Islamabad: Leader of the Opposition in Pakistan's National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif has said that he will file a law suit against a UK newspaper for publishing a "fabricated and misleading story" blaming him for stealing British foreign aid money, Pakistani media reported on Monday. The former Punjab Chief Minister accused the 'Daily Mail' of publishing the story "at the behest" of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and his aide Shahzad Akbar and said he will initiate legal proceedings against them as well. "Have decided to file law suit against Daily Mail. The fabricated and misleading story was published at the behest of Imran Khan and Shahzad Akbar. We will also launch legal proceedings against them," Sharif said in a tweet on Sunday.

"Btw Imran Khan has yet to respond to three such cases I filed against him for defamation," he said. The report, quoting investigators and a "confidential investigation report", claimed that the money "stolen" by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president between the 2005 earthquake and 2012, also came from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID)-funded aid projects, the Dawn newspaper reported. "For years he was feted as a Third World poster boy by Britain's Department for International Development, which poured more than 500 million pounds of UK taxpayers' money into his province in the form of aid," the Daily Mail report said.