The political atmosphere of the country is getting warmer with every passing day as leaks continue to surface. On Friday, two new audios were leaked from unidentified sources on social media, allegedly featuring former prime minister Imran Khan’s private conversations regarding his government’s “numbers” in parliament.
In the first recording, a person said to be Imran Khan can be heard expressing his concern to an unidentified person or persons over not having enough votes to win the “numbers game” and saying he is making moves he “cannot disclose in public”.
The second recording, which surfaced late in the evening, allegedly featured PTI stalwarts Shireen Mazari and Asad Umar discussing with the former prime minister how the party would play with the cipher. They plan to brand those who might vote against the PTI chief as ‘Mir Jafars’ and ‘Mir Sadiqs’.
In reaction, the PTI leaders said the audios of Imran Khan from different occasions were cut and paste and patched in the latest leaks to defame him,
Imran Khan, while addressing a public gathering in Mianwali, accused PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz of creating ‘deepfake’ audios, calling it “her party’s speciality”. He also claimed that some ‘deepfake’ videos might surface soon, and warned that his party could create such audio and videos too if it wanted. Whatever the case may be, it is worth noting that though they may have given people something to talk about, nothing in any of the audios leaked so far will cause anyone — either from the PML-N or PTI — any permanent damage.
Soon after yesterday’s drama began, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah made the announcement that an investigation into the PM Office’s security had found that no foreign or local intelligence agency was involved in the leaks. Instead, he claimed, the recordings might have been the work of individuals or hackers snooping in on phone conversations.
The interior minister should realise that sounds more like a shoddy cover-up than a plausible explanation for how two sitting Pakistani prime ministers ended up being illegally surveilled and having their private dealings leaked to the public.
The series of leak audios is definitely creating problems for PTI leadership but the investigation should be carried out into the alleged leaked sound bites to expose the hidden hands behind the matter.
