Audio leaks controversy: Govt says matter stands resolved as individuals found involved

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has claimed that no hostile agency is involved in the bugging of the Prime Minister’s House, rather it was purely a work of some individual(s) and an action has already been initiated against the responsible.

Hw was commenting on a slew of leaked audio recordings of key government figures. In recent weeks, audio leaks of high profile individuals including the current and the former prime ministers, senior officials of the state, politicians and the PM House staffers has shaken the Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition government raising question mark on the security and privacy of the country’s state buildings.

The government, after the audio leaks were shared on social media by unidentified hackers, had announced to hold a comprehensive inquiry into the scam and the interior minister has ruled out involvement of any ‘hostile agency’ in bugging of the Prime Minister’s official residence.

Rana Sanaullah’s comments came after criticism by former Prime Minister Imran Khan who had accused the government of compromising security of the PM House.

The minister while talking to a TV anchor in a Talk Show said the probe would continue and he was in favour of making public the probe findings.

However, the final decision in this regard lies with the prime minister, the federal cabinet, and the National Security Committee (NSC), he said.

Earlier, the government constituted three separate investigation and oversight bodies to probe the audio leaks comprising officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the officials of the interior ministry. The minister for interior is supervising the investigations.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has announced to file a writ petition in the courts to verify the authenticity of the leaks. For this purpose Imran Khan’s party would demand formation of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to not only verify the audio leaks but also bring to light those responsible for bugging the Prime Minister Office (PMO).

In the recently leaked audio leaks, leadership of both the PTI and the PML-N can be heard chatting with colleagues and discussing different things.

In one such conversation, PTI Chairman and his former ministers as well as the Principal Secretary are talking about the “American cypher” and Imran Khan is reportedly discussing how he can “play” on it.

Imran Khan in a tweet has blasted the government for the serious lapse: “The audio leaks are a serious breach of national security as they call into question the entire security of the PMO, PMH. As the prime minister, my secure line at my residence was also bugged. We intend to go to court to establish the authenticity of leaks and then form JIT to investigate which intelligence agency is responsible for the bugging and who is leaking out the audios, many of which are edited/doctored,” Imran said.