Pakistan's Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry has claimed the security threat which prompted New Zealand 's cricket team to cancel their tour of the country originated in India.
On the day New Zealand's ODI series against Pakistan was due to get underway, the visitors abandoned the tour citing security reasons.
New Zealand Cricket's chief executive David White said they were warned of a "specific and credible threat against the team", while their Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described the threat as "direct" and "credible".
However, Chaudhary has now claimed that threat against the team came via an email from India.
As per Reuters, Chaudhry told a news conference: "This email was generated from India through a VPN showing the location of Singapore."
Chaudhry also said that the West Indies cricket team had received a similar threat which he also dismissed as fake.
India's foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.
Both the West Indies men's and women's teams are due to tour Pakistan in Decmber and PCB chairman Ramiz Raja is concerned that New Zealand and England's decisions to cancel could cause the West Indies to become "jittery" about their trip.
However, Cricket West Indies CEO Johnny Grave has said they remain committed to the tour.
He said: "I had a call with Wasim Khan, the Pakistan CEO, to find out everything that had happened during the past week, on the back of New Zealand abandoning their tour and England’s decision not to go there, and to suggest that we have another call later this week with our operational teams to discuss our women's and men's tours that are scheduled for later this year.
"At this stage, our intention is to fulfil our touring obligations. We’ve got a pretty clear process that we go through with independent security experts as we did in 2018.
"We will follow that process, the board of directors, WIPA [West Indies Players' Association], as well as the players themselves will review the plans and our reports, including the independent security advice."
