M A I N   N E W S

Youth grilled for making call to Hina Rabbani
Shubhadeep Choudhury/TNS

Bangalore, February 13
Was Hina Rabbani Khar, the 34-year-old first woman Foreign Minister of Pakistan, was paranoid when a call from an unknown Indian number landed on her mobile phone?

SP of Raichur district SB Bisanalli said Amaresh, a Raichur youth questioned for making a prank call to the Pakistani minister, “was completely innocent”.

“I have made enquiries about the youth and found him innocent. It was a case of wrong dialling. Instead of dialling a 10-digit mobile number, he dialled 12 digits and ended up calling the Pakistan FM’s mobile,” Bisanali said and added that no case had been registered against the youth.

The Raichur SP said IB sleuths had come down from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh to question Amaresh, an attendant at a private coaching centre at Raichur, following a message from the Pakistan Foreign Minister’s office asking the Indian Government to inquire into the call.

Amaresh told them that neither had he heard of Hina Rabbani Khar nor did he know Urdu or English to have a conversation with her. He said some student at the coaching centre he worked could use his phone for making a prank call.

Pakistan foreign ministry officials claimed the call originated from the youth’s phone and lasted 15 minutes. The Raichur SP, however, refused to get drawn into any debate about how long the call lasted. “After getting the call from an unknown number, Khar alerted the Indian Embassy in Islamabad and that’s how the investigation started,” Bisanalli said.