MUZAFFARABAD, April 20: Authorities in Azad Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday rejected the report as baseless that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was hiding anywhere in their area.

Turkey’s Anatolia News Agency, quoting Istanbul-based daily Hurriyet, had said the Turkish intelligence agency had confirmed rumours that Osama had gone underground in Azad Kashmir.

“This is totally a speculative story, height of imagination, which doesn’t have a slight connection with reality,” a senior government official, when contacted by Dawn, said.

Azad Kashmir, he said, was a small area with limited entry points and it was ridiculous to believe that any stranger, let alone a person being searched by the whole world, could live there for long without being spotted.

“Osama has never been to Azad Kashmir or for that matter to the occupied Kashmir,” the official said, without going into details.

The Hizbul Mujahideen also termed the report “unfounded and flimsy and part of a propaganda campaign against the Kashmir liberation movement.”

Talking to Dawn, the group’s spokesman Salim Hashmi said such “concocted stories” were aimed at tarnishing the indigenous character of the freedom struggle in Kashmir and establishing a false link between the Kashmiri Mujahideen and the Al Qaeda.

“We have said time and again that we are fighting for the freedom of our motherland on our own and in accordance with the United Nations charter. Those trying to link us with Al Qaeda are in fact strengthening India’s false stand against our noble struggle,” Hashmi said.