Amid raging controversy over reports that he ran a training camp for militants, Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Thursday said he would go ahead with his proposed bus journey to Srinagar on June 30.
"There are certain newspapers which play different roles probably with directions and influence from someone. They have been defeated, as truth will remain truth. I am going by the June 30 bus," the minister told journalists while bidding farewell to the Kashmiri separatist leaders, who left Pakistan after a fortnight-long visit.
Also see: Minister falsely implicated by news report -- Pak
Ahmed said his travel to Jammu and Kashmir by the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus is also a test for the confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan. "I am sure the Indian government will give me permission to travel by the bus," he told Geo TV on Wednesday night.
So far, he said, he has not received any information on permission by the Indian side, but "I am ready to go to Srinagar."
Meanwhile, Pakistan's prominent opposition parties and former top generals have joined those confirming Ahmed's alleged role in running the camp.
The controversy erupted two days ago with reported remarks of visiting Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yaseen Malik that Ahmed organised a camp for 3,500 militants at Rawalpindi when the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir was at its peak.
Pakistan Peoples Party, headed by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, accused Ahmed of appropriating government lands in the name of running the militant camp.
Former chief of army staff Aslam Baig also said that Ahmed used to run a militant camp in Rawalpindi.
He was quoted by the Daily Times on Thursday as saying that being the army chief, he had received information about the camp where militants used to receive training. "The abandoned camp still has the signboard of Freedom House," he said.
Another former general and former interior minister Nasurallah Babar said in a statement on Wednesday night that in 1989, Ahmed himself confessed to running a training-cum-refugee camp for Kashmiris near Islamabad.
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