12-26-2007, 10:30 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Aroosa defends friendship with Amarinder </b>
PNS/ Agencies | Chandigarh
Pakistani journalist Aroosa Alam on Wednesday defended her friendship with former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh following media reports that she is about to marry him.Â
Aroosa strongly denied that she had no plans to marry Amarinder. However, she justified her friendship with him saying that he was a gentleman and very popular in Pakistan.
Aroosa said there was nothing unusual about the friendship. She said she was a family friend of Amarinder Singh and also met his wife Perneet Kaur during her visit to Patiala on Tuesday.
<b>Three SAD legislators have challenged Amarinder Singh to persuade Maharani Perneet Kaur to endorse the legitimacy of relationship with the controversial Pakistani national.</b>
Aroosa said she "is definitely not an ISI agent". Clearly overawed by media coverage, Aroosa, who is president of the Islamabad chapter of South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), said: "I do not know how such a controversy (her relationship and the allegation of her being an ISI agent) was created." "Amarinder Singh is a wise man, a man with a vision, a charming person, has a good stature and is known in Pakistan," Aroosa, who is in her fifties, repeatedly told mediapersons at the press conference.
For the Indian media, which she said has intruded into her private life, she said: "Do you want that I should stop breathing? You can end the controversy. I had been coming to India even before I met Amarinder, but was never described as an ISI agent."
"We are journalists and should accept privacy of individuals," she said.
Aroosa, who has two children, tried to steer clear of the controversy. <b>"I had said in a lighter vein that Amarinder was a charming personality. I would have no hesitation in marrying him since Shariat does not allow that. I did not know you would take it seriously," </b>she replied to a correspondent.
It would have been better, she said, if she had been left alone. "Dus ghar to dain bhi chod deti hai, (even a ghost leaves ten houses). You can realise what problems I can face in Pakistan," she said.
Aroosa said, "It is strange in India the media hits below the belt." When reminded that the controversy was started by a Pakistan newspaper, Aroosa said, "I agree a Pak newspaper did it as there is a reason for that".
She said she was among those who had opposed the efforts of the newspaper to grab the land allotted to a housing society of journalists in Islamabad. "The owner had some grudge against me and the paper came out with the story after a Pak journalist had returned after a visit to Indian Punjab."
She said no other newspaper in Pakistan carried the story, but in India all newspapers lifted it and called her and Amarinder Singh ISI agents. "This is unfair," she said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
PNS/ Agencies | Chandigarh
Pakistani journalist Aroosa Alam on Wednesday defended her friendship with former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh following media reports that she is about to marry him.Â
Aroosa strongly denied that she had no plans to marry Amarinder. However, she justified her friendship with him saying that he was a gentleman and very popular in Pakistan.
Aroosa said there was nothing unusual about the friendship. She said she was a family friend of Amarinder Singh and also met his wife Perneet Kaur during her visit to Patiala on Tuesday.
<b>Three SAD legislators have challenged Amarinder Singh to persuade Maharani Perneet Kaur to endorse the legitimacy of relationship with the controversial Pakistani national.</b>
Aroosa said she "is definitely not an ISI agent". Clearly overawed by media coverage, Aroosa, who is president of the Islamabad chapter of South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA), said: "I do not know how such a controversy (her relationship and the allegation of her being an ISI agent) was created." "Amarinder Singh is a wise man, a man with a vision, a charming person, has a good stature and is known in Pakistan," Aroosa, who is in her fifties, repeatedly told mediapersons at the press conference.
For the Indian media, which she said has intruded into her private life, she said: "Do you want that I should stop breathing? You can end the controversy. I had been coming to India even before I met Amarinder, but was never described as an ISI agent."
"We are journalists and should accept privacy of individuals," she said.
Aroosa, who has two children, tried to steer clear of the controversy. <b>"I had said in a lighter vein that Amarinder was a charming personality. I would have no hesitation in marrying him since Shariat does not allow that. I did not know you would take it seriously," </b>she replied to a correspondent.
It would have been better, she said, if she had been left alone. "Dus ghar to dain bhi chod deti hai, (even a ghost leaves ten houses). You can realise what problems I can face in Pakistan," she said.
Aroosa said, "It is strange in India the media hits below the belt." When reminded that the controversy was started by a Pakistan newspaper, Aroosa said, "I agree a Pak newspaper did it as there is a reason for that".
She said she was among those who had opposed the efforts of the newspaper to grab the land allotted to a housing society of journalists in Islamabad. "The owner had some grudge against me and the paper came out with the story after a Pak journalist had returned after a visit to Indian Punjab."
She said no other newspaper in Pakistan carried the story, but in India all newspapers lifted it and called her and Amarinder Singh ISI agents. "This is unfair," she said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->