Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that the audio leak of PTI chief Imran Khan had \u201cshattered the narrative\u201d that the latter was ousted from power through a foreign conspiracy.
\n\u201cEverything became clear after Wednesday\u2019s audio leak,\u201d he said, adding that Imran\u2019s \u201cdetestable face\u201d had been revealed to the entire nation.
\nAddressing 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.
\n\u201cTill when will [your] lies survive \u2026 I don\u2019t think there can be a more heinous crime,\u201d he commented.
\nThe premier\u2019s remarks follow a series of audio leaks linked to the Prime Minister\u2019s Office, the latest of which featured a conversation between Imran and Azam Khan, his principal secretary while he was the country\u2019s 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.
\nIn the clip, the former prime minister can be heard telling Azam to \u201cplay up\u201d 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. \u201cWe only have to play it up. We don\u2019t have to name America. We only have to play with this, that this date [of the no-trust vote] was [decided] before.\u201d
\nTo this end, Azam his heard suggesting to Imran to call a \u201cmeeting 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\u201d so that it becomes part of the office record.
\nReferring to audio recording in his speech today, PM Shehbaz accused Imran of asking his then-principal secretary to \u201chatch a conspiracy against Pakistan\u201d.
\nThe premier went on to say that he had not seen a \u201cmore irresponsible person and a bigger liar\u201d than Imran during his time in politics.
\n\u201cAnd this is something that needs to be lamented and calls for introspection,\u201d he said.
\nAfter leading the cricket team to win the World Cup and making the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, nobody would have thought of Imran as an \u201cembodiment of lies\u201d that he turned out to be after entering politics, he added.
\n\u201cHe has lied day and night, damaging Pakistan.\u201d
\nPM Shehbaz went on to say the entire nation was \u201cashamed\u201d because of Imran lies about a foreign conspiracy to oust his government.
\nBy doing so, he continued, Imran has \u201cput the honour of the entire nation at stake and brought shame to Pakistan\u201d.
\n\u201cFor five to six months, he continued to claim that a conspiracy was hatched against his government,\u201d he said, lambasting Imran for labelling the former opposition as \u201ctraitors\u201d.
\n\u201cAnd Imran even conspired to divide the country\u2019s institutions,\u201d PM Shehbaz alleged. \u201cThere are no two ways about it. But the worst conspiracy against Pakistan was him defaming the country\u2019s politicians by labelling them as traitors.\u201d
\nEverything became clear after Imran\u2019s audio leak, he reiterated, regretting that the nation\u2019s \u201cfive months were wasted\u201d as the PTI peddled its foreign conspiracy narrative and \u201cpoisonous propaganda\u201d.
\nThe premier went on to allege that Imran had angered friendly countries.
\n\u201cI have taken an oath under the Constitution so I cannot reveal this secret \u2026 but some friendly countries personally told me how arrogant he (Imran) had been and that damaged our ties,\u201d PM Shehbaz said. \u201cMoreover, Imran also angered other nations, but it will not be right to go into the details.\u201d
\nThe premier said it was pointed out to him during his trip to the US and at other instances that \u201cwe have taken a huge burden on ourselves, otherwise his (Imran\u2019s) popularity was declining.
\n\u201cI told them I did it to save the state of Pakistan.\u201d
\nWithout naming anyone, he further claimed that Imran \u201chad gone to a country and begged them for money\u201d.
\n\u201cBut they told him to put his house in order first. He begged them to announce the release of funds so that he gains respect in his home country before being removed from office.\u201d
\nThe prime minister said even after these events unfolded, he was ready to \u201cinvite everyone to come and build Pakistan together\u201d.
\n\u201cLook beyond yourself and set aside [your] differences,\u201d he urged Imran but went on to say that the PTI chief did not want Pakistan to progress.
\n\u201cYou are conspiratorial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that the audio leak of PTI chief Imran Khan had \u201cshattered the narrative\u201d that the latter was ousted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1182,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}