The PTI leadership on Sunday lashed out at the PML-N-led coalition government over the purported audio leaks from the Prime Minister’s Office, particularly the one in which the premier could be heard allegedly telling a senior government official that party vice president Maryam Nawaz was seeking to import machinery from India for a power plant for her son-in-law and half of it had arrived.
Addressing a rally in Karak town of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, PTI chairman and deposed premier Imran Khan maintained that the current government had come into power to make money and even Maryam’s son-in-law Raheel Munir had benefitted from it.
He added that the goal of the incumbent government was to obtain an NRO (amnesty in corruption cases), not to develop the country or reduce the spiralling inflation.
Imran further claimed that the biggest “quality” of Maryam was that she could not speak the truth.
“Maryam Nawaz is doing illegal work,” he maintained.
Imran further said his government had stopped trade with India but the current rulers had “resumed” it.
Speaking to the media in Pind Dadan Khan in Punjab, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry claimed that the conversations of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) of a nuclear country was available on the dark web for $3.5 million.
“If the Prime Minister's Office is not safe, then which place is?” he asked.
He added that the purported audio leak of the PMO was of great concern and 115 hours of conversations were being auctioned on the dark web.
The former information minister noted that the conversation revealed that decisions were being made in London. “Maryam Nawaz is demanding [PM] Shehbaz Sharif to allow her son-in-law's machinery to come from India.
In response, he [Shehbaz] answered that it would become a political issue and the PTI would criticise the decision,” Fawad maintained.
Fawad said in the audio leak, Maryam, against what she says at public rallies, could be heard saying that there was no other option but to increase fuel prices.
He added that Maryam had shifted the blame for this decision on Finance Minister Miftah Ismail in an attempt to reinstate party leader Ishaq Dar to the portfolio.
Earlier in a tweet, Fawad wrote the manner in which the PMO’s data was leaked on dark web reflected the cyber security of the country.
“This is a failure of our intelligence agencies, especially the IB [Intelligence Bureau]. Obviously, apart from political issues, important discussions on security and foreign issues are now in everyone’s hands,” he stated.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Finance and Health Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra wrote on Twitter that while “truth helps, [and] cleans conscience”, illegal recordings were “wrong”.
PTI leader and former human rights minister Shireen Mazari also raised questions about the PMO’s security in the wake of the audio leaks.
On Twitter, she claimed that one of the alleged audios showed the laying down of groundwork for Dar’s return.
“The leaked audios certainly reveal the influence of convict Nawaz Sharif and his convict-on-bail daughter in the running of this imported government itself a cabal of crooks,” she added.
She noted that the “real issue” was who bugged the PMO or the Prime Minister House in the first place.
“The hacking happened because devices were placed in these locations. So who is responsible and where did orders or decision come from? That is a question that must also be focused on,” she wrote.
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