Daily Times

Tis the season to be recorded only to be leaked later! In what can only be termed a bonanza of audio leaks all tracing back to the PM house, none other than the sitting prime minister of a sovereign country has managed to stir hornets’ nest left, right and centre. On Saturday, he was heard commanding a government official to help streamline the import process for a power plant and, in turn, do the bidding for the son-in-law of his niece and PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz Sharif. Hours later, two more clips have surfaced on social media in straight-up manna from heaven for the rival PTI leaders. One features a scathing criticism of embattled finance minister Miftah Ismail while the second clip is said to touch upon a conversation between key party leadership over the future of resignations of opposition parliamentarians.

Now, the PTI’s warriors, especially on Twitter are having a field day with these revelations as they continue to poke holes in the administration as well as the agenda of the ruling coalition. But as very appropriately pointed out by former information minister Fawad Chaudhry, the lax security of data from the supposed most well-guarded premises, PM House, is nothing short of a national tragedy. An overwhelming eight gigabytes of confidential data has found its way onto the dark web and, regardless of who was caught speaking, many crucial state secrets are bound to be compromised. The hacking has put the performance of intelligence agencies like Intelligence Bureau in a prickly predicament. No qualms about that. But hasn’t anyone still found the latest in a long, long string of “exposes,” in a vicious bid to incur political damages revolting?

That civil liberty and fundamental rights of chadar and char deewari continue to be trampled by this exercise of phone-tapping in a clear violation of a verdict by the Supreme Court as far back as 1997 speaks volumes about our skewed priorities. What potentially priceless information do the likes of ISI have an eye on when they carry surveillance of as many as seven thousand phone calls in one month alone (as admitted before the apex court in 2015)?

It has become a discomforting custom for political victims to try every trick in the book whenever their names pop up in these incriminating clips other than knocking their heads together for an in-house solution to such high-handedness. In the case of an illicit recording of former first woman Bushra Bibi, the PML(N) refrained from taking the high road and let the political point-scoring get the better of an ethical stance. Today, the ball has landed in the PTI’s court! *