Islamabad, June 17(ANI): Pakistani authorities are reportedly suspicious that the US mission in Islamabad has clandestinely obtained the video recording of the joint sitting of Parliament held on May 13 to discuss the May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad.
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha had briefed parliamentarians during that in-camera session, which lasted for about 11 hours, about the United States' unilateral military raid that killed bin Laden.
Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) General Khalid Shameem Wynne, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir and Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Sulaiman had also attended the joint sitting.
Sources claimed that some US officials, while interacting with Pakistani authorities recently, gave the impression that they had minute-to-minute full knowledge of the proceedings of the joint sitting.
They also had information that has not appeared in the press as yet, but the authenticity of the details could not be verified, The News reports.
The security agencies had put their system in place so that nobody could stealthily make recording of the sitting, and now they are perturbed about the information.
The agencies are also probing through their networking about the report, and have informed that no video recording was made at any stage, except a few still photographs, the sources said.
Meanwhile, PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal has urged the National Assembly speaker to clarify the position with regard to the information. Terming the act as high treason, he demanded that the government carry out an investigation into the matter immediately.
The then Acting Speaker of the National Assembly, Faisal Karim Kundi, has clarified that a staff of four to five persons was engaged on the day for translation of the speeches and switching on/off the mikes, but nobody had the system of private video recording. The automatic video recording system of the National Assembly Hall was also switched off on the day, he added.
"There is no question about a video recording of the sitting since the secretariat/administration is fully alert to stall any such activity," Kundi said on Thursday evening during an informal conversation.
Had the CD of the proceedings been available to anybody outside the parliament, it would have been made public by now, he said, adding: "We have not heard about it from anybody." (ANI)
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