TAXILA Feb 10 (TNS): Former Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan warned that he will make public the Dawn leaks report if the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz doesn’t call a Central Executive Committee meeting on the issue.
Addressing a press conference, the senior PML-N leader said that he has not advised the party leaders not to give their reaction on the court’s decision but have always condemned personal attacks on judges.
Responding to a question the former interior minister said during an interview he was asked if he could work under Shehbaz Sharif and he said that he could, when he was asked if he could work under Maryam Nawaz Sharif he said no he could not, and for that reason he side-lined himself.
He added that he wasn’t a political orphan that he would give in to addressing a junior as ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’.
Even after taking a strong position of not working under juniors, Nisar made it very clear, that there was no chance of him becoming party to any forward block.
After multiple questions on the relationship and position of Maryam Nawaz Sharif, in a jovial manner Chaudhry Nisar said he will have a bill posted behind him with instructions that no questions regarding Maryam Nawaz may be asked.
Chaudhry Nisar also touched upon the issue of the disarray within the Mutahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) stating that he was concerned. He hoped that the Urdu-speaking community would have clear options in the upcoming polls.
Reiterating his position on former minister for information Pervaiz Rashid, Nisar said Rashid joined the party during the 1990’s. He added that a politician is one who has contested an election; one who hasn’t contested an election can be called a flatterer not a politician.
The story published in Dawn Newspaper in 2016 stirred a major controversy as it alleged that a confrontation had taken place between the civilian government and military during a National Security Committee meeting held in October that year. The government termed the story fabricated while the Army’s top brass expressed serious concern over the “feeding of a false and fabricated story of an important security meeting.”
Following a preliminary investigation, Pervaiz Rasheed was removed as the information minister. An inquiry committee was formed to probe the news report and it was decided that on its recommendations the portfolio of Tariq Fatemi who was the Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs was withdrawn. Rao Tehsin Ali, the principal information officer at the Information Ministry, would also be sanctioned, while editor of Dawn Newspaper, Zaffar Abbas, and reporter Cyril Almeida would be referred to the All Pakistan Newspaper Association (APNS) “for necessary disciplinary action.”
The government decided that the Dawn Leaks report would not be made public.
