ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) fears government may destroy evidence of the spy camera scandal on the pretext of disinfection of the Parliament House building.

Speaking at a news conference at the party’s Media Office here on Sunday, PPP leaders Faisal Karim Kundi, Senator Palwasha Khan and Senator Rubina Khalid also expressed their concerns over “a potential risk of a fire in the record room of the National Assembly due to which the CCTV video could be wasted.”

The National Assembly Secretariat on Sunday announced that in order to avoid further spread of Covid-19 virus, all activities of the assembly had partially been suspended.

According to the decision, the offices of the Secretariat would remain closed on Monday (today) for disinfection of the building. Resultantly, all the meetings of standing and special Committees of the assembly have also been cancelled.

Faisal Karim Kundi further said the opposition’s candidate Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani had in fact won the Senate chairman election but he was deprived of his victory.

He alleged that presiding officer Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah had committed a crime by facilitating the ruling party in stealing the elections.

Mr Kundi said the government spokespersons were needlessly holding press conferences one after the other about cracks in the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), adding that their wish would never materialise.

Palwasha Khan said all the PTI spokespersons were wasting their time in criticising the PDM because their own members were attempting to contact the PPP chairman on WhatsApp and that these names would be disclosed at an appropriate time. She said: “Hypocrites and political garbage have gathered in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and it has become a dump of political garbage of Pakistan.”

Mr Kundi said the PPP had formed a legal team comprising Farooq Naek, Raza Rabbani, Sardar Latif Khosa and Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari to file a petition on Tuesday or Wednesday challenging the election of the Senate chairman.

The PPP, he said, was thankful to all the senators belonging to all the parties who voted for Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani.

PPP’s central information secretary Shazia Marri in a statement also expressed the fear that evidence of the cameras scandal would likely be destroyed by suspending the activities of the National Assembly on the pretext of disinfection of the house in the wake Covid-19 pandemic.

She said the government could also destroy footages of the CCTV cameras by closing the Parliament House.

Ms Marri called for a fair and transparent probe into the issue.

She further alleged that Prime Minister Imran Khan was trying to save those who had installed the cameras in the Senate Hall.

The PPP on Saturday had put the entire responsibility of the Friday’s Senate election fiasco on the secretary of the Senate Secretariat and demanded that he should be “dismissed and put in jail”.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2021