Imran probes marriage news ‘leak’

ISLAMABAD: For Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, the issue that matters most to him is how a tightly-kept secret of his marriage with Bushra Maneka reached to The News investigative reporter Umar Cheema.

Imran Khan’s 3rd marriage news made global headlines after Umar Cheema revealed that Imran Khan, Zulfi Bukhari and Awn Chaudhry along with Mufti Saeed met Bushra Bibi at a house in a posh locality of Lahore where marriage was solemnised. The PTI leadership initially denied the news and then confirmed that Imran Khan had made marriage proposal to Bushra Bibi, former wife of the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) officer, Khawar Fareed Maneka. On the weekend, PTI announced that Imran Khan had married Bushra Bibi.

The publication of news shocked Imran Khan, his party and Maneka family who were completely unaware of what was actually happening. It’s understood that only about eight people – close to Imran Khan and Bushra Maneka – knew in advance about the fateful meeting on the night of 1st January at the house of Bushra Bibi’s close confidante in Lahore.

Credible PTI sources said that Imran Khan had asked his closest friends and aides to try to find out how the news was leaked and who could be the culprit behind the leak. The sources revealed that Imran Khan had been told by some PTI leaders that the news was leaked out either by his aides or Bushra Maneka herself through her own sources.

Imran Khan’s phone got flooded with messages from friends and colleagues as soon as the marriage news was published, he stated.

PTI spokesman Fawad Chaudhary and Imran Khan both alleged that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief had leaked the news but the PTI insider said that Imran Khan had no clue how the news made it to Umar Cheema. He suspects that someone else might be involved in the leakage of news to The News reporter.

The PTI source said that Khawar Fareed Maneka had some idea of what was happening and he had told his family that Umar Cheema was working on his former wife’s marriage. Although Fareed Maneka had issued a statement publicly but family sources said he had been under pressure from within the family and outside.

The source said that Imran Khan is searching for the answers on the "leak" and asked opinion of many close aides but remains puzzled. "He wants to know who leaked the most tightly-kept secret of his life which he planned to keep a secret for an indefinite time period and had no plan of revealing till after August 2018," said the source.