ISLAMABAD: Iran has cautioned against a “vilification campaign” launched against it on the basis of allegations by Lyari gangster Uzair Baloch that its intelligence agencies had links with him.

A statement issued by the Iranian embassy in Islamabad on Friday rejected “unfounded rumours being circulated in some media during recent days about linking the activities of some miscreants with some Iranian organisations”.

A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) set up by the Sindh government to investigate Baloch had last year in its report said: “Uzair Baloch was involved in espionage activities by providing secret information regarding army installations and officials to foreign agents [Iranian intelligence officers] which is a violation of the Official Secret Act 1923.”

Uzair had in a confessional statement said that he had met an Iranian intelligence official in Chabahar, who had asked him to provide information about Pakistani military officials and Karachi’s security environment.

JIT report was published after Uzair was taken into custody by army under the Official Secret Act for leaking of sensitive security information to foreign intelligence agencies.

The embassy said “dissemination of such baseless” material was aimed at turning public opinion against Iran. This, it stressed, was “contrary to the spirit of friendship and brotherhood between the two nations”.

“It goes without saying that such untrue stories are not commensurate with trajectory of expanding bilateral relations in all spheres between two friendly and brotherly countries of Iran and Pakistan,” the embassy said.

A 13-page self-written confessional statement of Baloch emerged hours after Wednesday night’s tweets by Inter-Services Public Relation chief Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor about his custody which was confirmed by the Rangers’ senior special public prosecutor Sajid Mahboob Sheikh.

In a report the JIT sent to the home department in April last year it strongly recommended Baloch’s trial by a military court because of his suspected involvement in “espionage”.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2017