Islamabad, May 23 (Reuters): Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has rejected the resignation of a female cabinet minister who had come under fire from a hardline Islamist cleric for hugging her parachute instructor in France.

Nilofar Bakhtiar, one of the three women ministers in the Pakistani cabinet, had asked to be relieved in a letter to Aziz that was also faxed to newspapers.

“I have not accepted her resignation,” Aziz was quoted as saying by state-run Associated Press of Pakistan while talking to reporters yesterday.

Bakhtiar, who heads the tourism ministry, embraced her elderly instructor after completing a jump in March.