Minister resigns after hug incident
Pakistan’s minister of tourism has handed in her resignation after criticism from a hard-line Islamist cleric for hugging her parachute instructor after a charity jump in France, an official said.
Nilofar Bakhtiar made the jump in March to raise money for victims of an October 2005 earthquake that killed 73,000 people in Pakistan.
A pro-Taliban cleric called on the government to sack her for “obscenity.”
Her resignation cited unavoidable circumstances but did not elaborate. The Dawn newspaper had quoted her as saying that “some irresponsible elements in Pakistan presented this noble cause in a malicious manner.”
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