The leaked audio file featuring Parliamentary Special Committee on Kashmir Chairperson Shehryar Khan Afridi berating at least two people about journalist Younus Khan has been doing the rounds. In it, Afridi says the journalist attacked the integrity of the country with his questions.

The journalistic fraternity, including Reporters without Borders, have taken note of the language and threats used in the clip and have called for action.

For context, Afridi was speaking at an event in France in October, when Khan asked the minister if he had met with any think tanks or government organisation to discuss the Kashmir issue. The seemingly harmless question prompted Afridi to retort that he was suffering from migraine and had to first seek treatment in France.

Many thought nothing of the exchange till the short audio clip recently surfaced featuring the covertly recorded interaction after the meet and greet with journalists.

As the audio clip progresses you can hear Afridi becoming increasingly agitated and his language becomes increasingly foul. He can be heard calling out what one can only suppose are the organising members, implying that the open forum he offered was a favour and that the journalists should have been screened better, going so far as to say that he was “not aware which of them are pigs.”

He called for action against the journalist, while also threatening to come after the men he was talking to, if they did not deal appropriately with journalist Khan.

What took the sound clip two months to be released or how the PTI government will react to another scandal surrounding one of their own, remains to be seen.