ISLAMABAD, 23 September 2021, (TON): Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said that the device used to send a threat to the New Zealand cricket team belonged to India.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad alongside Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the minister said that the entire situation started due to a fake post by someone claiming to be Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) member Ehsanullah Ehsan.

Fawad said that in August, a fake post was created under Ehsan's name which told the New Zealand cricket board and government to refrain from sending the team to Pakistan as it would be "targeted".

He said that following this post, the bureau chief of The Sunday Guardian, Abhinandan Mishra, published an article claiming that the team may face a terror threat in Pakistan citing the fake post by Ehsan.

According to its website, The Sunday Guardian was founded by politician MJ Akbar, who served as the minister for external affairs in the Modi-led BJP government till 2018.

He said "interestingly, [Mishra] has strong links with [former Afghanistan vice president] Amrullah Saleh."

He said that on August 24, New Zealand opener Martin Guptill's wife received an email threatening her husband from ID with the username "Tehreek-i-Labbaik".

He said "when we investigated further, we discovered some facts. Firstly, this email is not affiliated with any social media network and only one email has been generated from this account.”