaz, in the Indian desert state of Rajasthan.

By Iftikhar A. Khan

ISLAMABAD, March 9: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has fulfilled a key prerequisite for the upcoming general election by finalising the ‘polling scheme’, which deals with issues like the number of polling stations to be set up across the country and the polling staff to be deployed for the elections.

Sources told Dawn on Saturday that as per the polling scheme approved, 40,818 polling stations with 128,577 polling booths would be set up in Punjab, as compared to 36,598 poling stations and 95,735 polling booths set up for the 2008 elections.