Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 30

Indian security agencies have identified at least five Pakistan-based twitter handles that are active in spreading canards about the Indian Government, making false claims about ‘Khalistan’, creating false impressions about the Northeast and spreading all pro-terrorism propaganda in Kashmir while targeting the Indian Army.

The government has been informed about these “five twitter handles” and their participation in “anti-India” rants. Their profiles and possible linkages along with their locations have been shared.

At least one of them travels between Pakistan and London, another one is pro-Pak Army but takes on the Pakistan Government and one is linked to Jamaat Ul-Dawa, the organisation of terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed. At least three of them are in Islamabad, the seat of the Pakistan Central Government.

These twitter handles use graphics in their posts and the graphics are of professional nature and even at times ‘photoshopped’ (a software to alter photos).

All of them have few thousand followers and time their tweets to bring out a ‘twitter storm’ on the Internet on issues concerning India. They use these false images on issues as varied as the daily occurrences in Kashmir and sometimes focus on matters that are not even remotely connected to Kashmir. In one instance they have been found to be enticing the Sikh community over ‘Khalistan’ by quoting wrong figures and adding false pictures.

The information available with the government points out that they have been acerbic in their comments on the Indian Army, its deployment and work in Kashmir.

Sources said they had recently started a campaign to create mistrust among a specific regiment of the Indian Army by spreading lies and creating a divide.

These twitter handles in the past have timed their activities to coincide with the opening of the 71st session of the UNGA in the US last year. The Twitter feeds were traced. Around 75 per cent of the 1 lakh tweets on ‘#kashmirreferendum’ originated from Pakistan. Officially, Pakistan raised the Kashmir issue at the UNGA. Pakistan’s stance is to demand a referendum in Kashmir.

One has JuD links