COLOMBO: All 191 people on board a chartered plane carrying pilgrims to Mecca were feared killed when the plane crashed into the central highlands of this country, an Air Force spokesman said. The wreckage of the four-engine Dutch DC-8 jet was found five hours after it plunged into a hillside and burst into flames. … A spokesman for Martin-Air in The Hague said the airliner had been carrying 182 Muslim pilgrims and nine crew on a flight from Indonesia to Jeddah. — News agencies

[Meanwhile, as reported by news agencies from Peshawar,] Federal Home Minister Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan said here this morning [Dec 5] that television, radio, Press and other mass communication media must rise to the occasion to a war against the preachers of regionalism and parochialism and thus contribute towards the struggle to keep Quaid-i-Azam’s Pakistan united. … [He] was inaugurating the Peshawar television station here this morning. … …Referring to the bomb blasts in the province, [he] said … those engaged in [sabotage] … should forget that by such “Patakhas”, the patriotic people of NWFP would be frustrated.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2024