Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry, while speaking on Geo News’ programme ‘Jirga’, said, “Two days prior to the story of Pegasus spyware being published, I received a letter from The Guardian revealing that there was a list of phone numbers that had been hacked. Three numbers previously used by Prime Minister Imran Khan were also in the list.”
Fawad said that the letter further added that he needed to confirm whether the numbers included in the list belonged to PM Khan or not.
Fawad said that a team was being put together by the government, who would do the forensics to verify whether the premier’s phone was hacked or not. Only then will the government be able to tell if the attempt to hack the phone was successful or not.
“It is confirmed that an attempt to hack the phone was made,” said Fawad.
On being asked by Saleem Safi that if the phone was indeed hacked and the Indians did get the data from the premier’s phone, what implications would it have for the country, Fawad replied, ” PM Khan’s phone did not have messages of Gujarat massacre like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His phone does not have any orders of murder in it.”
Fawad condemned how Modi and his government had hacked the phones of Indian journalists, judges, his own government officials, and other world leaders and said that the United Nations must intervene in this regard.
Fawad Chaudhry added that the Foreign Office has taken notice of India’s use of Israeli spyware, Pegasus, to hack Prime Minister Imran Khan’s phone and had already said: “We call on the relevant UN bodies to thoroughly investigate the matter, bring the facts to light, and hold the Indian perpetrators to account.”
When questioned about the meeting between Imran Khan and Narendra Modi before he came into power and whether it was discussed with the then government, Fawad responded that PM Khan’s meeting was public and the media was present. Fawad criticised Nawaz Sharif’s meeting with Afghan National Security Adviser (NSA) Hamdullah Mohib in London and said this was news shared with the Afghan media.
“I won’t call Nawaz Sharif a traitor but it was a very irresponsible act by him,” added Fawad.
Earlier this week, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Nawaz Sharif was met by Afghan National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib and State Minister for Peace Sayed Sadat Naderi.
The National Security Council of Afghanistan (NSCA) gave an update about the meeting on Twitter Saturday, saying that the Afghan state minister for peace and NSA discussed “matters of mutual interest” with the former Pakistan prime minister.
Nawaz Sharif’s meeting faced extreme criticism from the government.
