Three audio clips purportedly featuring leaders of Pakistan’s government have surfaced online, with one of the clips reportedly involving a conversation among several senior leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the high-security PM House.
Raising questions about the security of high-profile meetings, the audio purportedly recorded interior minister Rana Sanullah, defence minister Khawaja Asif, law minister Azam Tarar and minister for economic affairs Ayaz Sadiq talking about the fate of finance minister Miftah Ismail and the resignations of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf lawmakers from the National Assembly.
Another audio clip is purportedly about a conversation between PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif about finance minister Ismail.
The two clips followed another a day earlier involving PM Shehbaz and the unidentified official who is talking about Maryam’s wish that her son-in-law should be allowed to import some machinery from India.
The audio clips were placed for sale online by a hacker who uses the id ‘indishell’. The id is the namesake of a group of Indian hackers who have been targeting Pakistani websites since 2007. The first and third audio clips are around two minutes long each, while the second one is 12 minutes and 40 seconds long and is divided into six parts for easy sharing on social media.
Former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has lambasted the government over the audio leaks, but the hacker has claimed to have clips against Khan and Pakistan’s army chief too.
The audio samples were shared on Twitter by a user who goes by @ze_lucy on September 3, but these went unnoticed. The minimum bid for the 8GB audio was 180 bitcoins or $20,000 on September 3.
In the longest clip, Maryam Nawaz, who wields a lot of influence in the government and is critical of finance minister Ismail, is purportedly heard saying: “He (Ismail) doesn’t take responsibility… says strange things on TV which people make fun of him for… he doesn’t know what he is doing.”
Maryam reportedly wishes for the return of PML-N stalwart Ishaq Dar, who has been tipped to come back next week to take charge of the finance ministry.
Fawad Chaudhry, former information minister of Imran Khan’s PTI, has alleged that the ruling party is more interested in safeguarding family affairs. Talking about the leaking of conversation from the PM Office, he said that the data was offered up for sale on the dark web, showing the state of the country’s cybersecurity.
“This is a failure of our intelligence agencies, especially the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Obviously, apart from political issues, important discussions on security and foreign issues are now in everyone’s hands,” he said.
Shireen Mazari, former human rights Minister in the PTI government, said one of the alleged audios showed the laying down of groundwork for Dar’s return.
“The leaked audios certainly reveal the influence of convict Nawaz Sharif and his convict-on-bail daughter in the running of this imported government itself a cabal of crooks,” she said.
She went on to say that the “real issue” was who bugged the PMO or the Prime Minister House in the first place.
“The hacking happened because devices were placed in these locations. So who is responsible and where did orders or decisions come from? That is a question that must also be focused on,” she said.
With PTI inputs
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