A purportedly leaked audio of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram has gone viral, in which he is heard criticising the handling of a sit-in by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, on Saturday. CM Afridi staged an hours-long sit-in demonstration near Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail following authorities’ refusal yet again to grant him access to imprisoned PTI founder Imran Khan.
Concerned over the reports regarding the PTI founder’s health, Afridi arrived in Rawalpindi to meet ailing Imran at Adiala jail yesterday. However, he was denied a chance to meet him. It may be noted that Information Minister Attaullah Tarar had confirmed on Friday that PTI founder was briefly taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) for a medical procedure.
Later, in the leaked message, Akram could be heard saying that if the KP CM had to hold a sit-in, then he would have brought his 90 members of the provincial assembly with him, as the members of the assembly of the chief minister’s province were close.
He purportedly said they (lawmakers) could have reached, when the meeting was held at KP House at night, where senior leaders Asad Qaiser, Junaid Akbar were also present. He further stated that the KP CM should have informed at night that they would hold a sit-in, “what a joke this is, you should have informed at night”.
Apparently, Akram has blamed CM Afridi for the non-participation of the members of parliament in Thursday’s sit-in. In the audio message, it was said that the chief minister, while going to Adiala, said that he had called not the workers but the members of the National and provincial assembly.
The leaked audio message is available on social media.
Akram said in the alleged audio message that the members of the assembly came from Punjab on Tuesday and then went back to their respective constituencies. He noted CM Afridi held a meeting at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House the night before, he should have told them in the meeting that there was a sit-in planned at Adiala.
According to the purported message, he can be heard saying that “no member of the assembly has an airplane to reach immediately, the members, who were close, reached; today there was a rush outside the Supreme Court, more members had reached there”.
He said it is not the fault of the members of the national and provincial assemblies, it is the fault of those who made the plan, a person is on a 10-hour journey, “you tell him to reach immediately at night, no one has an airplane”.
Later, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan spoke up to clarify the audio leak and told the media, after the political committee meeting held in the presence of opposition leaders, that the audio leak of Akram had been misinterpreted and “he did not say anything like that”.
The PTI chairman said that there was a meeting of “our political committee; Allama Raja Nasir Abbas and Mahmood Achakzai also attended the meeting”.