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Girl at centre of storm denies incident
Chand Bibi, the 17-year-old girl who was shown being held down by three men while a fourth flogged her, reportedly told the judge of a Qazi or Islamic court and Divisional Commissioner Syed Mohammad Javed yesterday that such an incident had never happened.

North West Frontier Province Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told The News daily that Chand Bibi had made a statement to the two officials who visited her village of Kala Killay in Kabal sub-division yesterday.

Hussain said the fake video had been used to tarnish the reputation of the people of Swat and to disrupt the peace process in the area. “We condemn the acts of repression against women… But the incident depicted in the videotape never took place in Swat,” he said.

He claimed the videotape was released as “part of a conspiracy to foil the peace agreement in Swat and put pressure on President (Asif Ali) Zardari not to sign” a regulation for implementing Islamic law in the region.

This comes after Malakand Division Commissioner Syed Mohammad Javed was quoted by local media as saying that the incident shown in the video clip had not happened in the Swat valley and that the accents of the people heard speaking in the video were not those of the region.

“This fabricated video clip is a conspiracy to sabotage the Swat peace deal between the Taliban and the NWFP government,” the commissioner said after his visit to the Kala Kalay village where the incident is alleged to have taken place.

Chairman Pakistan International Human Rights, Raja Liaquat Ali has also said that the video footage of a 17-year old Swat girl being aired on media is fictitious and termed it a conspiracy to malign Islam.

Addressing a press conference in Swat Press Club, he said the video footage of a girl being flogged in public has nothing to do with Swat and that it is a made-up video.

“The purpose of displaying this video is to tarnish the image of Islam.”

He said some elements want the Swat peace agreement to fizzle out.