Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Friday met the director general of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the law minister along with several members of parliament allegedly investigated by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) for links to terror outfits, sources said.

DG IB Aftab Sultan briefed the members of parliament on the issue, clarifying once again that the bureau is not responsible for the list, which purportedly names lawmakers with links to terrorists and was alleged to have been sent to IB by Prime Minister House when Nawaz Sharif was in office.

The lawmakers named in the list informed the prime minister that it could create a lot of issues for them since their opponents could use it to form cases and claim they were not fit to hold public office under Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, sources said.

They demanded that the government inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that the list is fake so they are protected from any action based on it.

The sources said Law Minister Zahid Hamid suggested that the affected lawmakers move a privilege motion in the National Assembly to this end, but the lawmakers said that they do not want to take the matter so far and simply wanted that their names to be cleared officially.

The prime minister and NA Speaker Ayaz Sadiq agreed with the suggestions presented by the affected lawmakers, sources said.

The list contained the names of 37 lawmakers who were alleged to have links with banned outfits. It first came to light when a private television channel aired a report claiming that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had directed the IB to keep a watch on the listed legislators, who mostly belong to the PML-N.

The IB and the Prime Minister House have on multiple occasions denied the existence of any such list, and the information ministry has termed it a forgery.