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Pakistan Bans Reporter From Leaving the Country

by VOA News

   Pakistan has banned one of its leading journalists from leaving the
   country, after he [1]reported on a secret meeting between the country's
   prime minister and the army's top spy.

   Writing Monday on Twitter, journalist Cyril Almeida, a columnist and
   reporter for the English-language Dawn newspaper, said he had been
   placed on the government's so-called exit control list, just days after
   his October 6 story on the high-level meeting.

   The report detailed a faceoff between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and
   spy chief Rizwan Akhtar in which Akhtar was urged to take action
   against three militant groups dedicated to fighting Indian forces in
   the volatile and divided border region of Kashmir.

   According to the report, Akhtar was told that action against the
   militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Haqqani
   network was the only way for Islamabad to avoid international
   condemnation.

   India and the United States have repeatedly accused Pakistan of
   providing clandestine support to all three militant groups, charges
   that Islamabad has consistently denied.

   The Dawn report came just weeks after a militant attack on an Indian
   military base in Kashmir that killed 18 Indian soldiers.

   Islamabad denied any role in the attack and called the controversy
   surrounding it an effort to draw attention from alleged human rights
   abuses by Indian security forces in Kashmir.

   The [2]Islamabad government has repeatedly denied the contents of the
   Dawn story, and the prime minister's office vowed to take stern action
   against those responsible for it.

   A statement from Sharif's office noted that the Dawn story states that
   none of the reported statements had been confirmed by the individuals
   mentioned in the story. As such, the statement called the story "an
   example of irresponsible reporting."

References

   1. http://www.dawn.com/news/1288350/exclusive-act-against-militants-or-face-international-isolation-civilians-tell-military
   2. https://www.dawn.com/news/1289344