Daily Times

KARACHI: Spokesman for the Pakistan People’s Party, Senator Farhatullah Babar, has termed the photocopy of former president Asif Zli Zardari’s residence permit (iqama) circulating on the social media “fake, fabricated and photoshopped”.

“This fake document is to malign and discredit the former president and the PPP and is the handiwork of those who wish to bring into disrepute the entire political class,” Babar said on Saturday. In a statement, he said that Asif Ali Zardari had been validly granted visa by the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Abu Dhabi, on the basis of stays in the UAE. “This is most reprehensible and is deeply deplored and condemned,” said the party’s spokesperson.

The former president “does not hold any visa or residence permit” as an employee or partner in some private firm, as wrongly claimed in the fake iqama moving around on the social media, he said. “After the disqualification of the prime minister by the Supreme Court, a vicious and mysterious campaign seems to have been mounted … to malign and discredit elected representatives of the people and the political class as a whole,” he said. Deploring this, Farhatullah Babar said that launching such a malicious campaign against the former president, the PPP and the political class as a whole would do no good either to those behind it or to the country as a whole.

“Those wishing to paint black Asif Zardari, the PPP and the elected representatives as a whole should pause, ponder and look inwardly whether they also may have some skeletons,” he said.

Published in Daily Times, July 30^th , 2017.