ISLAMABAD: The Instagram account of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was briefly hacked on Monday with the hackers using it to share a cryptocurrency link on his profile.

Mr Khan, who served as the prime minister of Pakistan before his ouster in April this year, has 7.4 million followers on the social media platform. A screenshot of Tesla chief Elon Musk’s tweet was also shared through his account.

PTI social media head Dr Arslan Khalid said the account was hacked at about 4pm and due to two-factor authentication the party managed to recover it within 15 to 20 minutes. “According to my understanding, initially Mr Khan’s email was hacked, and then it was used to hack his Instagram account,” he told Dawn.

Earlier, speaking at the party’s national council, Imran Khan said that intra-party elections would be held in the PTI after the general elections. The party will use technology to ens­ure transparency and meritocracy since the PTI has become the largest political party in the country, he added.

PTI chief says govt has lost credibility at national and international levels

He also stressed the need for working on the party’s ideology as “some of the party members do not know about its ideology”.

He stated that the PTI chose its leaders through the Insaf Students Federation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by holding elections within the student body. “We are going to follow the same process…” he added.

Comparing his party with the PML-N and PPP, Imran Khan said that there was no concept of merit within these parties. He alleged that the ruling parties were not interested in fixing the economy as they were only interested in ending corruption cases against themselves.

Imran Khan said that the government imposed through an alleged foreign conspiracy had lost its credibility both nationally and internationally to an extent that Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa had to request the IMF for the loan.

He demanded that an emergency should be imposed in the country at this time so that no one should be able to send money abroad. He added that those who could have “stopped the conspiracy are also responsible for what is happening in the country”.

Comparing his party government’s performance with the coalition government, he said that his government collected record tax revenue during its tenure and claimed that the external deficit was $500 million in March and now it had touched $2.6 billion.

“Inflation in our government was 17 per cent and today it has reached 38 per cent. My government provided the most jobs during the Covid-19 crisis,” he added.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2022