Former prime minister Imran Khan maintained his demand for the document to be made public on Wednesday in reaction to the audio leak in which he and former principal secretary Azam Khan were heard discussing how to “play up” the contentious cypher.
The leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) accused Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of leaking the audio clip while speaking to reporters at Punjab House in the nation’s capital.
“I haven’t yet experimented with the cypher. However, now that they will reveal it, we may play about with it,” the former premier responded to a question.
He asserted that the cypher would reveal to the country the scope of the plot that had led to the overthrow of his government. He demanded a probe into the cypher once more.
Speaking at the same location to a seminar, Mr. Khan called the audio leak a “wonderful thing.” However, he went on to say that because the audio leak violated the Official Secrets Act, he was considering taking the matter to court.
The PTI leader expressed amazement that “[intelligence] agencies have started treating” leading journalists and the former ruling party “like adversaries.”
Shahbaz Gill, the PTI leader, was stripped naked and subjected to torture, thus it is unexpected that the agencies have supported the criminals, he continued.
‘Vindicated the stand of PTI’
Separately, PTI leader and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry told journalists that the audio between Imran Khan and Azam Khan proved the cipher’s existence and served as evidence of a “foreign conspiracy” to overthrow the PTI administration. In order to learn the truth about the incident, he also sought a comprehensive inquiry.
The previous premier’s response was “normal,” according to Mr. Chaudhry, because the cypher had threatened that if Imran Khan was not removed from power, relations with Pakistan would deteriorate.
The PTI leader claimed that despite letters the PTI sent to the chief justice and the president, no one looked into the issue. The Supreme Court should look into the cypher once the audio leak became public. The PTI was a political party, not an NGO, and all “political events were part of its narrative,” Mr. Chaudhry continued.