ISLAMABAD – A news report on the alleged business dealings ofChina-Pakistan Economic Corridor Authority Chairman Lt-Gen (retired) AsimSaleem Bajwa has been decidedly rebuffed after it emerged that thejournalist responsible for writing the report had actually been relying onthe testimony of a notorious social media influencer with deep ties to theIndian Army.
According to several videos shared on social networking platform Twitter byusers around the world, Ahmed Noorani, the journalist who wrote the nowdebunked expose without revealing his sources, had relied on a video madeby a retired major of the Indian Army, named Gaurav Arya. Arya is notoriousfor misinformation campaigns on Twitter.
In February 2019, when Indian warplanes crossed into Pakistani territorybut were shot down and the pilot of one of these planes captured, Arya hadbeen busy spreading lies about the matter on social media. Even after theinternational media had corroborated the account of Pakistan Army into thematter, Arya was still duping the public.
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“Abhinandan flew into Pakistan…shot down an F-16, had tea, changed into ablue jacket and Pakistanis came all the way to drop him to Wagah border…allin two days. Now tell me, how was the tea,” he said. However, reputedAmerican publication *Foreign Policy* said in a report that two US defenceofficials with direct knowledge of the matter said US personnel had done acount of Pakistan’s F-16s and found none missing.
Major Gaurav Arya is infamous for spreading lies and rumors againstPakistan. A few months ago, he shared a video clip and claimed that itshowed members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps being thrashed byPakistan Army personnel after the former had deserted their post whenattacked by terrorists. Later on, it was revealed that Arya’s claims werefalse.
Major Gaurav is also involved in propaganda against the China-PakistanEconomic Corridor. He recently claimed that the entire venture is afailure. He also claimed that the Chinese are seeking a way out of thisagreement. Arya often makes these claims without any evidence to back them,leading experts to question his motives for doing so.
*‘Malicious, propaganda story’*
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday also sought to clarify thematter, telling the media that the authenticity of a news reportlinkonalleged offshore properties and businesses of Lt-Gen (r) Bajwa and hisfamily would be cleared soon. “It is now a common practice that the news isrun without confirmation,” Qureshi reportedly said.
“A news should be made public once it is confirmed. The truth, in thiscase, will come to the fore soon,” he said in response to questions put bysome journalists. The CPEC Authority chief had himself also issued astatement on the malicious story. “A malicious propaganda story publishedon an unknown site, against me and my family, is strongly rebutted,” hesaid.
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The report, published on a propaganda website named *FactFocus*, intendedto develop a correlation between Bajwa’s rise in his professional careerand the rise of his family’s business. However, investigative reportersacross the country have stressed that the allegations are baseless sinceNoraani did not publish documents to back his claims.
After the report was published, an outcry ensued on social media, withtrolls and bot accounts backed by the Indian establishment working overtimeto expand the reach of the story and trying to make up for the gaps in thearguments of Noorani by simply trying to get the story out to as manypeople as possible.
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However, Pakistani users were having none of it. Soon after the story hadbeen published, several leading journalists had offered their frankanalysis on the report, urging Pakistanis to be mindful of the fact thatNoorani had actually copied ‘word for word’ what Arya had said in hisvideo. The video had been uploaded more than a month back.
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*‘We will give them bloody nose, they will remember for generations’*
This is not the first time that Arya has sought to sow discord within thepolitical-military circles of Pakistan. In fact, Arya has, over the years,established somewhat of a reputation of being the mouthpiece of the Indiantroll army on Twitter. Earlier this year, in open defiance of internationallaw, he claimed that the Indian Army was directly supporting terroristgroups in Pakistan.
Shortly before an attack on security forces in Balochistan, Arya went on atelevision show in India and openly hurled threats at Pakistan andpredicted a terror incident in Balochistan ‘in 10-15 days’. Seniorjournalist Hamid Mir had brought the matter to public attention, and evenasked the United Nations to take note of the matter.
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“I am in touch with terrorists. The Pakistani Army, we will give them sucha bloody nose that these people will remember for ten generations,” he hadsaid. He went on to say that he had the terrorists’s contact numbers in hismobile phone and he was in touch with them ‘almost every day’. He addedthat he told terrorists that the entire Indian population stands with them,and against Pakistan.
According to *Alt News*, in March 2017, Arya tweeted an image of apathology report, claiming it to be the report of Syed Salahuddin, aKashmiri separatist and the head of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen. The report claimedthat Salahuddin had contracted HIV. Later, it was found that the image wasa photoshopped one, made from a sample available online.
It is still not immediately clear how Noorani got in touch with Arya. It isalso as yet unclear how Arya made such tall claims about a senior officialin the Pakistan government without offering evidence to back them up, butis still allowed to operate freely on Twitter and other media platforms.Recent newslinkaboutIndian employees using their positions at social media firms to shieldpropaganda accounts might explain a part of the story. – Global VillageSpace
