ISLAMABAD : August 19,2023: Former Foreign minister and Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) vice- chairman , Shah Mahmood Qureshi, has been arrested in a cipher twisting case.
The PTI vice- chairman was arrested by Islamabad police from his residence in the federal capital on Saturday. Later, he was shifted to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) headquarters in Islamabad for further investigations in the case.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi was arrested under the Official Secret Act 2023 for intentionally damaging the interest of the state for political gains by making top level official document (cipher) public at. a public gathering in Islamabad on March 28,2023.
The PTI vice chairman ‘s arrest is a first high profile arrest under the Official Secret Act 2023.
A first Information Report (FIR) was registered against PTI chief , Imran Khan, and vice chairman , Shah Mahmood Qureshi and a couple of other PTI leaders and former principal secretary to Imran Khan, Azam Khan at Secretariat police station.
The FIR said the PTI chief held a top secret party meeting at Bani Gala in Islamabad on March 27 which was attended by Shah Mahmood Qureshi , Asad Umar , Azam Khan then principal secretary to Imran Khan wherein they decided to use the cipher received from Pakistan’s ambassador to US , Dr Asad Majid, to gain political milage.
According to the FIR, Imran Khan ,Shah Mahmood Qureshi and other half a dozen PTI top leaders conspired in Bani Gala meeting to give a twist to the cipher and use it to gain popularity in public by broking the plan that the PTI government was dismantled on the directions of the US .
The US has repeatedly refuted the PTI claims that it had any role or link in the deposing of Imran Khan from the powers in April 2022.
Despite repeated denials of the US , Imran Khan kept on claiming in public gatherings for more than a year that Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government came into the power with the blessing of Washington. An audio leaked a few months ago had also confirmed that Imran Khan Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Asad Umar had prepared a conspiracy to use the cipher to make their political narrative a success for political gains.
The FIR said the PTI chief executed the cipher conspiracy plan by waving a copy of the cipher to the crowd to throw his claim to the public that look this is a proof of a conspiracy hatched by the US with PDM to remove his elected government.
Imran Khan, being a liar of his own class, managed to convince the public at the gathering at parade ground on March 28,2022 in Islamabad that he was overthrown by the US.
The PTI chief did got some political gains as a vast majority of his supporters believe that their leader was an honest one and speaks the truth. But his cunning move caused irreparable loss to Pakistan’s interests.
The diplomatic cables are extremely secret documents and those can not and should not be made public as any such move compromises the national interests.
Imran Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi damaged Pakistan’s diplomatic relations with the US just to get political gains . These two cunning PTI leaders knew that their move to hold the US responsible for removal of PTI government from the power will gain the popularity in the public in no time and their cunningness worked up to their plan. At one stage , it appeared that PTI bashing may offend the US and it finally break-up bilateral relations with Pakistan. Thanks to the US adminstration it repeatedly refuted Imran Khan’s claims made by waving the copy of the cipher and exposed that PTI chief was a big liar.
PTI’s conspiracy for the cipher case was so perfect that it used the handout of a national security counsel meeting held in his rule with its own interpretation and tried to build -up its case with more vigour that the military leadership of Pakistan too agreed in the national security counsel meeting that the cipher was a deep-rooted conspiracy to oust Imran Khan from the power. Meanwhile , paid gang of TV anchors like Moeed Pirzada and many others started to build- up the cipher consultancy in favour of PTI and it’s chairman Imran Khan. Imran Khan knows the art of lying and making his case to show it to the public that he was an aggrieved party and the forces like the US and many others wanted to stop him from coming into the power again. However , things changed for him when Mr Bajwa left the office of the army chief and his successor General Asim Munir decided to stop him from damaging Pakistan’s interests through his cunning style of politics.
PTI chairman and his party launched a dirty campaign against Asim Munir and used his social media network to malign his appointment as army chief.
Imran Khan knew that Asim Munir like man in uniform will not tolerate his politics of lies and he has to pay for past dirty games as well. His party’s march on the military installation on May 9 was a part of the same strategy.
Unfortunately, the politicians like Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Asad Umar proved by supporting an anti -state planning of Imran Khan that they can go to any extent to become MNA again.
The FIA team headed by director Rana Abdul Jabbar also did a great job by reaching to the bottom of the case in early investigations which resulted in registration of the case against Imran Khan , Shah Mahmood Qureshi under the Official Secret Act 2023.
It’s high time for the state to fix all crooks who compromised the national interest by misinterpreting the cipher for the political gains.