Hamirpur, Chamba DC offices get bomb threat; police search premises
Police laid a cordon and launched a search after a mailer threatened to blow up the offices of Hamirpur and Chamba district commissioners. The office was evacuated after it received a threat mail around 11.30 am, threatening to blow up the office at 2.30 pm, Chamba DC Mukesh Repaswal said.
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Police have cordoned off the area and search operations are on, he added.
The source of mail is being checked, police said.
In Hamirpur, employees were evacuated after the mail. A dog squad was deployed to sniff out the "bomb" and the fire brigade kept on standby.
Hamirpur is the home district of Chief Minister
Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu
.
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The administration has appealed to the people not to panic.
On April 16, two similar threat mails were received at the office of Chief Secretary, Himachal Pradesh, and DC Mandi, following which both offices were evacuated and sanitized. No bomb was found.
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Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
Those engaged in drug trade will face harsh punishment: Himachal CM
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India Today
6 days ago
- India Today
From Mirpur to Manchester: How Pakistan's honour culture fuelled Britain's grooming gang crisis
Across British cities from Rotherham to Rochdale, Telford to Newcastle, organised networks of predominantly Pakistani-origin men have exploited thousands of children, leaving behind a trail of shattered lives and institutional humiliation. This crisis cannot be understood merely as opportunistic criminality, but rather as the logical outcome of specific cultural attitudes that travelled from Pakistan's conservative heartland to Britain's vulnerable story begins not in Britain's northern industrial towns, but in the villages and cities of Pakistan itself, where deeply embedded notions of honour, female subjugation, and religious supremacy create psychological frameworks that render certain categories of people—particularly non-Muslim girls and women—as legitimate targets for exploitation. These attitudes, refined over generations in Pakistan's patriarchal society, found fertile ground among diaspora communities in Britain, where they encountered vulnerable children failed by institutions too paralysed by political correctness to offer adequate The staggering scale of systematic abuse The numbers reveal the true magnitude of this cultural catastrophe. Pakistani-origin men are up to four times more likely to be reported for child sex grooming offences than the general population in England and Wales. The perpetrators behind Britain's most notorious child abuse scandals—involving an estimated 1,400 children in Rotherham alone, with victims as young as 11—were overwhelmingly of Pakistani heritage. These statistics represent not isolated incidents but systematic patterns of exploitation that continued for decades whilst authorities turned blind the broader global context of child sexual abuse, where UNICEF documents approximately 90 million children having experienced sexual violence worldwide, the Pakistani grooming gang phenomenon stands out for its organised nature, cultural specificity, and institutional enabling. Unlike random acts of abuse, these networks operated with sophisticated recruitment strategies, economic infrastructure, and community protection that allowed systematic exploitation to flourish in plain organised nature of these crimes distinguishes them from other forms of child sexual abuse. Victims were not randomly selected but systematically targeted based on specific vulnerabilities that Pakistani cultural conditioning had taught perpetrators to identify and exploit. Working-class white girls in care homes, from broken families, or living in poverty became preferred targets precisely because they occupied the lowest positions in imported honour Mirpur origins: Where cultural pathology takes rootUnderstanding how such systematic abuse became possible requires examining its cultural origins in Mirpur, a city from which the majority of British-Pakistanis trace their ancestry. Though technically part of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Mirpur's inhabitants share the customs, language, and cultural attitudes of Pakistan's Punjabi majority, creating a specific strain of South Asian patriarchy that would prove particularly toxic when transplanted to British represents a cultural ecosystem where Islamic fundamentalism intersects with primitive tribalism and violent misogyny. Within this worldview, women exist as male property, requiring constant supervision and control. The concept of female 'honour' becomes central to family and community standing, with any perceived transgression potentially resulting in violence, social ostracism, or death. This creates psychological frameworks where women who fail to conform to strict behavioural codes are viewed not as individuals deserving respect, but as dishonoured entities available for Mirpuri culture mandates that 'honourable' women maintain strict segregation from male society, limiting their visibility in public spaces and social interactions. Islamic modesty requirements that demand female covering to prevent harassment further reinforce the notion that women bear responsibility for male sexual behaviour. These cultural imperatives create environments where women's virtue becomes synonymous with invisibility, whilst those who transgress these boundaries—or are perceived to have done so—lose claim to protection or religious dimensions of this cultural pathology cannot be overlooked. Certain interpretations of Islamic teachings regarding sexual slavery, combined with cultural traditions that consider females who have reached puberty as "fully grown women," create theological justifications for exploiting children that Western legal and moral frameworks would clearly classify as abuse. These religious elements add layers of psychological manipulation unavailable to secular predators, allowing abusers to frame exploitation as religiously permissible rather than white woman fantasy: Cultural programming for exploitationPakistani popular culture has systematically fetishised European women, creating pervasive "white woman fantasy" narratives that prepared ground for systematic exploitation in Britain. Pakistani literature, cinema, and television productions routinely portray Western and Westernised women as sexually promiscuous, morally loose, and eager for relationships with South Asian men. These cultural productions create psychological conditioning that frames white women as inherently dishonourable and therefore legitimate targets for sexual and Pakistani entertainment industries have perpetuated stereotypes depicting fair-skinned women as sexually available whilst simultaneously promoting South Asian male sexual conquest as aspirational behaviour. These cultural messages, consumed by generations of Pakistani men, create expectation frameworks that Western women exist primarily for sexual gratification rather than as individuals deserving respect and intersection of religious and cultural conditioning proves particularly toxic. Within Pakistani Islamic interpretations, non-Muslim women occupy lower status positions, making their exploitation less morally problematic than similar treatment of Muslim females. Combined with cultural programming that fetishises white women's sexuality, these frameworks create psychological permission structures that facilitate systematic abuse whilst minimising perpetrator guilt or community cultural conditioning manifested directly in grooming gang targeting strategies. Pakistani networks specifically pursued Caucasian non-Muslim girls because they occupied the lowest rungs of imported honour hierarchies. Victims were dismissed as "easy meat" or "white trash"—terminology that reveals the dehumanising attitudes enabling systematic exploitation. The specificity of this targeting demonstrates how cultural programming translated directly into criminal behaviour perfect storm: Cultural attitudes meet institutional failureThe transformation of cultural attitudes into systematic criminal enterprise required specific conditions that British society inadvertently provided. Working-class white girls in care homes represented ideal victims: already vulnerable from family breakdown or state intervention, lacking strong support networks, and dismissed by middle-class authorities as inherently problematic rather than children needing grooming networks developed sophisticated recruitment strategies that exploited both cultural understanding and criminal opportunity. Initial approaches involved positioning gang members as rescuers offering friendship, food, gifts, and emotional support that vulnerable children had never received from legitimate sources. These seemingly benevolent interventions created emotional dependencies that could later be exploited for sexual cultural components of these recruitment strategies proved crucial. Pakistani men understood instinctively how to identify girls whose vulnerability stemmed from circumstances their cultural programming had taught them rendered females dishonourable and exploitable. They recognised children lacking family protection that their own cultural framework deemed essential for female safety, making these girls psychologically available for exploitation in ways that would have been impossible with children from intact, protective family infrastructure supported systematic exploitation through networks of legitimate businesses owned by Pakistani community members. Taxi companies provided transportation for victims, restaurants and hotels offered venues for abuse, whilst private properties served as locations for trafficking and exploitation. This integration of criminal activity with legitimate business created economic incentives for community complicity whilst making detection more difficult for political correctness enables abuse: The institutional betrayalThe most damning aspect of the grooming gang crisis involves how British institutions designed to protect children instead facilitated their systematic abuse. Social workers dismissed obvious exploitation indicators, characterising rape and trafficking as "lifestyle choices" made by teenage girls. Police officers employed derogatory language when describing victims whilst failing to investigate crimes occurring in plain sight. Care home staff observed adult men collecting children for overnight absences without institutional failures reflected toxic combinations of misguided cultural sensitivity and class-based prejudices about which children deserved protection. Professionals feared being labelled racist if they identified ethnic patterns in grooming cases, creating environments where Pakistani criminals understood they could operate with relative impunity. Simultaneously, middle-class assumptions about working-class girls made their victimisation seem somehow inevitable rather than preventable through proper silencing of Sarah Champion, a Labour MP who lost her shadow cabinet position after highlighting Pakistani involvement in grooming gangs, demonstrates how political correctness was weaponised to prevent legitimate child protection discussions. Her experience sent clear messages throughout British institutions: protecting children was less important than avoiding uncomfortable conversations about cultural integration and immigration institutional paralysis created perfect operational conditions for grooming gangs. They understood that authorities would prioritise community relations over child welfare, making prosecution unlikely even when evidence was overwhelming. The culture of silence protecting these criminals extended from local councils to police stations, creating environments where systematic child abuse could continue for decades without meaningful community conspiracy of silenceEqually disturbing has been the response from Pakistani communities themselves when confronted with evidence of systematic child exploitation by their members. Rather than introspection and reform, community reactions have typically involved defensive deflection, victim-blaming, and accusations of racist persecution against those highlighting the cultural dimensions of these community leaders consistently prioritise reputation management over victim welfare when grooming gang cases reach public attention. Their immediate responses involve framing media coverage and prosecution efforts as anti-Muslim persecution whilst failing to address cultural attitudes that enable exploitation. This defensive posture prevents honest self-examination necessary to prevent future crimes whilst perpetuating community cultures that harbour potential Pakistanis who readily condemn misogynistic violence within Pakistan often join conservative community members in maintaining silence when similar crimes occur in Britain. This selective moral blindness reflects priorities that place ethnic solidarity above child protection, creating environments where cultural attitudes enabling exploitation receive protection rather than continued hero worship of figures like Imran Khan within British-Pakistani communities illustrates this moral dysfunction. Khan's public statements blaming women's dress and behaviour for rape, combined with his personal trajectory from playboy cricketer to born-again Muslim politician, make him an aspirational figure for many young Pakistani men. His popularity demonstrates how misogynistic attitudes receive validation rather than censure within diaspora domestic crisis: The madrasa connectionThe grooming gang phenomenon cannot be divorced from Pakistan's broader culture of child sexual exploitation, particularly within religious education systems that operate with shocking impunity. Recent investigations by France 24 and the Associated Press have exposed the systematic nature of abuse within Pakistan's madrasas, revealing how institutions claiming to provide free religious education to underprivileged children have instead become centres of exploitation and data indicates there are at least 17,738 registered madrasas in Pakistan, educating approximately 2.2 million children, predominantly from impoverished backgrounds. However, countless more religious schools operate without formal oversight, creating a vast network of institutions with no central authority to regulate their activities or address abuse allegations. This lack of accountability has created perfect conditions for systematic exploitation within what should be sanctuaries of learning and spiritual scale of abuse within these institutions defies comprehension. France 24's investigation revealed testimonies from survivors describing systematic rape and sexual violence perpetrated by the very clerics meant to guide their religious education. The broadcaster documented cases where headmasters and teachers used their positions of absolute authority to lure children into private spaces before subjecting them to horrific sexual assault. These weren't isolated incidents but patterns of behaviour that survivors described as common knowledge among Associated Press investigation in 2017 uncovered numerous cases of sexual abuse within Pakistani madrasas, utilising police records and extensive interviews with victims, families, clerics, aid workers, and officials. That investigation suggested the actual number of cases might be exponentially higher due to systematic underreporting and enforced silence. The culture of secrecy surrounding these institutions means most abuse never reaches official attention, allowing predatory clerics to continue exploiting children with virtual religious context of madrasa abuse adds psychological manipulation layers unavailable to secular predators. Children are conditioned from early ages to revere teachers as representatives of divine authority, making resistance to abuse not merely difficult but spiritually impossible. The conflation of religious authority with moral purity creates cognitive dissonance that many victims struggle to resolve, often leading them to blame themselves for their suffering rather than questioning their abusers' these institutions, children become completely dependent on their teachers for basic survival needs—food, shelter, education, and spiritual guidance. This total dependency creates environments where clerics can exploit their positions without fear of resistance or reporting. Students who attempt to speak out face not only physical retaliation but also accusations of blasphemy or religious dishonour that can destroy their families' standing within local authorities demonstrate identical institutional failures evident in Britain, though rooted in different power structures. Religious establishments wield enormous political influence that actively discourages investigation of abuse allegations. The mere suggestion of systematic problems within madrasas can be framed as attacks on Islam itself, creating political cover for institutional inaction. Accusations of blasphemy can effectively silence critics and protect perpetrators, whilst families seeking justice often face community ostracism rather than country's inadequate forensic infrastructure compounds these institutional failures. With only one forensic laboratory serving the entire nation, evidence processing can take months or years, leading desperate families to withdraw complaints rather than endure prolonged legal proceedings that often yield no meaningful results. This systematic weakness in Pakistan's justice system creates additional opportunities for powerful religious figures to escape accountability whilst continuing to exploit vulnerable leadership at the highest levels has normalised attitudes that enable systematic abuse. Former President Pervez Musharraf publicly accused rape victims of fabricating allegations for financial gain, whilst former Prime Minister Imran Khan blamed rising rape statistics on women's clothing choices and lifestyle decisions. These aren't fringe positions but mainstream views that shape cultural attitudes across Pakistani society, creating environments where victim-blaming becomes more common than perpetrator economics of cultural exploitationThe economic dimensions of grooming gang operations reveal why cultural attitudes translated into sustainable criminal enterprises. British investigators discovered that vulnerable children had essentially replaced illegal drugs as preferred commodities for Pakistani criminal networks. Girls could be exploited repeatedly without the logistical challenges associated with drug trafficking, creating reliable income streams with lower detection systematic integration of legitimate businesses into exploitation networks demonstrates the organised nature of these crimes. Community-owned taxi companies, restaurants, hotels, and private properties provided infrastructure necessary for trafficking and abuse whilst maintaining appearances of legitimate commercial activity. This economic ecosystem created financial incentives for broader community complicity, making grooming gang operations profitable for extended networks rather than individual these economic motivations helps explain the persistence of grooming gang activity despite public attention and legal consequences. The combination of cultural attitudes that minimise victim suffering with substantial financial returns creates powerful incentives for continued criminal behaviour. Without addressing both cultural enablers and economic motivations, prevention efforts remain fundamentally political weaponisation trapThe intersection of grooming gang scandals with broader political debates about immigration and multiculturalism has created additional obstacles for effective child protection measures. Far-right political movements have weaponised these cases to advance anti-immigration agendas, whilst mainstream politicians have prioritised avoiding controversy over addressing systematic abuse politicisation transforms child protection issues into cultural warfare, where legitimate concerns about safeguarding become subordinated to calculations about racial tensions and community relations. The result is often institutional paralysis where systematic abuse continues whilst public attention focuses on political conflicts rather than practical prevention social media amplification by international figures like Elon Musk has globalised local child protection failures, creating pressure for action whilst potentially distorting contexts and priorities. Whilst this attention can motivate authorities toward intervention, it often prioritises political narratives over victim needs and practical safeguarding reform: The only path forwardBreaking cycles of systematic child exploitation requires confronting uncomfortable truths about how specific cultural attitudes enable abuse. Within Pakistani communities, this demands honest examination of how honour-based value systems, misogynistic religious interpretations, and Western woman fetishisation create psychological conditions making child exploitation seem acceptable or and community leaders must challenge cultural attitudes that dehumanise women and girls, particularly those outside immediate community boundaries. This requires moving beyond defensive responses toward genuine engagement with cultural reform necessary to protect all children. Without internal community pressure for change, cultural attitudes enabling exploitation will persist across institutions require fundamental reforms that balance cultural sensitivity with unwavering commitment to child welfare. This includes training programmes that prepare professionals to identify exploitation patterns without ethnic profiling, improved oversight of care facilities serving vulnerable children, and stronger support systems that address root causes of child vulnerability rather than merely responding to abuse after it the chain of cultural complicityThe grooming gang crisis represents more than criminal opportunism or institutional failure—it reveals how cultural pathology can migrate across continents to enable systematic harm against society's most vulnerable members. The journey from Mirpur's honour-obsessed communities to Manchester's exploitation networks demonstrates the deadly consequences when misogynistic cultures encounter vulnerable children and paralysed thousands of children exploited across British cities deserved protection regardless of cultural sensitivities their abuse might expose. They deserved institutions willing to prioritise their welfare over community relations, and communities willing to confront cultural attitudes that enabled their suffering. The failure to provide such protection represents a moral catastrophe that demands acknowledgment, accountability, and fundamental by understanding how honour culture, institutional cowardice, and economic opportunity combined to create this crisis can British society begin building effective safeguards against its repetition. The alternative—continued silence disguised as cultural sensitivity—ensures that more children will pay the price for adult dysfunction and moral story that began in Pakistan's conservative heartland and culminated in British courtrooms serves as a warning: cultural attitudes have consequences, institutional failures create victims, and silence in the face of systematic abuse makes everyone complicit in its continuation. Breaking this chain of complicity requires courage to speak truth regardless of political consequences, and commitment to child protection that transcends cultural boundaries and political calculations.
Hindustan Times
08-06-2025
- Hindustan Times
19 Brahmos, Crystal Maze missiles: Details of how India brought Pak to its knees during Operation Sindoor
Even as national security planners and military chiefs celebrated one month of Operation Sindoor on Saturday evening, HT has learned that the Defence Ministry has given the green signal to the three services to replenish their inventory with longer-range loitering ammunition, artillery shells, kamikaze drones, and beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles that out-range the Chinese missiles used by Pakistan during the four-day high-intensity skirmish. According to people familiar with the matter - and based on action taken reports and damage assessments undertaken by the three services - there is digital evidence to conclude that the Indian Air Force (IAF) fighters, surface-to-air missile batteries, and S-400 air defence system downed four Pakistani Chinese-made fighter jets and two large aircraft (possibly one C-130J and one SAAB 2000 airborne early warning system) during Operation Sindoor. There are also indications, the sources added, that two F-16 fighter aircraft may have been partly damaged during the IAF's missile assault on 11 airbases, including those at Sargodha, Rafiqui, Jacobabad, and Nur Khan (Chaklala, Rawalpindi). The reports indicate that India's Rafale fighters, S-400 missile systems, and M777 howitzers acquitted themselves well during the four-day conflict, with the Russian air defence system taking down three enemy aircraft. They also show that India destroyed one Chinese LY-80 fire radar, two AN/TPQ-43 US-made automatic tracking radars, and one fire unit of the Chinese HQ-9 radar at Chaklala during the retaliatory strike on May 10. Intelligence inputs now suggest that Pakistan has four HQ-9 (the Chinese equivalent of the Russian S-300 air defence radar systems), instead of the two originally estimated by national security planners. Also read: Four air-launched missile strikes by IAF on May 10 and Pakistan was on the mat The Pakistanis used the Chinese version of the PL-15 air-to-air missile, which has a range of 180 km. There are also inputs that the Pakistanis, by mixing two fire units of the 250 km-range HQ-9 air defence system with two other 150 km-range systems at Chaklala and Malir Cantonment near Karachi, respectively, may have tried to catch the Indian Air Force by surprise. The action taken reports also show that the IAF fired 19 BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles at Pakistani airbases, along with nearly an equal number of French SCALP subsonic cruise missiles. In turn, the Pakistanis fired CM-400 AKG air-launched supersonic missiles at Indian airbases using Chinese JF-17 fighters, but these failed to cause any damage. The Turkish-built YIHA loitering ammunition, which Pakistan fired in large numbers, was either jammed by the Indian electronic warfare suite, missed its targets, or was taken down by India's robust air defence system. Even the FATAH-1 rockets fired by Pakistan were either off the mark or intercepted by Indian air defence systems. HT has learned that there is now adequate evidence that India's first counter-terror strike on May 7 was a success. Markaz-e-Taiba (the LeT headquarters at Muridke) was hit by four to five Crystal Maze missiles, which leave a small entry point but inflict heavy internal damage. The Jaish-e-Mohammed facility at Markaz-e-Subhan Allah was hit by six SCALP missiles launched from Rafale fighters and was totally destroyed through a pinpoint strike using bunker-busting techniques. Also read: How the targets India hit during Operation Sindoor were providing support to terrorists The US-made Excalibur ammunition used by M777 howitzers of the Indian Army destroyed Tier 2 defences of the Pakistan Army across the LoC, as did India's Polish-made loitering extended-range ammunition. The Indian Air Force and Indian Navy used Israeli loitering ammunition to destroy terror camps in Occupied Kashmir on May 7. Between the launch of the operation in the early hours of May 7 and the ceasefire on the evening of May 10, Indian forces bombed nine terror camps in Pakistan and PoK and killed at least 100 terrorists. The Indian Air Force also struck targets at 13 Pakistani airbases and military installations. On Tuesday, it emerged that India's targeting of locations within Pakistan during the May 7–10 clash was more extensive than previously known, with a Pakistani document acknowledging that Indian drones had struck locations ranging from Peshawar in the northwest to Hyderabad in the south. Pakistan's Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, which was mounted in response to Operation Sindoor, 'folded in eight hours' on May 10, belying Islamabad's ambitious target of bringing India to its knees in 48 hours, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday. The action taken reports, as well as the immediate emphasis on replenishment, suggest that the Indian forces are aware, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly said, that Operation Sindoor isn't over.
