Imran urges SC to take notice of leaked audio

PTI chief terms latest leak a bid to jeopardise findings of Wazirabad attack JIT

LAHORE:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Sunday demanded of the Supreme Court to take notice of the audio leak of his party member Dr Yasmin Rashid’s conversation with the Lahore CCPO.

“When someone has to be blackmailed, their phone is tapped and then the audio recording is released,” Imran said at a news conference, accompanied by Dr Yasmin, broadcast via video link from his Zaman Park residence.

He added that three of his party leaders were already being blackmailed using “deep-fake videos”. The PTI chief maintained that phone tapping was used for political purposes and not for the interests of the country.

Imran stressed that as per the law, nobody’s phone could be tapped. He alleged that Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah was behind the phone tapping. “Did the interior minister take permission from the court before tapping the phone?” he asked.

He claimed that the people and the judiciary were being blackmailed by phone tapping. The PTI chief said that his conversation with his principal secretary – at the time when he was the prime minister – was leaked.

He added that later the fundamental rights of his wife, Bushra Bibi, were violated when her conversation through a landline number was made public. The former premier demanded that the SC judges should take notice of Dr Yasmin’s audio leak if the blackmailers had to be stopped.

The PTI chairman said Dogar was part of the joint investigation team (JIT) formed to probe into the attack on him in Wazirabad on November 3 last year while leading his ‘Haqeeqi Azadi’ march towards Islamabad.

He added that Dogar had told him that there were three attackers. Imran claimed that the audio leak was an attempt to jeopardise the findings of the JIT.

The PTI chief continued that the caretaker government of Punjab had transferred Dogar as soon as it came into power and appointed an anti-PTI official, Bilal Siddique Kamyana, as the new Lahore police chief.

Earlier, Dr Yasmin announced that she was moving the court over the audio leak. She added that the court would determine which agency or department had leaked the audio recording.

In the audio clip that surfaced on the social media a day earlier, the PTI leader and the Lahore CCPO could purportedly be heard talking about the apex court’s judgment a day earlier reinstating Dogar as the city’s police chief after suspending his transfer orders issued by the Punjab caretaker government.

In the audio clip, Dr Yasmin purportedly asks Dogar: “Is there any good news on the [Supreme Court’s] order?”To which the voice purportedly of Dogar responded that the verdict had not been received yet.

“The order is to be passed by the Supreme Court. We will receive the order as soon as it is issued by the court, our men are present there,” the man said in the phone recording.

The voice, purportedly of Dr Yasmin, then adds that she was only enquiring about the court’s order to find out what “their intention” was, and that PTI Chairman Imran Khan was “concerned” about it.

“Khan Sahab [Imran] was quite concerned about this [order]. I told him that, as per my information, the order has not been received yet,” the female voice adds. The male voice assures her that he has “his man” at the apex court.

Apparently referring to the reports of plans of arresting Imran, the female voice asks the man purported to be the Lahore police chief: “Will our night pass quietly today?” The male voice responds in the leaked conversation: “Allah will hopefully make things better.”