Latest audio leak aimed at sabotaging JIT probing Wazirabad attack: Imran Khan – Pakistan

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan said Sunday that an audio clip of a conversation between Dr. Yasmin Rashid and former Lahore Police Chief Ghulam Mahmood Dogar aimed to sabotage the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) investigating the attempt on his life.

In the leaked audio, the PTI leader speaks to the police officer and asks if he received the deployment orders after being reinstated as the Lahore Capital Police Officer (CCPO) by a Supreme Court bench on Friday. According to the audio clip, the police officer replied that no orders had reached him.

The former Punjab health minister said without naming anyone that she made the call to find out what “her intentions” were. Apparently referring to Imran, she conveyed that he was “concerned” about the problems surrounding the reinstatement of the former Lahore police chief.

Dogar replied that the files would be signed after court time and his people sat there to take the orders. She said she told Imran that Dogar still received the orders.

During the conversation, Rashid asked the police officer if “their night was going to be peaceful”. When Dogar hesitated for a moment, the PTI director was quick to quip that she asked a “difficult question right at the start.”

The policeman replied that hopefully everything would be fine.

It is important to note that this audio clip was the latest addition to the series of audio leaks surrounding Dogar, as just a few days ago former Prime Minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi’s conversation with his lawyer about Dogar’s case was leaked on social media.

In a televised address on Sunday, the PTI chairman linked the audio clips to an attempt to sabotage the investigation into the attack on his life in Wazirabad last year.

He, along with Rashid, said all JIT officials were removed and some “blackmailed into resigning,” but Dogar stood his ground, telling the court three attackers were involved in the incident.

It should be noted that several PTI leaders, including Imran, have reiterated that the attack was part of a “well-coordinated” plan carried out by at least three gunmen to eliminate the former prime minister.

A JIT formed by the Punjab government had reportedly agreed with Imran’s claims that the attack was carried out from three different shooting ranges. The twice reshuffled team was led by Dogar. However, in early January, the government assembled a new team to investigate the attack.

“They sent their own officers. The 17 of 23 officials who were transferred from the Electoral Commission of Pakistan (ECP) were those involved in the May 25 incident,” Imran said during the televised address, referring to the violence against PTI workers during the ” Azadi March” of the party last year.

Imran said only three state agencies had the means to tap phones and claimed the government blackmailed opponents to enforce its political motives. “Deepfake videos are being made,” he lamented. “Phones are bugged.”

The PTI chief said the law states that no government agency can tap a phone until it has informed the Home Secretary, who must then seek the court’s permission.

“In 1996 the Benazir government was deposed and the court said one reason was wiretapping,” he said. “My three senior party leaders have told me they are being blackmailed based on videos.”

Imran said his phones were tapped when he was prime minister. “Tapping into the Prime Minister’s line violates the Official Secrets Act and is dangerous to the country.”

The former prime minister called on the judiciary to take action and described the practice as a “disease”. “Whenever they want to blackmail, they release a tape […] They try to control people by blackmailing them.”

He appealed to the courts to save society from the threat of phone tapping and to bring those responsible to justice. “We have hopes from the courts in this regard,” he said. “Dr. Yasmin will also contact the competent court in this regard.”

Rashid, meanwhile, said the audio was leaked because she regularly followed the JIT investigating the Imran assassination attempt.

“Dogar had clearly stated that it was an orchestrated attempt by three people,” she said. “He had submitted the evidence to the court.”

She said some JIT officers were blackmailed but Dogar “stayed by his guns”.

Speaking about the evidence collected by the JIT, she said that the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment DG Sohail Zafar Chatha was charged with “stealing the evidence records and imprisoning them”.

She claimed Chatha is the right-hand man of Home Secretary Rana Sanaullah, adding that the PTI approached the court to see the evidence gathered.

“The judge said he would send his prosecutors, but when they went and checked it all the evidence was gone and there were only 11 pages left,” she added.

She asked how her phone could be bugged. “Did Sanaullah go to court and apply for permission to knock? [my phone]?” she said, calling it an attack on her fundamental rights.