The Chief Adviser's Press Wing has refuted reports emanating from India that the chief of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, is currently on a visit to Bangladesh.
Citing a Defence Ministry spokesman, the press wing led by Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam, on its fact-checking page on Facebook, said on Thursday that the chief of the ISI is not visiting Bangladesh. "The news circulating in the press and social media is false."
Earlier on Wednesday, a report in the Economic Times, the respected Indian financial daily, said ISI chief Lieutenant General Asim Malik was visiting Dhaka with a view to creating an intelligence-sharing network between Pakistan and Bangladesh.
It added that the visit marked the first time in decades that a Pakistani intelligence chief visited Dhaka.
A slew of Indian outlets proceeded to report the same, citing the ET story as the original source.
That did not stop them from adding their own layers to the story, in each case based entirely on anonymous sources.
Northeast News, an online portal, said the ISI delegation even flew to Rangpur to the area near what is known as "the chicken neck", a particularly sensitive area for India's security concerns.
The Hindustan Times, on the other hand, reported that a four-member ISI delegation is visiting Bangladesh, sans chief Lt Gen Asim Malik.
It said the delegation is being led by Major General Shahid Amir Afsar, the ISI’s director general of analysis who previously served as Pakistan’s defence attache in Beijing.
