KARACHI: At 18:16 GMT on Saturday [July 10] the Moroccan Television announced in its French Service that the King was assassinated. In Paris, the French television network, citing a report from the Maghreb News Agency, said that the King was alive. The MNA also said that the King had invested all civil and military powers in the Interior Minister Gen Mohammad Oufkir.
The Moroccan TV announcement said, “The King is dead, Long live the Republic”. It followed reports that a terrorist attack had been directed against the King’s Skirate Palace, some 25 miles south of Rabat during a reception marking the King’s 42nd birthday.
Palace sources also said that the King was not killed. An agency report quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the King was taken prisoner in a gun battle at the Skirate Palace. These reports, however, confirm that the army has seized power. Among those said to have died was General Mohamed N’Michi, Commander of the Moroccan Air Force, who was among the guests at the reception.
Repatriation of diplomats
[Agencies in Islamabad report,] A Foreign Office spokesman today [July 10] confirmed that India has finally agreed to arrange separate meetings between Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner, Mr Mehdi Masud, and the East Pakistani personnel of the Calcutta Mission.
The Swiss Ambassador in New Delhi, Mr Fritz Real, has informed Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India, Mr Sajjad Hyder, that the Indian Government had now accepted the procedure for ascertaining the wishes of East Pakistani personnel about their repatriation to Pakistan.
Parleys on ML merger
[As reported by a staff correspondent from Lahore,]Crucial parleys over the prospects of merger of three factions of the Muslim League are likely to be held here in the next two or three days when the chief of all the three groups gather in Lahore. Political circles are attaching great important to the fact that the heads of the groups would be simultaneously present on July 12…. As the things stand, negotiations among the top leaders bilateral or even tripartite are almost imminent.
Prof Salam to head committee
[Agencies in Rawalpindi report,] The President and CMLA has constituted a 13-member Scientific Research Review Committee with Prof Abdus Salam, Scientific Adviser to the President, as its Chairman.
Jim Morrison dies
[Agencies add from Paris,] Jim Morrison, 26-year-old lead singer with the American Rock group “The Doors” died of a heart attack in his bath in a Paris apartment, police said yesterday.
Morrison’s death on Saturday [July 3] … was announced in Los Angeles yesterday. Police here said that a heart attack was provoked because the bath was too hot or too cold.
The files for July 1946 and the first 10 days of August 1946 are missing from our archives. The ‘Seventy-five years ago’ section will resume from Aug 11.
Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2021
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