NewDelhi December 12 :India on Friday hit back on Pakistan, which sought to take advantage of an investigative report by a non-governmental organization – EU DisinfoLab – on a global disinformation campaign.
‘As a responsible democracy, India does not practice disinformation campaigns,’ Anurag Srivastava, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday cited the report by EU DisinfoLab on a 15-year-long disinformation campaign run purportedly to serve the interests of India. ‘The international community needs to take notice of a rogue Indian regime that now threatens the stability of the global system,’ Khan posted on Twitter, seeking to take advantage of the EU DisinfoLab’s claim that the disinformation campaign run by a network of fake media outlets and dubious NGOs in Geneva and Brussels was aimed at discrediting Pakistan.
‘In fact, if you are looking at disinformation, the best example is the country next door which is circulating fictional and fabricated dossiers and purveys a regular stream of fake news,’ Srivastava said in New Delhi on Friday, reacting to the remarks by Pakistan Prime Minister.
‘Disinformation is practised particularly by those who have records to hide such as sheltering international wanted terrorists including Osama-bin-Laden and seek unsuccessfully to cover up their own tracks such as on the 26/11 Mumbai attack,’ said the MEA spokesperson.
Khan’s Government in Islamabad last month handed over to António Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, a ‘dossier’ accusing India of sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan. New Delhi reacted by reminding that Abbottabad in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan was the place where elusive Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden had been killed by the United States commandos on May 2, 2012.
The killing of the much-wanted terrorist leader at a house near Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad had brought to light that he had been hiding in the country since long and it had been possibly known to the top brass of the military and intelligence agencies of the country.