Pakistan army rejects PM Sharif's sack order

Islamabad - The PM Office's directive came after an inquiry committee constituted to investigate the controversy.

The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif suffered a major blow on Saturday after the country's powerful military rejected a notification from the Prime Minister's Office on the so-called Dawn Leaks.
The PM Office's directive came after an inquiry committee constituted to investigate the controversy surrounding the publication of a report by daily Dawn last year about a meeting on national security, submitted its findings.
The PM's Office issued directives to remove Syed Tariq Fatemi, special assistant to the prime minister on foreign affairs, from his post for his alleged role in 'Dawn leaks'
The directives also called for action against Rao Tehseen Ali, the principal information officer of the Ministry of Information on charges levelled against him in the committee's report.
However, military's media arm, Inter-Services Public Relations, later rejected the notification issued by the PM's Office on Dawn Leaks, calling it 'incomplete'.
In his tweet ISPR Director-General Major Asif Ghafoor said: "Notification on Dawn Leak is incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board. Notification is rejected."
The PM's directive added that the role of Dawn editor Zafar Abbas and reporter Cyril Almeida will be referred to the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) for necessary disciplinary action to be taken against them. The APNS shall also be asked to develop a code of conduct for the print media especially when dealing with issues relating to national security and to ensure that stories on issues of national importance and security are published by abiding to basic journalistic and editorial norms, the directive said.
The news story, which reported the details of a high-level civil-military meeting discussing the issue of banned outfits, had generated a political storm for the federal government which repeatedly denied it as 'fabricated and planted'.
However, army's corps commanders called it a breach of trust on national security.
The government had formed the committee last year to probe the story. The government initially sacked then information minister Pervaiz Rasheed to thwart criticism.
The latest row between the civilian government and the military has come after a Supreme Court decision to constitute a panel to probe Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his family for acquiring foreign properties through alleged illegal means.

• Pakistan