Dawn journalist Cyril Almeida's report has been denied by Pakistan government.
Pakistani journalist Cyril Almeida, who has been banned from leaving the country after he reported on the rift between the civilian government and the military over terrorists, posted on Twitter that he has been "saddened" and "puzzled" by the government's move.
Announcing that he has been placed on the "Exit Control List", Mr Almeida, an assistant editor at Dawn - Pakistan's oldest and most prestigious English daily -- tweeted:
The report, published on Friday, prompted threats on social media and was denied three times by the office of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. But Dawn said it stands by the report.
Dawn News Editor Mubashir Zaidi told NDTV that all the people who were part of the meeting were contacted by the paper and everyone in the civil administration "was aware that the story was being done".
"This is unprecedented," he added. "Four clarifications have been issued so far to a single news report. Then the person who has written the story has been put on exit control list, which is a first in Pakistan.''
Pakistan minister Mohd Zubair told NDTV that the government had to "deny the bottom line message that the story conveyed" since it was very difficult to verify the authenticity of the story. "We have no source to verify story. The issue of how the story was reported was the problem," he said.
In a report citing sources, published on October 6, Mr Almeida had said top civilian officials had asked Pakistan's powerful army to renounce covert support for proxy fighters such as the Haqqani network allied to the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks -- or face isolation. The civilian government, he wrote, warned that there should be no interference with the police when they take action "against militant groups that are banned or until now considered off-limits for civilian action".
News reports that are critical of the military is considered a major red-flag among the Pakistani media, with journalists at times detained, beaten and even killed.
India has sought to diplomatically isolate Pakistan after the terror attack in Kashmir's Uri, in which 19 soldiers were killed. Amid public outrage, India led a boycott of the SAARC regional summit in Pakistan. On the night of September 28, it conducted surgical strikes across the Line of Control.