ISLAMABAD: A meeting of senior leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif over the issue of “newsgate” produced well-expected results, as federal minister for information and broadcasting Senator Pervaiz Rasheed on Saturday stepped down from his post.
This followed formation of a high-level committee to investigate the entire episode.
According to a statement issued from the Prime Minister’s Office, the ‘planted’ story related to the National Security Committee (NSC) and the National Action Plan (NAP) meetings published in an English daily on October 6 was a breach of national security.
Evidence available so far points to a lapse on part of the information minister, who has been directed to step down from office to enable holding of an independent and detailed enquiry.
An enquiry committee – with senior officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Military Intelligence (MI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) as its members – is being formed by the government to clearly apportion blame, identify interests and motives and expose all those responsible for this episode for stern action in the national interest, according to the statement.
Sources said that action was expected against more officers and public office holders, because the investigation team would have all powers to summon anyone to unearth the facts. Sources disclosed that Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry and some other officers might be interrogated as well.
They said that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan would address an important press conference today (Sunday) and explain the whole situation in this regard.
Meanwhile, sources said that principal information office Rao Tahsin had also been removed for his post. It was further decided to put the names of Pervaiz Rasheed, Rao Tehsin and Prime Minister’s Special Adviser Mohiuddin Wani on the Exit Control List (ECL).
Sources further disclosed that the government had also decided to launch a probe against Cyril Almeida after call him back from abroad. However, the other possible character of this negative episode, Federal Minister for Defence Khawaja Muhammad Asif, has reached Dubai along with his family. Khawaja Asif had said in a tweet that he was visiting Dubai to attend a marriage ceremony, and return to Pakistan today (Sunday).
It may be mentioned here that the Prime Minister’s Office had rejected the contents of the story. Earlier this month, participants of a corps commanders meeting expressed serious concern over what they said was “feeding of false and fabricated story” of an important security meeting held at the Prime Minister’s House and viewed it as breach of national security.