Islamabad

Pashtuns are an ethnic minority group composed largely of about 30 million people in Pakistan. They have also gone missing by the thousands.

A suicide bomber killed at least 29 people near a polling center as Pakistanis voted on Wednesday in a knife-edge general election pitting cricket hero Imran Khan against the party of jailed ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Dual citizens from Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan are hit by the new US program that restricts their travel. But Pakistanis say they’re victims of a visa clampdown as well.

It’s not an interview a journalist gets to do every day — with an executioner. The BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil got that chance when she sat down with Sabir Massih, 32, who’s hanged nearly 50 people since Pakistan reinstated the death penalty. He tells Khalil what goes through his mind when he pulls the lever.

Across Pakistan, an increasingly radical brand of Islamic school or madrassa is gaining influence, spreading a purist form of Islam through its students, many of whom go on to become imams and preachers across the country.