Pakistan propaganda wing spreading misinformation via fake ‘colonels’

New Delhi: The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), public relations wing of the Pakistan armed forces, is busy spreading fake news related to Kashmir and sow seeds of discord among security forces and fuel hatred among citizens in India.

In a latest case, the Pak-based individuals broke into the Twitter account of an Indian Army officer and tweeted fabricated posts.

According to media reports, the fake tweet from the original handle claimed that the Indian officer decided to quit the force as “Pakistan killed 25 of my Unit jawans”.

Later, a fake handle with the name of @Shahid09873 came into existence that identified itself as a Pakistani Army colonel.

“I am a Pakistan Army Colonel. I have decided to retire early as Indian army is killing us on LOC. In last two days about 50 pakistan army has been killed. I request Indian army not to kill us, I beg them. I have 5000 troops with me who will also retire & leave pak army (sic),” posted ‘Colonel Shahid’.

Twitter has suspended both the accounts for violating its policies.

The psychological war broke out amid continued lockdown of Jammu and Kashmir following abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution on August 5.

On Tuesday, police in Jammu and Kashmir had shot a letter to Twitter, asking for details of one of its accounts that has been spreading “rumours through his tweets very frequently which are leading to law and order situation in the Kashmir Valley”.

The police demanded details of the Twitter handle registered as “WSK” “@WajSKhan” having Twitter User ID: “74964902”

“@WajSKhan is spreading rumours through his tweets very frequently which are leading to law and order situation in Kashmir valley which in turn is a threat to lives of general public and that of security forces deployed in the Kashmir Valley to maintain law and order in view of recent developments.

“The tweets of the above mentioned twitter handle could lead to clashes between various communities and hence have the potential toa aggravate the situation further endangering lives of general public,” said the police in the letter to Twitter.

Earlier, four Twitter handles run by the ISI or the Pakistan Army were removed for circulating fake news on the Kashmir situation.

 Published on: Aug 17, 2019 at 19:12 IST

IANS