LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Rana Sanaullah has asserted that former accountability judge Arshad Malik’s leaked footage was a “million-dollar video”, after an objectionable video that allegedly featured former governor Sindh Mohammad Zubair leaked online.
In July 2019, PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz released a video and audio clip in which she had alleged that Malik was confessing that he convicted Nawaz Sharif of corruption charges under “duress”.
The inquiry report that probed former accountability judge had found last year in July that he was unable to establish that he acted under “duress or intimidation” during the investigation of the video scandal implicating the judge.
Addressing a press conference today (Monday), the PML-N leader said that Arshad Malik’s leaked video may have led to his death. “People get disturbed after their video is leaked. They have families, and Arshad Malik became depressed due to it,” Rana Sanaullah added.
“Arshad Malik had admitted to his friends and Nawaz Sharif too that he had made a mistake,” he said, adding that the 20-year-old video was used to blackmail Arshad Malik and he was forced to give a verdict against Nawaz Sharif.
Talking about the former governor’s purported video clip, he said, “A lot of effort has been put into making Zubair’s video. The video, it seems, is not of a single event.”
Lamenting the act, he said, “I don’t know whether the video is original or fake, but the people who have released the video should come forth and shed more light about it.” Sanaullah said he wasn’t sure why the video was leaked and what “they” were trying to achieve.
‘Fake and doctored’
The former Sindh governor, reacting to the video, said that it is “an extremely poor and shameful act” and called the explicit clip showing him “fake and doctored”.
The video was being shared on different social media platforms and WhatsApp groups and the man in it was said to be the former Sindh governor.
“This is no politics. In fact a new low !! By launching a fake & doctored video against me. Whoever is behind this has done an extremely poor & shameful act,” he wrote on Twitter.
He said that he served the country with honesty, integrity and commitment. “Will continue to raise my voice for the betterment of Pakistan,” he added.
