Pakistan pushed fake posts to spark discontent during Delhi riots: Report

It's almost been a month since the national capital of India witnessed its worst riots in decades. The madness not only claimed 53 lives but also left a series of troubling questions.

And the role of invisible warriors who stoked this fire on social media cannot be ruled out - especially the ones from across the border - Pakistan.

In December 2019, WION carried reports on Pakistan's hashtag merchants.

Dawn, Pakistan's biggest media network, had exposed such online influence campaigns in the garb of activism. Now it turns out that the same online armies sprung into action at the onset of the Delhi riots.

These are the findings of a new dossier compiled by the Indian security agencies. Islamabad used thousands of Twitter handles to spark discontent against the Indian government and the Delhi Police. Hashtags were fired like missiles - #Delhipolicetruth and #Delhipolicemurders.

The posts were pumped by vested groups in Pakistan in tandem with some in India - this was an orchestrated exercise.From border skirmishes to elections and now riots, Pakistan is spending millions to systematically amplify falsehoods about India on the internet.

The idea behind it was to show that the Delhi police was unfairly targetting Muslim homes and shops, and not the rioters. The dossier lists about 70 handles from Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore, which pushed this false narrative.

These handles peddled images from Syria and Bangladesh as pictures from ground zero in New Delhi. To extend the propaganda, fake information was linked to anti-India hashtags.

According to one report, #RSSKillingMuslims was one of many that trended the day riots broke out. Now, most of the handles who pushed it have been withheld in India for security reasons. The hashtag is still out there and it is being used even by the Pakistani leadership.

The Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, Qasim Khan Suri, used the hashtag, tweeting a story which was a biased News report on the coronavirus situation in India.

Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan himself has been caught peddling fake news on his official Twitter handle. He tried to pass off a video from Bangladesh as that of an alleged pogrom in Uttar Pradesh.