IN a welcome development, the Government, on Thursday, announced to form a Commission of Inquiry to expose Imran Khan’s claims about a foreign conspiracy to dislodge his government, alleging that the former Prime Minister was levelling allegations only to protect Farah Gogi, his benamidar for amassing crores of rupees.
Addressing a news conference, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said the Commission would hold an inquiry impartially, independently and transparently, and that its findings would be made public and action would be taken against those to be named in the report.
An independent and transparent investigation into the issue is the need of the hour as allegations of a foreign-funded conspiracy to topple Imran Khan Government echo in every media interaction, public statements and speeches of PTI leaders.
The party repeatedly asserts that the United States punished PTI Government for pursuing an independent foreign policy, a claim not supported by ground realities as everyone knows what the PTI Government did to the historic initiative of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) at the behest of Washington, full facilitation extended to the US during negotiations and withdrawal stages in Afghanistan, lack of appropriate policy/strategy to counter Modi’s stunning moves in Occupied Kashmir and claims of intimacy with the then US President Donald Trump.
The present unity Government firmly believes that the PTI has built a narrative of ‘foreign-funded conspiracy’ only because it had nothing to defend its three and a half year rule during which the party miserably failed to deliver as per expectations of the masses.
There is also a valid viewpoint among independent and professional circles that the short-sighted approach of PTI to use a routine diplomatic cable by a Pakistani mission has damaged foreign policy interests of Pakistan and made the job of Pakistani diplomats all the more difficult.
It is also a foregone conclusion that PTI would continue to hammer the issue to score political points and to play with the sentiments of the people in a bid to muster support during the next general election when it has nothing to show to the people in terms of its achievements.
The issue also has another dimension – PTI is labelling the rival political leadership as ‘traitors’ on the basis of an issue that its rivals claim is totally baseless and concocted.
Therefore, it has become a must to go deep into the issue to find the truth and bring ‘conspirators and traitors’ to book if the allegations are proved or hold those accountable who are labelling such charges if the allegations are not substantiated by the Commission of Inquiry.
PTI has, all along, been demanding a probe into the scandal, now also called ‘Lettergate’, but surprisingly the party has rejected the Government announcement on flimsy grounds.
According to former Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, PTI would only accept the inquiry if it is instituted by the Supreme Court and the proceedings are held in public, things that PTI did not do when it was in power and had the authority to do so.
Instead of referring the issue/cable to the Supreme Court, it unilaterally opted to appoint a highly controversial one-man Commission to carry out investigations.
The very fact that the then government nominated a retired general to probe the ‘Lettergate’, who facilitated the party during its 2014 sit-in and issued an extremely biased statement on the cable even before any probe, deepened the impression that PTI was only interested to get favourable findings for political victimization of its opponents.
Now again, its demands make it clear that the party is least interested to get to the bottom of the issue and only wants to use it to advance its venomous propaganda campaign against its political rivals.
The Minister for Information has already declared that such an impeccable person would be appointed as the head of the Commission that none would be able to raise an objection, not even the coterie of plotters.
The Government should, therefore, proceed ahead with a transparent inquiry to set the record straight as far as this biggest scandal of the time is concerned.
As the letters written to the UN by PTI leader Shirin Mazari also amount to inviting the international community to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan, this should also be made part of the terms of reference of the inquiry as attempts to malign the state should not go unnoticed.
