Who needs Maila Times when the stories that are reported daily in Pakistan are beyond parody? Last year Dawn had reported that a prank caller, pretending to be then Indian external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, had threatened President Asif Zardari and Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, nearly leading to a outbreak of war between the two countries.

Now, Dawn has a follow-up that the caller was Omar Saeed Sheikh (also known variously as Sheikh Omar Saeed, and Ahmed Omar Saeed), who is in jail and facing the death penalty for his involvement in the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

My first instinct was to dismiss this story as an absurd fantasy, cooked up by the active imaginations of our excitable media. This prank call, if it actually took place, would rival the phone call between President Merkin Muffley and Premier Demetri Kissof in Dr Strangelove for the most absurd conversation that could lead to a nuclear war.

But then I remembered a story reported by The News last year, very soon after the Mumbai attacks. Apparently, Sheikh, while incarcerated, had managed to set up a thriving cell phone shop in his cell. According to The News, he was in possession of “three mobile phones, six batteries, 18 SIMS of almost every cellular company and chargers..” He also enjoyed calling world leaders back then, as he supposedly place a friendly phone call to Pervez Musharraf, telling him, “I am after you, get ready to die.” Well, jail can be quite dull and you have to get your jollies any way you can.

Then, there is the question of why someone in the government would concoct such a story. Since both Zardari and Kayani were taken in by the prank caller, neither the civilian leadership nor the military would gain anything from leaking such embarrassing information.

With this information in hand, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Omar Saeed Sheikh is the greatest impersonator since Novak Djokovic.