Amid media reports that Pakistan's former President Asif Ali Zardari had contracted second marriage, his spokesperson today rubbished them as "rumours" and said the ex-president will live and die as "spouse of Benazir Bhutto".
The denial came after local media and online outlets reported that he married Tanvir Zamani, a US-based doctor.
59-year-old Zardari's spokesman Farhatullah Babar in a statement rejected the reports and said that ex-president will live and die as "spouse of Benazir Bhutto".
Babar said that for the past several days one Tanvir Zamani has been appearing almost regularly on the television channels masquerading as a Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader and at times even as a spokesperson of the party.
He said that a wrong impression is also sought to be created in media that Zardari has married this woman.
"The rumours of Mr Zardari having married this lady have unfortunately been deliberately aided by the said lady by avoiding answers to pointed questions, speaking with double tongue and otherwise employing gestures and pauses in replies to the questions," the spokesperson said.
He said the rumours about Zardari's marriage were first floated in 2011 when he was president and were rejected at that time.
"Mr Asif Zardari has the unique honour of being the spouse of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and son in law of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He regards this an honour for which he has endured all sorts of vicious attacks and even jeers and ridicule," Babar said.
"Those wishing to peddle the rumours of marriage would do well to realise that Mr Zardari possesses a great sense of history. He would like to live and die as the spouse of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and son-in-law of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and would hate to barter away this honour for anything else," the spokesperson said.
Babar said any impression that the said lady is some sort of a leader of the PPP is totally wrong.
The spokesperson also deplored that some channels and anchor persons gave so much of airtime to show so much of nonsense in the craze for ratings even when the charade was obvious.
