Rawalpindi, Nov 27 (IANS): Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Sunday denounced the "nefarious campaign" maligning outgoing Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, local media reported.

"Misleading data regarding the assets of Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and his family have been shared on social media," the ISPR said, adding that the "figures are exaggerated and based on assumptions", Express Tribune reported.

Rejecting the claims circulating on social media that certain assets were created by General Bajwa's family during his six-year tenure as "completely false", "blatant lies and malice", the ISPR said that "all assets of Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, his wife and family are duly declared in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR)".

The statement also said that the Army chief and his family regularly file their tax returns and that "like every citizen, the Army chief and his family are accountable to the tax authorities for their assets".

It may be noted that earlier this week, the government had ordered an investigation into the leak of legally protected tax information of General Bajwa's family.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had taken serious note of the illegal and unwarranted leakage of tax information, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance on Monday.

"This is clearly violative of the complete confidentiality of tax information that the law provides," the Finance Ministry had stated.

It was later reported that the FBR had traced the identities of the people who had been behind the leak, Express Tribune reported.