ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani on Sunday constituted a 14-member special committee to investigate a fake and objectionable video to defame Senator Azam Swati, a lawmaker belonging to former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, while asking it to present its report within a month.
Swati told the media during a news conference on Saturday his wife had received an obscene video which featured him and her, though he refused to divulge further details while pointing out that the “daughters” of his nation were also listening to his press talk.
The PTI lawmaker had been arrested last month over a controversial tweet targeting Pakistan’s army chief and said he had been subjected to custodial torture.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) said in the wake of his news conference the forensic analysis of the video had shown it to be “fake and edited” while asking the senator to lodge a formal complaint for its detailed probe.
“The Hon’ble Chairman Senate has been pleased to constitute a Special Committee to inquire an alleged video of Senator Muhammad Azam Khan Swati,” said a notification circulated by the Senate Secretariat.
“The Special Committee shall elect its Convener from among its members in the first meeting and present its report within 30 (thirty) days after the first meeting,” it added.
The senate investigation committee includes all parliamentary party leaders, though the PTI will be represented by Senator Mohsin Aziz in place of Swati himself “to avoid any conflict of interest.”
Swati’s press conference on Saturday led to social media outrage after he told journalists the news of the video was broken to him by his daughter over the phone.
“I am asking: God, is this Pakistan where the sanctity of a husband and wife [is not protected],” he said while breaking into tears.
The PTI chief also urged Pakistan’s chief justice to take suo motu notice of the incident while calling it “shocking, despicable and utterly condemnable.”
“Pakistan was created on Islamic moral values of human dignity, honor of the family and inviolability of chadar and chardawari [privy],” he said in a Twitter post. “What has happened to Azam Swati at the hands of the state has been a blatant violation of all these values — from being stripped naked to custodial torture and now this video where the privacy of his wife has been violated.”
