Web Desk
Pakistan has accused an Indian man of sending threatening emails that caused New Zealand to abandon its cricket tour of the country just hours before the start of the opening match in Rawalpindi.
“The email was sent from an associated device in India using VPN [a virtual private network], showing IP address location of Singapore,” information minister Fawad Chaudhry told a news conference in the capital, Islamabad on Wednesday.
Fawad Chaudhry said that New Zealand received threatening emails even before it arrived in Pakistan on September 11, including an email sent to the wife of Martin Guptill in which the cricketer received a death threat.
The information minister said Pakistan’s initial investigations revealed that the device from which an email to Guptill’s wife was sent was also registered in India.
Chaudhry said Pakistan will seek help from the INTERPOL to probe the matter.
“We believe this is a campaign against international cricket,” the minister said.
Fawad Chaudhry spoke about a fake social media post that was shared with former TTP commander Ehsanullah Ehsan’s name, adding that the post warned New Zealand cricket team against touring Pakistan.
“The post stated that New Zealand cricket team should not go to Pakistan as Daesh would attack it,” revealed the information minister.
Chaudhry said that an article was published in The Sunday Guardian two days later, on August 21, by the paper’s burea chief Abhinandan Mishra, who wrote the same thing: that the New Zealand cricket team could get attacked in Pakistan.
“The article published in The Sunday Guardian centered around Ehsanullah Ehsan’s post,” he said. “Indian journalist Abhinandan Mishra has close relations with former Afghan vice-president Amrullah Saleh,” he added.
He said that despite “all these threats” New Zealand did not cancel their tour and arrived in Pakistan.
Chaudhry said that a chartered flight brought New Zealand team on September 11 while the T20 squad arrived in the country the next day, on September 12.
“A detailed program containing their protocols and security was issued by the interior ministry, which included the squad being accompanied by two helicopters,” revealed the information minister.
Chaudhry said that the New Zealand squad, on September 13, travelled from their hotel at the Rawalpindi cricket stadium, with the Pakistani players, where they held a “full practice session”.
“I would just like to remind you that both Pakistan and New Zealand’s security agencies had probed and arrived at the conclusion that the threats issued on August 19, 21 and 24 were all fake,” he noted.
He said the team again travelled to the same stadium on September 14 and held another training session there, with the same security protocols in place.
