Toxic grey smog has sickened tens of thousands of people, mainly children and elderly people, since last month when the air quality started worsening in Lahore, the city bordering India.

Two Hindu traders in Pakistan have been kidnapped by gangsters who have demanded the release of their accomplices from police custody in exchange for the safe release of the businessmen, police said Wednesday.

Amin ul Haq had allegedly planned sabotage activities across the province and wanted to target important installations and personalities.

According to federal government officials, Wahida, a resident of Nagaon district in Assam, was arrested along with her son while illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan via the Chaman border last year.

Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday admitted that Islamabad had "violated" an agreement with India signed by him and ex-prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1999, in an apparent reference to the Kargil misadventure by Gen Pervez Musharraf.

But senior superintendent of police, operations, Lahore Syed Ali Raza told the Dawn newspaper that "Tamba is still alive but critically injured".

Tamba was attacked by motorcycle-borne assailants at his residence in Sanant Nagar, a thickly populated area of old Lahore in the afternoon.

Asif Ali Zardari was overwhelmingly elected as the 14th President of Pakistan on Saturday, becoming the only civilian President of the coup-prone country for a second time.

Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Maryam Nawaz, the daughter of three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, on Monday, became the first-ever woman chief minister of a province in Pakistan when she was elected to head the Punjab province, describing it as an 'honour' for every woman in the country.

Sources in the PML-N told the Press Trust of India in Lahore that Nawaz Sharif decided to withdraw himself from the race for the prime minister's office for his daughter and political heir, Maryam Nawaz, 50.

Wasim Qadir, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)-backed candidate who defeated PML-N's stalwart Sheikh Rohail Asghar from Lahore's National Assembly-121 constituency, joined the PML-N after a meeting with Maryam Nawaz, daughter of the party supremo Nawaz Sharif, at her residence.

A large number of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf candidates had contested as independents after the ECP had snatched the former prime minister Imran Khan-led party of its iconic cricket bat symbol.

The 73-year-old leader castigated the judges for legitimising military dictators.

'During my tenure as PM, two Indian prime ministers visited Pakistan. Modi sahab and Vajpayee sahab had come to Lahore'

Scores of churches and homes belonging to Christians in Jaranwala tehsil of Faisalabad district, some 130 km from the provincial capital, were burnt down on Wednesday by a mob enraged over reports that two Christians had desecrated the Quran.

Succumbing to the demands of a radical Islamist party, the Pakistan government has agreed to try blasphemy suspects under terrorism charges in addition to the other sections of the country's penal code.

Hafiz Abdul Salam Bhuttavi, an United Nations-designated terrorist who trained the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) attackers for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack and acted as the outfit's chief on at least two occasions, died in a prison in Pakistan's Punjab province while serving a sentence for terror financing, his aide said on Wednesday.

The interim government in Pakistan's Punjab province on Wednesday claimed that some '30 to 40' terrorists are hiding at the Lahore residence of former prime minister Imran Khan, giving him an ultimatum of 24 hours to hand them over or face stern action.

'My message to the people of Pakistan; I will fight for Haqeeqi Azaadi till the last drop of my blood because for me death is preferable than to be enslaved by these assortments of crooks'

Khan took strong exception to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) allegations against him and said the spokesperson of the army's military wing was not even born when he represented Pakistan in the world.