October 14, 2016
News
FO defends gov’s decision to place travel ban on Almeida
Zakaria says journalist ‘admits’ his story was based on assumptions
ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria on Friday defended the government’s decision to place a travel ban on a prominent journalist over a news feature he wrote about an alleged rift between the government and the military by saying Cyril Almeida himself admitted that the October 6 story was based on assumptions.
Speaking to media, Zakaria said that the government has already denied the story since in a bid to eliminate terrorism from Pakistan; all state institutions were working together in harmony. The Ministry of Interior Affairs had placed the journalist’s name on the Exit Control List (ECL) barring him to remain in the country until the completion of an inquiry into the story.
The informal committee would decide if anyone was to be prosecuted in relation to the story and would complete this task in about 3-4 days. Almeida, a leading columnist, wrote a story on October 6 that gave an account of a high-level security meeting between civilian and government officials quoting anonymous sources.
South Asian Tensions
Commenting on Indian claims of the so-called ‘surgical’ strikes, the FO spokesperson said that the strikes drama was one of India’s several fake claims to malign Pakistan as a terror state in the world. He reiterated that no such strikes ever happened on Pakistani soil and that India was only exploiting the situation to divert attention from its own security crackdown on protests sparked by the killing of a popular young Kashmiri leader Burhan Wani.
The spokesperson said that India was also trying to stop a UN delegation from visiting the disputed state of Jammu Kashmir as the visit would expose Indian atrocities against Kashmiri people. Zakaria said that India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government officials were finding it hard to cover their false claims of ‘surgical’ strikes in front of its own media and the opposition parties.
He also rejected the claims that Pakistan was becoming diplomatically isolated since the government was moving forward with major deals and projects with the world and highlighting the Jammu Kashmir issue on every platform that matters.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk