ISLAMABAD, 22 August 2006 — Pakistan yesterday rejected reports that wanted Al-Qaeda militant Matiur Rehman had been arrested and denied that he was linked to an alleged plot to blow up US-bound airliners.
ABC News reported last week quoting unnamed intelligence sources that Rehman, who is also wanted in a Dec. 25, 2003 attack on President Pervez Musharraf, was arrested from central Pakistan. The news channel and some newspapers have linked Rehman to an ongoing probe into the alleged conspiracy to bomb trans-Atlantic jets flying from Britain and said Rehman was the key in the plot.
“It is totally baseless,” Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
“It is a fictitious story. Matiur Rehman has not been arrested, we are still looking for him,” she said. “He is not linked” to the airline plot, she added.
Tasnim Aslam also said during weekly briefing, ”Pakistan will not send its troops to Lebanon for peacekeeping purpose.”
She said Pakistan is one the bigggest contributors of peacekeepers around the world. It has sent its peacekeepers to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan and various other countries. It may be mentioned here Pakistan’s retired Lt. Gen. Anis Bajwa heads United Nations’ peacekeeping forces. He was previously head of peacekeeping forces in Georgia.
Referring to Indo-Pak relations Tasnim Aslam said, ”We have adopted a liberal approach viz Indian diplomats’ movements in Pakistan. Though their movements are confined to the federal capital alone but Indian diplomats frequantly visit Murree and Rawalpindi, even Lahore. She denied that Pakistan had restricted movements of Indian diplomats in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the government presented a bill in the National Assembly yesterday, seeking the amendment of laws criticized as discriminatory to women.
The Protection of Women Rights Bill aims to change clauses in the set of laws collectively called the Hudood Ordinances, which were introduced in 1979.
