Thaindian News

Islamabad, Oct 19 (IANS) Pakistani ministers need to speak and act with discretion, said a daily after Interior Minister Rehman Malik disclosed the location of a high-profile kidnapping victim.

Malik Monday said Shahbaz Taseer, son of the murdered Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, was alive and that he was being held at a place close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The minister also added that Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban were planning to kidnap President Asif Ali Zardari’s son and Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

An editorial in the News International Wednesday said that Malik “offered no supporting evidence for either claim and given his propensity for what might charitably be called a slackness of tongue, we are unable to be sure of the veracity of either statement”.

It said that by disclosing his knowledge of Taseer’s whereabouts, the minister may have alarmed his abductors.

“Similarly, if there really was a plot to kidnap Bilawal then those who were doing the plotting are now alerted to the possibility of their actions being under surveillance.”

It went on to say that “there are times when secrets, genuinely and for good reason, have to be kept. Disclosure may harm the chances of release or jeopardise negotiations in the case of Taseer; and in the case of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari perhaps expose an intelligence asset in their company or a leak in their communications”.

“Either way, offering statements like this, completely unsupported, does nothing for the credibility of the interior minister. Ministers need to speak and act with discretion, be guarded and circumspect in their unscripted moments and mindful of their broader responsibilities,” it added.