19:47
Unknown
ISLAMABAD: The Bangladeshi police have arrested the controversial editor of an English weekly which had created a stir by reporting a so-called love affair between Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
The rumour prompted extensive follow-up coverage by the Western media, compelling an ISPR spokesman to refute that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was running a defamation campaign against the foreign minister through Bangladeshi tabloid ‘Blitz Weekly’.
According to well-informed Foreign Office circles in Islamabad, Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury, the editor of Blitz, has been arrested and already sent to jail on charge of committing financial cheating. Choudhury, who had also been charged in the past by Bangladeshi police with committing sedition, treason, espionage and blasphemy, was arrested two days before Hina Rabbani Khar’s November 10, 2012 visit to Dhaka. Hina Khar had travelled to Bangladesh to invite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid to the D-8 Summit being held in Islamabad on November 22, 2012.
Interestingly, on November 7, a day before his arrest, Choudhury had once again repeated in his Weekly the alleged secret romance between Hina and Bilawal, stating that the foreign minister is avoiding facing the media ever since the scandal was reported.
The Pakistani Foreign Office is learnt to have lodged a strong protest with the Bangladeshi Foreign Office over the publication of a series of false and frivolous reports by Blitz Weekly, involving Hina and Bilawal. The Bangladeshi authorities had assured their Pakistan counterparts that appropriate action would be taken against Choudhury for indulging in irresponsible journalism.
The Pakistani authorities were also informed that Choudhury has a murky past, having already been arrested in 2003 and charged with spying for the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. Choudhury is facing charges of sedition, treason, blasphemy and espionage for attempting to travel to Israel in violation of Bangladeshi Passport Act which forbids citizens from visiting countries with which Bangladesh does not maintain diplomatic relations.
He spent the next 17 months behind bars, before being released on bail, though the charges against him were not dropped.
Following his November 8, 2012 arrest on charge of embezzlement, the Bangladeshi media quoted deputy commissioner of Dhaka metropolitan police Masudur Rahman as saying: “Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury was arrested after a businessman Sajjad Hussain had filed a case, accusing him of financial cheating and embezzling Taka 6.7 million. The accused has already been sent to jail according to the court directives. The government circles in Islamabad say the arrest of Choudhury was enough to discredit whatever he had claimed in the past through his tabloid to defame the PPP leadership. Although, Hina Khar and her husband had dismissed the claims of ‘Blitz Weekly’ “trash”, but the fact remains that they were reported widely by the international media.
While doing a follow-up report on the alleged affair, a British newspaper Telegraph had claimed on September 30 that it was all part of a plot by the ISI to damage Hina Rabbani Khar’s reputation because of her role in facilitating a UN investigation into thousands of missing people detained by the Pakistani security forces, especially in Balochistan. “One PPP official said 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 Rabbani Khar for allowing the UN delegation into the country. They are not happy with her,” the Telegraph had reported.
However, a spokesman for the ISPR strongly refuted the contents of the Telegraph report the same day, saying the allegations were absurd and baseless. “The ISI has nothing to do with the defamation campaign and neither any problem exists between the foreign minister and the agency. 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.”
The ISPR spokesman termed the effort involving the agencies rubbish and part of a propaganda campaign, adding: “We reserve the rights to take legal action on such anonymous news reports which do not even quote any names and sources”.
The rumour prompted extensive follow-up coverage by the Western media, compelling an ISPR spokesman to refute that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was running a defamation campaign against the foreign minister through Bangladeshi tabloid ‘Blitz Weekly’.
According to well-informed Foreign Office circles in Islamabad, Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury, the editor of Blitz, has been arrested and already sent to jail on charge of committing financial cheating. Choudhury, who had also been charged in the past by Bangladeshi police with committing sedition, treason, espionage and blasphemy, was arrested two days before Hina Rabbani Khar’s November 10, 2012 visit to Dhaka. Hina Khar had travelled to Bangladesh to invite Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid to the D-8 Summit being held in Islamabad on November 22, 2012.
Interestingly, on November 7, a day before his arrest, Choudhury had once again repeated in his Weekly the alleged secret romance between Hina and Bilawal, stating that the foreign minister is avoiding facing the media ever since the scandal was reported.
The Pakistani Foreign Office is learnt to have lodged a strong protest with the Bangladeshi Foreign Office over the publication of a series of false and frivolous reports by Blitz Weekly, involving Hina and Bilawal. The Bangladeshi authorities had assured their Pakistan counterparts that appropriate action would be taken against Choudhury for indulging in irresponsible journalism.
The Pakistani authorities were also informed that Choudhury has a murky past, having already been arrested in 2003 and charged with spying for the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. Choudhury is facing charges of sedition, treason, blasphemy and espionage for attempting to travel to Israel in violation of Bangladeshi Passport Act which forbids citizens from visiting countries with which Bangladesh does not maintain diplomatic relations.
He spent the next 17 months behind bars, before being released on bail, though the charges against him were not dropped.
Following his November 8, 2012 arrest on charge of embezzlement, the Bangladeshi media quoted deputy commissioner of Dhaka metropolitan police Masudur Rahman as saying: “Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury was arrested after a businessman Sajjad Hussain had filed a case, accusing him of financial cheating and embezzling Taka 6.7 million. The accused has already been sent to jail according to the court directives. The government circles in Islamabad say the arrest of Choudhury was enough to discredit whatever he had claimed in the past through his tabloid to defame the PPP leadership. Although, Hina Khar and her husband had dismissed the claims of ‘Blitz Weekly’ “trash”, but the fact remains that they were reported widely by the international media.
While doing a follow-up report on the alleged affair, a British newspaper Telegraph had claimed on September 30 that it was all part of a plot by the ISI to damage Hina Rabbani Khar’s reputation because of her role in facilitating a UN investigation into thousands of missing people detained by the Pakistani security forces, especially in Balochistan. “One PPP official said 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 Rabbani Khar for allowing the UN delegation into the country. They are not happy with her,” the Telegraph had reported.
However, a spokesman for the ISPR strongly refuted the contents of the Telegraph report the same day, saying the allegations were absurd and baseless. “The ISI has nothing to do with the defamation campaign and neither any problem exists between the foreign minister and the agency. 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.”
The ISPR spokesman termed the effort involving the agencies rubbish and part of a propaganda campaign, adding: “We reserve the rights to take legal action on such anonymous news reports which do not even quote any names and sources”.
Posted in: Top Story
0 comments:
Post a Comment