ISLAMABAD: A spokesman of ISPR on Saturday denied the allegation of British Daily Telegraph which accuses Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for running a defamation campaign through a Bangladeshi tabloid “Blitz weekly” against Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, DawnNews reported.
The spokesman said these allegations are absurd and baseless. “The ISI has nothing to do with this defamation campaign and neither any problem exists between the foreign minister and the agency,” said the spokesman.
According to Blitz Weekly, the married foreign minister, who has two young children with her millionaire husband, and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) co-chairman, want to get married and have been regularly talking on the telephone and sending one another cards.
The tabloid claimed President Asif Ali Zardari is firmly opposed to their alleged relationship and had sought details of their mobile telephone conversations to establish the facts.
The ISPR spokesman said it is handiwork of those who want to weaken the state by creating misunderstanding between various institutions. It is not something new because such people have been fabricating misleading and impish stories in the past as well, he added.
The British daily needs to behave more responsibly and confirm veracity of information from respective entities before printing such malicious stories.
The spokesman termed the allegations involving the agencies as rubbish and part of a propaganda campaign, and said that we reserve the rights to take legal action on such anonymous reports without quoting any names and sources.
According to Daily Telegraph, senior PPP figures on Thursday said they believed the claims were part of a plot by the ISI to damage Khar’s reputation because it blames her for her part in facilitating a UN investigation into thousands of missing people detained by the security forces.
One PPP official told The Daily Telegraph that the ISI expects the United Nations’ Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances to recommend senior army and intelligence officials be charged for their role and blame Ms Rabbani Khar for allowing the delegation into the country.
