Minister says false, deliberate misinformation campaign was launched from hostile countries to malign Pakistan
\nISLAMABAD
\nInformation Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday that it was falsely claimed after the Bondi Beach shooting in Australia that one of the attackers was from Pakistan, holding \u201chostile countries\u201d responsible for this campaign.
\nThe tragic attack by two men on Sunday resulted in the death of 16 people, including one of the attackers. Soon after the incident, a Pakistan-origin man living in Sydney was misidentified as one of the attackers. Later, it was confirmed that among the father-son duo of suspects, the former, 50-year-old Sajid Akram, was from India and the latter, 24-year-old Naveed Akram, was born in Australia.
\n\u201cWhen the incident happened, certain media outlets were very quick to state that one of the attackers was from Pakistan and the other one was born in Australia. \u201cThere was no evidence to prove this claim, there was no documentation, and there was no verification of this claim. But somehow, we know that this campaign was launched from hostile countries trying to malign Pakistan,\u201d Tarar said during a media briefing in Islamabad.
\nThe minister continued, \u201cIn Israel and India, this campaign was proliferated and posted on social media platforms, as well as electronic media platforms, which is very, very sad.\u201dHe highlighted that Pakistan had been a frontline state in the war against terrorism and continued to combat terrorists. Here, he also mentioned the Army Public School massacre that took place on December 16, 2014.
\nA total of 147 people, including 132 students, were martyred and 180 were injured in the attack. \u201cSo, we are a country whose children have also given sacrifices, whose children have laid down their lives in this war against terrorism,\u201d Tarar said, adding that it was unfortunate that a \u201cfalse campaign\u201d was run against Pakistan.
\nHe reiterated that there was not even a shred of evidence or any reliable source to back the claim that one of the Bondi Beach attackers was from Pakistan. Tarar further stated that the \u201cmisinformation campaign\u201d against Pakistan was run deliberately, adding that it saddened him that very well-reputed media outlets fell prey to this \u201cdisinformation campaign\u201d.
\nThe minister said that these media houses and outlets, operating globally, had editorial boards and systems in place to verify information. \u201cThere are structures, there is a hierarchy through which information is passed on, and editorial control is exercised. Even then, they failed to exercise the basic norms of journalism,\u201d he said, reiteraring that it was falsely claimed that one of the attackers was from Pakistan.
\nThe claim, he said, was refuted as Indian police issued a press release on Tuesday stating that one of the suspects was from Hyderabad in India. He added that it had also been confirmed that the Indian embassy in Sydney had issued the suspect his passport. \u201cIn fact, he travelled to the Phillipines on that Indian passport as confirmed by the Philippines authorities,\u201d Tarar said. \u201cSo, I don\u2019t know why this campaign was run. But, it is very, very unfortunate.\u201d
\nThe minister then played a video that he said detailed how the campaign was run and which media outlets were involved in it. Tarar also appreciated Australian authorities for \u201cconducting themselves very professionally throughout the investigation. Despite the vicious campaign which was run all over the international media, they did not cast any aspersions in this regard, and they actually waited for this information to be verified\u201d.
\nSaying that now that it was clear that the suspect was from India, Tarar added, \u201cMy question is, and I have the right to question, that who is going to cover the damage that was caused to Pakistan through these fake posts and false information. The minister said the Inter-Service Public Relations director general and he, too, had shared evidence of terrorism in Balochistan and Kyber Pakhtunkhwa being backed and funded by Pakistan.
\nSaying that the Afghanistan government had been cosying up to India these days, Tarar questioned: \u201cWhat is the main reason behind it? Do they have any bilateral trade? Do they have other areas of mutual cooperation the great potential of which they want to realise?\u201d Reiterating that there was \u201cirrefutable evidence of Indian terrorism in Pakistan\u201d, he alleged that the country was not just involved in funding terrorism but also planning the attacks in Balochistan and KP.
\nAgain highlighting that Pakistan had been fighting terrorism for long and rendered sacrifices in doing so, Tarar repeated that the campaign against Pakistan following the Bondi Beach shooting was unfortunate. \u2014 DNA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minister says false, deliberate misinformation campaign was launched from hostile countries to malign Pakistan ISLAMABAD Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Wednesday that it was falsely claimed after the Bondi Beach shooting in Australia that one of the attackers was from Pakistan, holding \u201chostile countries\u201d responsible for this campaign. The tragic attack by two men …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":64979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91151,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91140\/revisions\/91151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}