LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has urged the superior judiciary to save society from the “scourge of blackmailing and violation of fundamental rights of privacy and dignity of people” from those involved in tapping phones and making “deepfake” videos to blackmail opponents.

The PTI chief was addressing the nation on TV along with PTI Central Punjab president Dr Yasmin Rashid, whose phone call with the former CCPO Ghulam Mehmood Dogar was released on social media a day earlier.

“The actors involved in phone tapping and making deepfake videos need to be exposed, as they are violating Fair Trial Act as well as the Official Secrets Act,” Mr Khan asserted.

The fromer prime minister the move to release Dr Rashid’s conversation with the ex-CCPO was aimed at sabotaging the JIT probe into the attack on him in Wazirabad last year.

“The attempt to sabotage the JIT was made to ensure that no one would ever know the culprits who tried to kill me,” the PTI chairman said.

Mr Khan claimed that the former Lahore police chief contested the government’s claim in the court as he apprised the bench that three shooters were involved in the assassination bid instead of a lone shooter as claimed by the government.

The former premier said that intelligence agencies could not record the phone calls of citizens and requested the judiciary to hear his petition regarding the illegal tapping of phones since such practices violated fundamental rights of privacy and dignity.

The PTI chief said at least three senior leaders of his party informed him that they had been getting calls from unknown quarters who warned they have secret tapes of the PTI leaders. He said that Maryam Nawaz and former army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa had also claimed that they have secret recordings of different people.

“Our judiciary should take an action to control this scourge fast spreading in the society,” the former premier said, questioning whether all of this was being done to “blackmail and control opponents”.

Yasmin-Dogar leak

Referring to the importance of the Yasmin-Dogar conversation, Mr Khan said the PDM government in the Centre and caretaker government in Punjab had pressurised officers of the JIT.

Most of them resigned while former CCPO Dogar, being the convener of the JIT, took a stand and recorded his evidence in the court, he added.

After his transfer from the office of the CCPO Lahore, Imran Khan claimed that the incumbent rulers stole the record of JIT to sabotage the investigation. Mr Khan alleged the government functionaries released the Yasmin-Dogar tape to ensure that the former CCPO Lahore could not return to Lahore after his reinstatement by the Supreme Court.

He said the Election Commission of Pakistan allowed the transfers and postings of officers in Punjab, including the director general of the anti-corruption department, who were against the PTI.

“As many as 17 out of 23 police officers posted in Punjab had tortured PTI leaders and workers on May 25 last year,” he said.

He claimed that the caretaker Punjab government was not a neutral government but it was working on PDM’s agenda. “The PTI-PMLQ coalition government had dissolved the Punjab Assembly to make way for fresh general elections but the incumbent rulers are using this move to crush us,” he regretted.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Rashid said she was following the JIT’s probe into the life attempt on Imran Khan and was concerned over incumbent rulers’ attempts to “sabotage the JIT as well as the investigation record”.

She said former CCPO Lahore Dogar was posted by the PTI-PMLQ government and the JIT was formed by the elected government and the cabinet.

Asserting that the Punjab government’s JIT was still legal, Dr Rashid said she thought it was appropriate to ask Mr Dogar whether he had received reinstatement orders from the Supreme Court.By tapping her phone call, Dr Rashid said it was not an attack on her fundamental rights.

She said that the government was not even sparing women and tapping their phone calls. “I am approaching the court on Monday (today) to question why and who allowed tapping of her phone,” she asserted.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2023