Institutions prove JIT allegations wrong

ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court today will take up the JIT complaint, issue of bugging Prime Minister House, taping of telephone calls of witnesses, monitoring the physical movements of witnesses and attempts to make a national institution like Intelligence Bureau (IB) controversial. 

JIT has made several allegations against national institutions including Prime Minister Office and even the prestigious institution of IB on basis of mere speculations and accounts of some anonymous persons. However, the national institutions including Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), IB, National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Ministry of Law and Prime Minister House instead of indulging in a blame game, responded to all the allegations one-by-one with documentary evidences and proved all of them wrong, malicious and concocted. By all means, these documentary evidences establish that the JIT lost its credibility and process of investigation could no more remain transparent. The bench has remarked that they have chosen diamonds. They say all that glitters is not gold or ‘the diamonds turned black’, the JIT members have openly exhibited their bias and failed to prove any single allegation they levelled against national institutions or senior journalists. Those hurling baseless allegations didn’t even spare the respected institution of IB which played key role in exposing conspiracies against Pakistan during 2014.  

The issue of bugging the Prime Minister House and monitoring physical movements of witnesses just before their appearance before the JIT will be the most intriguing issue the apex court will dealt with today. JIT in its complaint before SC has admitted this while in its official reply the Prime Minister House has highlighted this unbelievable criminal activity of tapping phones. If apex court will take up this criminal act of recording tapes seriously and will order a comprehensive probe into the matter, the proceedings of probing the Panama Papers allegations will again get credence and acceptance. 

SECP has proved that JIT complaint against it regarding tampering with record was based on mere statement of some anonymous officer without any examination of record of forensic of documents. SECP has provided documentary evidence in support of its statement and proved JIT allegation completely wrong. IB while completely denying all allegations of JIT has also declared that it never hacked the Facebook account of wife of JIT member Bilal Rasool. The Facebook of wife of Bilal Rasool, who is a PTI activist, was full of pro-PTI and anti-Nawaz Sharif sloganeering and it suddenly went offline at the time of nomination of her husband for JIT to probe allegations against the Sharif family. IB has also declared that its ground check for details of JIT members was a routine exercise which it always do in all important cases.

NAB has produced official documents proving the show-cause notice issued to NAB officer who is a JIT member before his nomination for JIT. This irrefutable evidence has badly dented the credibility of JIT and has exposed the bias of all those officers who signed this complai  Today’s hearing in Courtroom number 3 of apex court is crucially important and will define the future of Panama investigations. If apex court addressed the reservations and criminal activities highlighted by Prime Minister House and others and ordered in depth investigation into call tapping etc, the process of investigation can become credible.