M A I N   N E W S

Pakistan denies coup rumours

Islamabad, September 24
Pakistan today denied rumours of a coup attempt against President Pervez Musharraf while he is visiting the United States.

Newspaper offices and journalists were inundated with telephone calls and text messages inquiring about the rumours, which coincided with a widespread power cut.

But television programmes did not allude to them until Geo Television ran a ticker headline saying that Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani had accused “rumour mongers” of exploiting the power cut.

Reuters made checks with senior government as well as military officials, and journalists saw nothing unusual in the capital or the neighbouring garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Durrani, who is travelling with General Musharraf, said from New York: “These rumours were sparked off because of the power breakdown. These are baseless. These rumours spread because televisions were off and telephones were on.”

A military official who declined to be named added: “It’s totally rubbish.”

Durrani also said General Musharraf had had a routine medical check-up in Texas with a Pakistani-American doctor.

“He is absolutely all right,” he said.

Power cuts are not unusual in Pakistan but today’s outage, which blacked out large parts of the country, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi and the eastern city of Lahore, for several hours, was unusually extensive. — Reuters