Director General ISPR, Major General Asif Ghafoor has called the PM’s notification on Dawn Leaks “incomplete” and “not in line with recommendations” of inquiry committee.
Notification on Dawn Leak is incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board. Notification is rejected.
— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) April 29, 2017
Earlier today, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued orders to remove Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi from his post and ordered the authorities to take action against Principal Information Officer at Press Information Department Rao Tehseen over the Dawn Leaks issue.
Journalist Cyril Almeida and Dawn Editor Zaffar Abbas were referred to the All Pakistan Newspaper Society for action. The notification also said that the APNS will be asked to develop a code of conduct for the media, especially the print media.
The inquiry committee formed to probe Dawn Leaks in its report had placed blame on Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi and Principal Information Officer at the Press Information Department Rao Tehsin. The report stated that the publishing of the story was a failure on part of some government institutions including Information Ministry and Foreign Ministry.
The English-language daily, Dawn, had published a story on October 6 in which journalist Cyril Almeida had written about an alleged civil-military rift during the National Security Committee (NSC) meeting over the issue of tackling jihadi outfits. The story stirred a major controversy last year, resulting in Almeida coming under fire from the military and government and being temporarily placed on the Exit Control List.
The inquiry committee comprised one member each from the ISI, MI and IB, Secretary Establishment Tahir Shahbaz, Ombudsman Punjab Najam Saeed, and an FIA director.
Meanwhile, mobile forensics data of Senator Pervaiz Rashid was also made part of the report by the inquiry committee, which could not find any evidence against the former information minister. On October 29, following a preliminary investigation, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took back the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage from Pervaiz Rashid, weeks after the military’s top commanders said the ‘false and fabricated’ report published in the Dawn newspaper breached national security.
But the investigation carried out by the inquiry committee now appears to show that no evidence could be found against the former minister. According to sources privy with the mobile forensics data in the report, Dawn newspaper reporter Cyril Almeida sent at least 11 text messages to Rashid.
The reporter, in the messages, requested the government not to ‘insult’ by repeatedly issuing rebuttals of his story, but the minister did not reply to most of the messages.
PID officer Rao Tehsin’s mobile phone forensics data, as well as data from the Safe City Project, is part of the inquiry committee report.