AFP04/16/2007By [Printer Friendly Version] The rumour, which raced like wildfire late Sunday among the country's estimated two million cellphone users, said that anyone answering calls from certain numbers or codes would contract a fatal disease. "I find it necessary to assure the people that the rumour spreading around the city is absolute nonsense -- it's baseless," interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told a news conference. "It's the work of the enemy," said Bashary, using the government's usual term for Islamist insurgents led by the Taliban, adding that they were trying to cause panic in the war-weary nation. "There are some numbers which contain the virus. As soon as you answer your phone blood comes out of your mouth, nose and ears and you die," said Kabul resident Mohammad Akter, who said he was told about the virus by a friend. With more than 70 percent of Afghanistan's people receiving little or no education, rumours and superstitions have been used previously as political and military tools. False claims that the Taliban were equipped with special weapons which made their opponents start laughing and drop their weapons spread fast in the early 1990s. The interior ministry said it was investigating the source of the latest story. Officials in neighbouring Pakistan moved to calm similar fears in their own country last week. State media quoted the head of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority as saying on Saturday that it was "scientifically and technically" not possible to transmit a virus to humans from a mobile.
