Pervez Rashid demands Dawn Leaks report be made public

ISLAMABAD: Former information minister Pervaiz Rashid demanded on Tuesday that the Dawn Leaks inquiry report should be made public, justifying the decision to take back the ministry from him.

Last year in October, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had taken back the portfolio of Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage from Pervaiz Rashid, weeks after the military's top commanders said a 'false and fabricated' newspaper report breached national security.

“I don’t have anything to do with Dawn Leaks, my job was snatched from me before the report [of the Joint Investigation Team probing the issue] was released,” said Rashid.

The report should definitely be made public, he said, adding “I know those making the report must have worked hard in order to justify why the ministry was taken from me.”

In Monday’s press briefing, DG Inter-Services Public Relations Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor had said that the army would not bring forth the report it was the government’s job, for which the requests should be made to it.

In an earlier press conference, disgruntled senior PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar had also demanded that the Dawn Leaks report should be made public.

Earlier, Rashid, in an interview to a private news channel, said that "decisions were taken against us while the interior minister was in power," he said, in an apparent statement against Nisar.

Nisar hits back at Pervaiz Rasheed on 'interior minister' remarks

People should tell what help they expected from the interior ministry, says statement from Nisar's spokesperson

Following this, Nisar hit back saying some people have put the entire blame for their mistakes on the interior ministry and establishment. In a reference to the Dawn Leaks JIT commission, the former interior minister said that "a five-member committee comprising of members from federal and provincial institutions gave a decision against them."