KARACHI, Sept 5: A love-struck Pakistani faces up to three years in jail for falsely accusing a brother and a cousin of the woman he hoped to marry of planning a suicide attack on the US consulate in Karachi, police said on Monday. Jobless labourer Mohammad Imran sparked a security scare when he made the allegations in a telephone call to the US embassy in Islamabad last month after the relatives ordered him not to see or speak to his would-be bride, police said.

Investigating officer Sadaullah Bangash said Imran, 22, had told police he got the idea after news of a spate of arrests of militant suspects in Pakistan after the July 7 London bombings.

Bangash said police had questioned the relatives, who appeared to be ordinary people with no connection to terrorism.

Imran is due in court in Karachi on Wednesday and faces up to three years’ jail if convicted of making false accusations, he said.

“It appears to be a case of a man infatuated by a girl going to extremes to realise his dream of marrying her one day.”

A spokesman for the US consulate in Karachi, which was the target of a suicide bombing in 2002 that killed 12 people, said it was not its policy to comment on security matters.

—Reuters