Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s conversation with his former Principal Secretary Azam Khan at the time when he was Prime Minister of Pakistan (PM) can be leaked, writes journalist Ansar Abbasi for Daily Jang.
Following this, Focal Person on Digital Media to Khan Dr Arslan Khalid took to Twitter and said, “Recording thousands of calls, editing voices, making custom phone calls and then spreading them through your envelopes, is all that’s left now.”
PTI’s Babar Awan termed this act as treason and said, “First Bushra Imran’s fake audio and now Imran Khan’s. Is it a joke that someone can tap the call of the PM of a nuclear country or use it for media trial by tampering and editing?”
Journalist Mansoor Ali Khan shared an old interview of Khan when he was in power. In the video clip, Khan can be heard defending Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for recording calls.
According to Khan, ISI knows who is he talking to over the telephone. He further said that they should know because they are responsible for the security of the PM.
Addressing a press conference, both former federal ministers and PTI leaders Shireen Mazari and Fawad Chaudhry condemned Khan’s and Bushra Bibi’s leaked audios.
Talking about Khan’s audio, Mazari said phone tapping of a PM’s secure line is illegal as only an intelligence agency can do that. She urged that Supreme Court (SC) take suo moto of the situation as it is a violation of SC order.
In the verdict issued in the late 1990s, the top court had said that an individual’s privacy under Article 14 was not just restricted to physical boundaries of home or work but also extended to public places.
Taking Ansar Abbasi’s name, she further said it is a clear violation of the Constitution. Mazari said that if such audio is leaked, it will be a violation of the Official Secrets Act as the conversation between a PM and his principal secretary.
“If a journalist leaks this, they are not only violating Article 14, they will also be in violation of the Official Secrets Act. Beware, we will not sit quietly if this happens,” she added.
Commenting upon the leaked audio of Bushra Bibi, the former minister said that “no substantial” conversation was there and “the actual problem here is of phone tapping”.
“One wonders how much did the US help in tapping the phones?” Mazari posed a question. She said that the “neutrals and the government” could not find evidence of corruption against Khan that’s why they are leaking audios. She further claimed that they are diverting the public from real problems such as inflation, loadshedding, etc.
Meanwhile, speaking on Geo News’ programme ‘Naya Pakistan’, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said that if PTI claims that Bushra Bibi’s audio leak is fake, they can get its forensics done from a third party.
On Saturday, an alleged audio of Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi was leaked in which she is instructing Arslan Khalid to make a statement against Khan’s opponents and run a campaign to ‘prove them, traitors’.
