Government trying to push Leaks issue under carpet: PPP

Siraj says weak persons made scapegoat; Musharraf says facts

should be brought to surface; Sheikh Rasheed says Nawaz will be ousted

if he continues clashing with army

ISLAMABAD: Senior leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Qamar Zaman Kaira has rejected the probe report of DawnLeaks, saying that it was expected that the government would try to push the matter under the carpet.

Talking to media persons, he said first the Minister for Information and Broadcasting Pervaiz Rashid and then Tariq Fatemi were made scapegoats to save the skin of actual culprit behind the Leaks.

Kaira said if Tariq Fatemi has taken this step, then it is treason and he should be in jail. He said that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan accepted that he knew those responsible for leaking the news to the reporter, then why action was not taken against them and why they were not put behind the bars.

He said that on the one hand, the judges and courts jolted the PPP government over the Memogate scandal but, on the other side, the government put the Leaks issue in doldrums and no court came into action against them. 

Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Senator Sirajul Haq also rejected the government recommendations on the Leaks and said that only weak persons were being made scapegoat on an issue of national security.

Addressing a public meeting at Battagram on Saturday, he said that the Leaks was an issue of immense importance concerning national security and the whole truth must come out. 

“The reputation of the country is at stake in the comity of nations after the prime minister was named in the PanamaLeaks case. Nawaz Sharif is not a common man but the prime minister of Pakistan and he should resign after the verdict of the Supreme Court bench in the Panama Papers case,” he added.

He said that the successive rulers plundered the national wealth and shifted their capital abroad. 

Former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf said national security should not be compromised at any cost. In a statement, he said the Leaks was an issue regarding breach of national security and it is mandatory for the government to bring forth the real facts to the surface and also to apprise that what action was taken against the culprits. 

Musharraf said that the nation should come to know that who among the present inside a confidential meeting leaked the disputed information. He said national security is primary importance and it cannot be compromised at any cost.

Awami Muslim League chief Sheikh Rasheed said the Leaks matter could be resolved. He claimed that Nawaz Sharif would be ousted if he kept on clashing with the army.