By: Asem Mustafa Awan
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has offered reconciliation to Chairman PTI Imran Khan with “let’s forget our differences” message.
Speaking at an event in Islamabad, the Prime Minister said the PTI government was toppled democratically. There was no foreign conspiracy involved in it. Undoubtedly, the political and administrative conflict has put a halt on the development of every sector for the past seven years.
Political parties’ policies and energies somehow overlooked the public and there was nothing much done to mitigate their sufferings.
It is a reality that the both government and the opposition have been engaged in mudslinging followed by appearances in courts and investigative agencies.
The political turmoil has created a chaotic environment nationwide besides charging the masses.
It is interesting to note while the reconciliation offer is made by Prime Minister Shehbaz to former Prime Minister Imran Khan but at the same time in the federal cabinet meeting, there was a consultation to blame the theft of the American cipher on the former prime minister and his associates.
And that is not all, investigation committee was also established while the time and circumstantial evidence suggests the opposite.
It is on record the last two days of his tenure as Prime Minister Imran Khan ensured that one copy of the cipher was sent to the Speaker of the National Assembly and the other to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser, before resigning, said on the floor of the assembly that there is a special file of ciphers, and the member elected as the next speaker has the power to take further action on it or not. All the talk about the cipher now is to create a doubt while it is on record that all content of the cipher was discussed in the national security committee meeting.
The text of this cipher was shared with all the participants and it was agreed that the text was inappropriate and threatening.
All the talk now has the biggest hurdle in the form of the security committee’s opinion that is part of the record and minutes exist.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif again called the meeting of the National Security Committee and discussed the cipher text and conspiracy issues.
The cipher in Prime Minister file has reportedly gone missing as stated by government officials/ ministers and that the document if vanishes has responsibility lying with the current government and needless to say it is a ‘security breach’.
An unknown hacker has also surfaced not long ago and is releasing classified information from the Prime Minister House in the past few days which points fingers at many political big wigs. These audio recordings have escalated the tension between the government and the opposition and the blame game has intensified. The undeniable fact is that PM House is compromised and the budget spent on the security agencies is a total waste.
Pakistan is facing many problems. Institutions are losing credibility and economy in nosedive. Devastating floods have affected one third of the country and millions are without food and water and with winter approaching and no planning in sight, human lives will be lost.
The writer is a Special Correspondent at The Dayspring
