KARACHI, May 31: Pakistan People’s Party’s Information Secretary Sherry Rehman (MNA) on Wednesday dismissed claims of direct contact between Ms Benazir Bhutto and Gen Pervez Musharraf, as ‘a big fraud with people’ and challenged federal minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi to either prove it or step down.

Addressing a news conference, held after a meeting of the party’s information secretaries at the People’s Secretariat, Ms Rehman alleged that the regime was deliberately engaging in such baseless claims to make the Charter of Democracy controversial and to divert people’s attention from real issues.

Describing the CoD as ‘a historical and consensus document’ laying the basis for a future social contract , she alleged that the government had assigned Dr Niazi the task of launching a fresh character assassination campaign against Ms Bhutto. She said that Ms Bhutto had herself categorically denied reports of her direct contact with Gen Musharraf, and asked the federal minister to substantiate his clam with proof, if he had any.

She claimed that the government’s disinformation campaign against the CoD and Benazir-Musharraf contact proved that the regime was in trouble since the signing of the CoD by Ms Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif and its subsequent approval by the ARD.

Regarding the information secretaries’ meeting, she said it reviewed the progress of the party membership drive and the CoD.

She slammed the regime for failing to check the soaring prices, mounting unemployment and precarious law and order situation.