Daily Times

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Senator Rehman Malik has vehemently denied the allegation against him by US columnist Cynthia Ritchie.

The PPP leader’s spokesman issued a statement and said that the purpose behind the US columnist’s allegations was to damage Rehman Malik’s reputation.

“This American woman made the inappropriate allegations against Rehman Malik upon the instigation of a certain individual or a group,” said the spokesman on behalf of the former interior minister.

The spokesman added that Rehman Malik always spoke up in favour of women’s rights and respects Ritchie but will not directly to the accusations.

He termed the allegations as “baseless, shameful, and inappropriate” meant to dent his reputation.

The allegations against Rehman Malik came at a time when he took notice of the accusations against late Benazir Bhutto as the chairman interior ministry, added the spokesman.

An ongoing social media spat between Cynthia D. Ritchie and various PPP leaders took a dark turn on Friday after Ritchie took to Facebook to level several serious allegations against the party’s senior leadership.

She stated that the incidents occurred in 2011 when the PPP was in power, and when the individual she accused of rape had been a senior minister.

Ritchie further alleged that two other senior party leaders — a federal minister and former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gillani (who has publicly responded to the allegation) — had “physically manhandled” her when the latter “was staying the President House”.

In a subsequent textual post on Facebook, Ritchie said that the alleged rape incident had occurred at the accused’s residence in Islamabad’s Minister’s Enclave in 2011, “around the [time of the] OBL (Osama Bin Laden) incident”.

She added that she would share details with investigative journalists and that she has already shared the story with people she trusts including a member of the US embassy in case of any untoward incident.

Former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has also denied the allegations against him.