Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari fell for a ‘prank’ call threatening action by India in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, an editorial in a leading Pakistani daily- The Dawn said Sunday.
It reveals the lack of a calm hand at the helm and calls for urgently reviewing the government’s communications procedures.
The newspaper reported Saturday that a prankster posing as Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was patched through to Zardari Nov 28 and threatened military action by India if Pakistan did not act against the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks.
In a knee-jerk reaction, Pakistan put its armed forces on alert and threatened to remove its troops from the border with Afghanistan and send them to the border with India.
It was only after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to Mukherjee, who denied telephoning Zardari, ‘did it become clear that the presidency had been the victim of a prank and the tension in the region began to lower’, the Dawn editorial said.
After the incident, ‘the dim view that world capitals take of Pakistan will only have grown dimmer now that it has been revealed that a major non-NATO ally of the US, a nuclear-armed nation and a country flush with militants and weapons and with the world’s seventh largest standing army nearly catastrophically raised tensions in South Asia in reaction to just a prank call!!!’ the editorial said in a strongly worded editorial.
Source: Yahoo News.
Thanks God that the prankster didn’t talk as Sarah Palin, else Pakistani President would had been heartbroken 
Jokes apart, on a more serious note – How easily can anyone get through & threaten the President of Pakistan!! Is it just a call that is all required to shake-up the Pakistani Ministery & Military
