ISLAMABAD: PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz has said PTI chief Imran Khan, his “coach” and couple of TV channels are responsible for the recently surfaced audio leaks of key figures in the coalition government.
Speaking to reporters outside the Islamabad High Court (IHC) after being acquitted in the Avenfield reference, Maryam accepted that four of the clips featured her.
Maryam said a nexus comprising “Imran, his coach and a couple of TV channels” were behind the audio leaks.
When asked if she thought ‘Establishment’ was behind her conviction in the Avenfield case, Maryam’s immediate response was “Who was the beneficiary?”
She claimed that the PTI chairman and his “coaches” will soon be “finished” and that Imran “understood he would not be able to come to power if Nawaz stayed in the battleground.”
In response to another query, “I know who is doing this all […] Imran and his coach are involved,” she said without elaborating further.
She also demanded that a “high-powered” joint investigation team (JIT) to probe the alleged audio leak of Imran Khan and his then-principal secretary Azam Khan.
“I believe the facts that have emerged should lead to his [Imran’s] arrest and he must be jailed straightaway,” she said.
Last week, the leaked audiotapes allegedly feature Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and PM’s other close aides including some members of his cabinet surfaced, wherein, they can be allegedly heard making plans to politically dent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
In one audio, Maryam Nawaz allegedly pressed for the termination of the health insurance program started by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration, which providing free medical care to millions of Pakistanis.
She allegedly advised Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, to stop providing health cards by publicly stating that there was a funding shortfall.
In an earlier allegedly leaked audio chat, PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz is heard encouraging PM Shehbaz to raise fuel costs.
In an allegedly leaked audio recording, Maryam Nawaz, who had previously spoken out against fuel price hikes, is heard urging PM Shehbaz Sharif to do the same.
The PML-N leader is heard saying in the allegedly leaked audio that raising petrol prices is inevitable.
Separately, an alleged telephonic conversation of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif with PM House official had leaked on social media in which the latter could be heard talking with the prime minister regarding Maryam Nawaz’s alleged influence in government affairs.
Earlier, in another a leaked recording that supposedly featured Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif went viral on social media, containing discussion regarding PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz’s request for an Indian power plant to be imported for her son-in-law.
A voice, purported to be that of Prime Minister Sharif, can be heard in the longer than two-minute audio tape that PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry posted on Twitter on Saturday asking him to help Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s son-in-law Raheel with the import of machinery for a power plant from India.
