Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that the audio leak of PTI chief Imran Khan had “shattered the narrative” that the latter was ousted from power through a foreign conspiracy. “Everything became clear after Wednesday’s audio leak,” he said, adding that Imran’s “detestable face” had been revealed to the entire nation. Addressing a ceremony after laying the foundation stone of the Bhara Kahu bypass in Islamabad, the premier went on the accuse the PTI chief of deceiving the nation by making false claims. “Till when will [your] lies survive  I don’t think there can be a more heinous crime,” he commented. The premier’s remarks follow a series of audio leaks linked to the Prime Minister’s Office, the latest of which featured a conversation between Imran and Azam Khan, his principal secretary while he was the country’s chief executive, about a cypher that he has long touted as evidence of an alleged foreign conspiracy to remove him from the top office through a no-confidence vote.

In the clip, the former prime minister can be heard telling Azam to “play up” the cypher and turn it into a foreign plot to oust his government. He, however, adds that there is no need to name any country. “We only have to play it up. We don’t have to name America. We only have to play with this, that this date [of the no-trust vote] was [decided] before.” To this end, Azam his heard suggesting to Imran to call a “meeting of then- foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and foreign secretary wherein we will ask Shah Mahmood Qureshi to read out the letter. So whatever he will tell us, I will type it down and convert it into [meeting] minutes” so that it becomes part of the office record. Referring to the conversation in his speech today, Shehbaz accused Imran of asking his then-principal secretary to “hatch a conspiracy against Pakistan”. The premier went on to say that he had not seen a “more irresponsible person and a bigger liar” than Imran during the “40 years that I spent under the leadership of my elder brother”.

“And this is something that needs to be lamented and calls for introspection,” he said, adding that after accomplishments such as leading a team to win the cricket world cup and making the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, nobody would have thought of Imran as an “embodiment of lies” that he turned out to be after entering politics. “He has lied day and night, damaging Pakistan,” the premier regretted. PM Shehbaz went on to say the entire nation was “ashamed” because of Imran lying about a foreign conspiracy narrative to oust his government. Doing so, he continued, Imran had “put the honour of the entire nation at stake and brought shame to Pakistan”. “He continued to claim for five to six months that a conspiracy was hatched against his government,” he said, railing against Imran for “calling the entire [former] opposition traitors” and accusing it of colluding with another government.

But after Imran’s audio leak, PM Shehbaz said, no need was left for anyone to say out loud that Imran’s allegations were, in fact, “the worst conspiracy against Pakistan”. This conspiracy, he continued, had divided the nation. “And Imran even conspired to divide the country’s institutions,” PM Shehbazalleged. “There are no two ways about it. But the worst conspiracy against Pakistan was him defaming the country’s politicians by labelling them as traitors.” He recalled that he had said on the floor of the National Assembly that if Imran’s allegations against the then-opposition were proved, “none of us had the right to be there. That we should be hanged”. But everything became clear after Imran’s audio leak, reiterated, regretting the nation’s “five months were wasted” while the PTI peddled the foreign conspiracy narrative and a “poisonous propaganda”.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP