Former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Akbar S Babar has said the message he attributed to party founder Imran Khan was conveyed to him through a party activist who was in Adiala Jail and met Khan.
In a statement on Thursday, he said the activist communicated details of his conversation with Khan to Babar after being released on bail.
He further said the information then surfaced during a podcast he recorded with a former Insaf Students Federation (ISF) leader from Rawalpindi, who had also learned about the exchange in jail.
“More details will be shared with the media this evening,” Babar said.
It may be noted that Babar earlier claimed that Khan had asked him to bring together PTI’s early members, disgruntled leaders and workers in an effort to reunite them.
He said the initiative was already underway, with former PTI Punjab senior vice-president Rana Sohail heading a four-member committee formed to assist with the effort. The committee also includes former PTI founding leader Amin Zaki, Faisal Pirzada and ISF founding leader Asif Ahmed.
In his latest statement, Babar stressed that the effort to democratise PTI was not new and was also not centred on any particular individual.
“Democratising PTI is not a new endeavour, nor is it individual specific in any way,” he said.
Babar added the objective was to “take the country out of the political quagmire” by redirecting PTI’s politics and, through it, the country’s politics.
He also said he had no personal differences with Khan and that their previous disagreements had been political.
Akbar S Babar is a founding member of PTI and has been involved in a long-running dispute with the party over its finances. He also filed the foreign funding case against PTI before the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in 2014.
