ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan has moved to the Supreme Court seeking to form an joint investigation team or a judicial commission to probe the audio leaks emanating from the Prime Minister’s House.
Imran Khan has sought to “declare that the impugned actions, in particular, the illegal surveillance of the PMO (Prime Minister’s Office) and PMH (Prime Minister’s House) and the release of the surveillance data, especially through the audio leaks, unconstitutional and in violation of law.”
The PTI chief has appealed to the Supreme Court to supervise the probe into the audio leaks so that it could “complete its task in a satisfactory manner and the illegal surveillance is put to a permanent end”.
Imran has also sought that “the probe identifies, retrieves, secures and, then if necessary, destroys the audio files”, urging the apex court to take the officials behind the audio leaks to the task.
The former minister has also asked the Supreme Court to issue directives to the government and all agencies and authorities concerned to take all necessary measures to “prevent the release, publication, dissemination, sharing, broadcast and spread of any of the surveillance data, including the further use of the audio leaks.”
Interior, defence, IT and information ministries, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) have been made respondents in the petition by Imran Khan.
A series of audio leaks — containing purported conversations of Imran Khan, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other top officials on different occasions — have called into question the entire security of the Prime Minister’s Office and PM House.
Earlier, Imran Khan said in a tweet that “the secure line at his residence was also bugged when he was the prime minister”.
“We intend to go to court to establish authenticity of leaks and then form a JIT to investigate which intel agency is responsible for the bugging and who is leaking out the audios many of which are edited/doctored,” Imran Khan had said in the tweet.
The PTI leader said that it is a critical matter as “sensitive security issues are and have been illegally recorded and subsequently hacked”, which implies that the confidentiality of the country’s national security has been “exposed” globally.
The PTI chief’s allegation of intelligence agencies being behind the bugging comes after Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah categorically denied the involvement of any agency in bugging and leaking the audios.
Earlier, the federal government set up a committee to probe the security breach at the PM House and suggest steps to ensure its security in the future.
