ISLAMABAD, Jul 20 (APP): Minister of State for Petroleum Dr. Musadik Malik on Thursday said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman was guilty of ‘making public an official secret document’ as he exploited the ‘cipher’ for political point scoring.
Addressing a press conference, he said the former prime minister would have no escape, even if his principal secretary Azam Khan retracted from his confessional statement on that count.
The PTI chairman, he added in a sheer violation of the Official Secrets Act, waved the cipher in a public meeting in the Federal Capital and continued the practice across the country.
He persistently alleged that the United States had conspired against his government and later claimed that the cipher had been misplaced, Musadik said.
Whether misplacing an official secret document was a trivial matter, he questioned.
In accordance with the law, he said, the punishment for making a secret document public was 17 years imprisonment and for misplacing three years.
He said the PTI chief had been claiming that his government was removed due to a US conspiracy, and at the same time was seeking help from Washington.
He said the PTI chief had hired a lobbyist in the US who always conspired against the nuclear weapons of Pakistan.
“If the US conspires against you, then why have you hired an anti-Pakistan lobbyist there?” the minister questioned.
He said receiving ciphers from different countries with objectionable words and calling their ambassadors to protest the same, was a routine matter, but the former prime minister used the US cipher for his political gains.
He said it was just a ‘drama’ staged by the PTI chairman as his principal secretary Azam Khan admitted in front of a magistrate that the former prime minister had directed him to exploit the cipher solely for political point scoring.
The minister said he had now been proven ‘guilty’, and he could not escape from the clutches of law as even Azam Khan retracted his statement.
