Mushahidullah quits after making overthrow plot claims

Senator Mushahidullah Khan has resigned from the post of Federal Minister for Climate Change a day after BBC Urdu broadcasted his interview in which he alleged that former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam had tried to stage a coup during last year’s sit-ins by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT).

Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered Senator Mushahidullah Khan to cut short his official trip to the Maldives and immediately return to Pakistan.

Mushahidullah has forwarded his resignation to the Prime Minister’s House and will explain his case to the premier upon his return from Maldives, Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid said in a statement.

In his interview with BBC, Mushahidullah highlighted that the plan to overthrow the government was made when the two marches — the ‘Azadi March’ by PTI and the Inqilab March by PAT — entered Islamabad in August 2014.

One year after the two marches set forth from Lahore towards Islamabad, the minister claimed that the plan made by the then head of ISI Gen Zaheerul Islam was aimed at creating unrest and chaos.

“Telephone discussions of the former intelligence head have been recorded in which he was giving directions on how to create chaos and take over the PM’s House,” Senator Mushahidullah claimed in the interview. He then added that these telephone conversations were recorded by the civil intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), which reports to the Interior Ministry.

“The conspiracy was not only to target the civil government led by Nawaz Sharif but it was even against the army chief. The action plan was to create a deep rift between the PM and the army chief so that the prime minister may take action against Gen Raheel Sharif and then some people would come into action,” he said.

Within hours of Mushahidullah’s remarks, the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) issued statements denying the existence of the conspiracy in statements that snubbed the minister as well as others.

The statement from the Prime Minister’s Secretariat also added that Senator Mushahidullah had been asked to clarify his position over his statement.

After that the minister as well as the information minister spoke to television channels to deny the interview. Senator Mushahidullah went so far to say that he “simply repeated rumours he had heard from here and there”.

The PTI had staged a 126-day sit-in in Islamabad last year to press for its demand for a judicial enquiry into the rigging allegations.

A judicial commission — constituted under a presidential ordinance in April earlier this year to probe PTI’s allegations of rigging in the 2013 general election — concluded in its report that polls were in large part “organised and conducted fairly and in accordance with the law”.

PTI Chairman Imran Khan had last year alleged that the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif paid the IB Rs 270 crore to sabotage his protest movement.