'Mafia within PPP behind wedding rumours'

Islamabad: A US-based physician who was at the centre of a controversy after an internet hoax about her purported marriage to President Asif Ali Zardari has said a "mafia" within the Pakistan People's Party had spread the rumour about the wedding.

Tanveer Zamani, the 47-year-old doctor who is running for the post of president of the PPP's US chapter, made headlines after two Pakistani newspapers picked up the internet hoax. She insists that she has never met Zardari and was the victim of a "vicious campaign" by elements within the PPP. "I have been a member of the PPP since birth, but I didn't start campaigning for it until about a year ago."

The North America chapter of the PPP had become stagnant, it wasn't accomplishing anything. So I tried to breathe new life into it. But a certain mafia within the party felt threatened by my enthusiasm," she said. "Other non-party people joined the bandwagon and started this vicious campaign against me. These weren't just attacks on me; these were attacks on the President, the Bhutto name, and Pakistan itself. These people targeted me because I am a woman," Zamani told Newsweek Pakistan in an interview.

Asked to identify the "mafia" within the PPP, she said: "There are some people, and I would not care to take their names, who assumed that my campaigning for the party was an attempt to win an ambassadorship or be appointed as Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN. These people felt threatened by me, and they might have tried to malign me in this manner."

Zamani reiterated that she had "never even met the President in person." She also said the Pakistani's media response to the rumour had been "disappointing".

"When these malicious rumors started on the Internet, I sought legal counsel. I was told to stay quiet and not comment. When Shaheen Sehbai (Group Editor of The News daily)called me, I was in the trauma ward. His first question was

about how much dowry I had received from the President. I was so taken aback, I couldn't respond properly to any of his questions," she said.