Top journalist barred from leaving Pakistan after report

ISLAMABAD: A senior journalist of Pakistan’s influential Dawn newspaper who reported on disagreements between the civilian government and the military on tackling

ISLAMABAD: A senior journalist of Pakistan’s influential Dawn newspaper who reported on disagreements between the civilian government and the military on tackling terrorism has been barred from travelling out of the country.

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Cyril Almeida, whose Karachi-based family has its roots in Goa, created a buzz in Pakistan and India by reporting on October 6 that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government had delivered a “blunt” warning to the powerful military about the country facing growing international isolation if it failed to tackle militants.

The government and the military rejected the report. The civilian leadership was so rattled by the report it issued three denials, including one after a meeting between the premier and Pakistan Army chief Gen Raheel Sharif on Monday.

Soon after, Almeida tweeted he had been shown evidence that he was on the “Exit Control List” (ECL), which has the names of people barred from leaving Pakistan. The ECL is a border control system maintained under the Exit from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance.

The denial issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday reiterated that Almeida’s report was a “fabricated news story” on national security issues.

The denial said the civil and military leadership “were unanimous that the published story was clearly violative of universally acknowledged principles of reporting on national security issues and has risked the vital state interests through inclusion of inaccurate and misleading contents which had no relevance to actual discussion and facts”.

The civil and military leadership said the media should refrain “from speculative reporting and issues of national security and interests of the state”. The Prime Minister “took serious notice of the violation and directed that those responsible should be identified for stern action”.

However, Dawn’s editor Zafar Abbas said Almeida’s report “was verified, cross-checked and fact-checked”. He added that “many at the helm of affairs are aware of the senior officials, and participants of the meeting, who were contacted by the newspaper for collecting information, and more than one source confirmed and verified the details”.