ISI wanted to defame Hina Rabbani for Bilawal romance, says British Telegraph report

Islamabad, Sep 30: Pakistan's spy agency ISI has denied the charge levelled in a British newspaper that it was running a defamation campaign through a Bangladeshi tablaid against Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. A spokesman for the army's public relations wing, Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said: “The ISI has nothing to do with this defamation campaign and neither any problem exists between the foreign minister and the agency." According to Blitz, a weekly tabloid published from Dhaka, Hina Rabbani Khar, the married foreign minister, who has two young children with her millionaire husband, and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, want to get married and have been regularly talking on the telephone and sending one another cards. The tabloid claimed President Asif Ali Zardari is firmly opposed to their alleged relationship and had sought details of their mobile telephone conversations to establish the facts. The ISPR spokesman said 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", he added. The spokesman said: "The British daily needs to behave more responsibly and confirm veracity of information from respective entities before printing such malicious stories." The British Daily Telgraph had reported: "Senior PPP figures on Thursday said they believed the claims were part of a plot by the country's feared Inter-Service Intelligence [ISI] agency to damage Ms Rabbani Khar's reputation because it blames her for her part in facilitating a UN investigation into thousands of missing people detained by the security forces. "One PPP official told The Daily Telegraph 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 Ms Rabbani Khar for allowing the delegation into the country. “They are not happy with her,” the official said. “The UN mission received a cold reception but Hina was called in by the president to meet him and the army chief. She crossed some red line.” The British newspaper writes: " Claims of an affair between Hina Rabbani Khar, the 34-year-old glamorous foreign minister, and the 24-year-old scion of the country's most powerful dynasty have fuelled feverish speculation and outrage in Pakistan, since they were reported in a Bangladeshi tabloid earlier this week. "Ms Rabbani Khar and her husband have dismissed the claims as “reprehensible" and "trash", but they have been reported widely in Pakistan where they spawned conspiracy theories among Islamabad's political classes. The government has not officially commented on the allegations. "Ms Rabbani Khar, the daughter of a powerful Punjab landowner, has been the subject of rumours concerning her private life since she first became a minister in General Musharraf's government in 2004. "There was speculation then that she might marry the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz, but instead she married businessman Firoze Gulzar. She later stood as a PPP candidate in the 2008 elections and was appointed as finance minister in the new PPP-led government. She won many admirers for her stylish clothes and designer bags during her visit to India last year where the two countries made significant progress in improving their relationship" , The Daily Telegraph reported. The Bangladeshi tabloid had claimed Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is miffed over the high-profile romance between Hina and his son Bilawal. The report had said, Bilawal received a "special gift" from his girlfriend Hina on the day of Eid Ul Fitr. Later, he also received a flower bouquet and a hand-written greeting card stating – "No wonder we waited enough, not its time to give an end to our waiting. Eid Mubarak!" The tabloid had reported, when Zardari came to know about the contents of the greetings, he called Hina and expressed anger for her extra-marital affair with his "minor son". The report had said, Hina had in a harsh tone criticised Zardari's "meanness" and asked him to refrain from "poking nose into her personal affairs". She had even threatened to resign from the ministry as well as membership of Pakistan People's Party if Zardari didn't apologise for his "inappropriate behavior", the tabloid had reported. The tabloid had reported that Bilawal had also threatened of leaving the post of chairman of Pakistan People's Party and leave the country by the end of the year. The report had said, while the hidden cold war between the father and the son is getting complex every day, Khar on the other end is negotiating a settled divorce with her husband millionaire businessman Firoze Gulzar, from whom she has two daughters named Annaya and Dina. The tabloid had reported that one of the common family friends of Gulzars and Khars has been assigned to mediate the settled divorce. Zardari had reportedly also made numerous attempts to reconcile relations between Gulzar and Khar with the target of making an end to Hina-Bilawal romance. But nothing worked as Hina was unwilling for such reconciliation, the tabloid reported. Bilawal is the legal nominee of Benazir Bhutto's secret wealth worth US$ 930 million in Switzerland along with some properties, the tabloid report says.