Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has accused his predecessor Imran Khan of “creating unrest in the nation, and chaos in the state institutions” after he was toppled from power earlier this year. On Khan’s “US conspiracy” charge, which he been vehemently repeating, Sharif said that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chief has put national security at stake by “altering a diplomatic cipher.”
“A thief who has been caught red-handed is maligning state institutions just to escape punishment. After creating unrest in the nation, the conspirator (Imran Khan) is trying to create chaos in the state institutions,” he was quoted as saying in a report published by local daily The Dawn’s news website.
Imran Khan has repeatedly alleged that the trust vote which ousted him as the prime minister was a “foreign conspiracy” against him by the US. He also claimed to have a diplomatic cable to prove it, despite public denials by the US.
The issue blew up last week when unverified audio clips of private conversations between Khan (when he was still the PM and facing trust vote) and his close aides surfaced on the internet. The audio clips allegedly capture Khan discussing how to fabricate a conspiracy about a foreign threat, with him heard saying they would “play with the cable”. HT could not independently verify the authenticity of the audio clip.
The Pakistan government has now ordered a probe into the leaked audio clips. “Being a popular leader does not mean being exempt from the law; the law is equal for all,” Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif added as Imran Khan, now the leader of the opposition, will frame criminal charges for purportedly using the cipher for his political advantage, the Dawn reported.
The former cricketer has been facing legal challenges since his removal from power including a police complaint for threatening a female judge and senior police officials, as per Bloomberg report. Separately, a court has told him to apologise for threatening the judge. Khan has launched a campaign demanding early elections.
(With inputs from news agencies)
