ISLAMABAD: Senator Pervaiz Rashid has been relieved of his responsibilities as the federal minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage.

According to a handout issued by the PM Office on Saturday, the information minister was held responsible for a “lapse” following the controversy in the wake of a news report published in Dawn, which both the government and the military termed a breach of national security.

There has been an uproar in the country since the publication of the story ‘Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military’ in Dawn on Oct 6, which gave details of an undisclosed meeting attended by a large number of civilian officials, including the prime minister, three chief ministers, the foreign secretary and officials from civil and military intelligence agencies.

The story contained details of the meeting, which discussed issues related to banned outfits in Pakistan.

PM Office handout says Pervaiz Rashid asked to ‘step down pending inquiry’ over Dawn story; body of senior intelligence officials will probe matter, assign blame

Since then, a number of clarifications and statements have been issued by the government and the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), describing the content of the story as everything from “half truths” to “false and fabricated”, while unnamed government officials have been blamed for “leaking”, “feeding” or “planting” the story.

Now, it seems that after a preliminary investigation by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the government has decided to relieve the information minister of his charge, pending a high-level inquiry to ascertain who may have provided this information to the newspaper reporter.

The move comes just days after a government delegation — consisting of Chaudhry Nisar, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif — met Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif and the head of the ISI at Army House on Thursday.

In a statement following Thursday’s meeting at Army House, ISPR said that the government team had called on the army chief “to brief him on the progress of the investigation and recommendations related to the story”.

However, Mr Rashid has not been declared guilty of any wrongdoing yet. Saturday’s handout noted that the minister was “directed to step down from office to enable holding of an independent and detailed inquiry”.

“An inquiry committee including senior officers of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) is being formed by the government to clearly apportion blame…”, the statement said.

However, it was not clear who from within the government is going to head the committee.

Speaking to DawnNews, the PM’s spokesperson Dr Musadik Malik said that investigations had entered “the final phase”, adding that Mr Rashid had only been “temporarily removed” — since he was responsible for handling the affairs of the information department — until the inquiry was completed.

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s departure for Dubai on Saturday morning also fuelled speculation on the media.

However, in a tweet, the minister clarified that he was in Dubai to attend a wedding and would return to the country on Sunday.

Last year, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had sought the resignation of climate change minister Mushahidullah Khan, who had levelled allegations against a former chief of the ISI.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2016