Highlights
- BJP accused former vice president Hamid Ansari of inviting to India a Pak journalist
- The Pakistani journalist was claimed to have spied for the ISI
- Ansari dismissed the charge as a "litany of falsehood" and said he never met or invited him
Former Vice President Hamid Ansari on Wednesday refuted allegations that he had invited to India a Pakistani journalist who has claimed to have spied for ISI. Ansari said a 'litany of falsehood' has been unleashed on him that he invited Pakistani journalist Nusrat Mirza and met him in a conference in New Delhi on terrorism.
"'Litany of falsehood' unleashed on me by sections of media and official spokesman of BJP," said former Vice President Hamid Ansari.
In a statement, Ansari also rejected the allegation, made by the BJP citing comments of a former RAW functionary, that he had compromised national interest as India's ambassador to Iran.
Ansari said falsehood is being unleashed that while "as ambassador to Iran, I had betrayed the national interest in a matter for which allegations have made by a former official of a government agency."
It is a known fact that invitation to foreign dignitaries by the Vice-President of India are on the advice of the government generally through the Ministry of External Affairs, he said in a statement.
"I had inaugurated the Conference on Terrorism, on December 11, 2010, the 'International Conference of Jurists on International Terrorism and Human Rights'. As is the normal practice the list of invitees would have been drawn by the organisers. I never invited him or met him," he said.
"My work as Ambassador to Iran was at all times within the knowledge of the government of the day. I am bound by the commitment to national security in such matters and refrain from commenting on them. The Government of India has all the information and is the only authority to tell the truth. It's a matter of record that after my stint in Tehran I was appointed India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. My work there has been acknowledged at home and abroad," the former Vice President said.
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