Swati cries as ‘private video’ with wife leaked to family

ISLAMABAD:

PTI Senator Azam Swati on Saturda said his wife had called him on Friday night and kept shouting and crying. Swati said he then asked his daughter to inquire from her mother regarding what the matter was.

While addressing a news conference, he said when his daughter insisted, his wife revealed that someone had sent her a private video of him from an "unknown number".

“Because the daughters and granddaughters of my country are listening, I cannot say any further,” he said, beginning to tear up and pausing.

Swati said that he explained to his daughter, who kept wailing on the other side of the phone, that her mother doesn’t understand that he sleeps at 9pm and wakes up early morning for prayers.

“I have spent my entire life with her. She doesn’t know that a few days ago, on the morning of October 13, when I was picked up by these cruel people, they made a video of me. These days it isn’t difficult to…. make a fake video.”

He said that his daughter while crying, revealed to him that the video featured his wife as well.

“I asked her how is it possible,” the senator said, bursting into tears. He added that his daughter also told him that the video was from when Swati and his wife had visited Quetta.

Recalling that visit, he said Senate Chairperson Sadiq Sanjrani, who respected his wife, had made arrangements for them to stay at the Supreme Court’s judicial lodges in Quetta. “You (Sanjrani) made arrangements there to protect an elder senator and your aunt (Swati’s wife). And you told me that I will stay there as there were no Supreme Court judges in Quetta.”

Overcome with emotions, Swati lamented that his wife had to leave the country and move to a “safe place”. He also bewailed that his granddaughters were also “compelled to leave the country with traumas and scars”.

“I am asking my God is this Pakistan where the sanctity of a husband and wife [is not safe?],” he said.

Read: PTI senators write to SC on Azam Swati's arrest, 'torture'

Meanwhile, condemning the harrowing details shared by the party leader, PTI chief Imran Khan, said that, “Pakistan was created on Islamic moral values of human dignity, honour of the family and inviolability of chadar and chardawari (right to privacy and dignity).”

“What has happened to Azam Swati at the hands of the state has been a blatant violation of all these values — from being stripped naked to custodial torture and now this video where the privacy of his wife has been violated,” he wrote on Twitter.

“It is both shocking, despicable and utterly condemnable. No human being should have to suffer this. I call on the CJP (chief justice of Pakistan) to take suo moto notice of this,” the former prime minister demanded.

Also read: PTI's Azam Swati arrested for ‘controversial’ tweet against COAS

Later, Imran added: “I want to apologise on behalf of Pakistan to Mrs Swati, a very private, non public, tahajud guzaar (pious) lady for the pain, anguish and sense of humiliation she is having to suffer.”

Video ‘fake’

However, in development hours after Swati’s press conference took place, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) issued a press release saying that the “obscene” video circulating on the Internet has been “forensically analysed” and was “found to be fake”.

“The initial video/audio and frame-to-frame forensic analysis has been carried out on the viral video as per International Forensic Analysis standard,” the agency stated. “Initial forensic analysis revealed that the video has been edited and different video clips have been joined with defaced faces.

“Further analysis revealed that faces have been swapped in the images using Photoshop. The press conference by the honourable senator, in which he has showed his concerns warrant a proper investigation. Mr. Azam Khan Swati is requested to lodge a complaint with FIA and share his concerns about the reason of thinking it authentic.”

“Prima facie, it is a fake video, edited with deep fake tools to create misunderstanding and defame the senator,” it added.