“India fakes news to divert attention domestically, internationally”

“India fakes news to divert attention domestically and internationally; unless there is a strategy to prevent this, it will not end in the near future,” noted Muhammad Asghar, special correspondent for Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), while responding to India’s objections over references to Jammu and Kashmir, and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in the China-Pakistan joint statement released recently.

The Joint Statement Between the People's Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was released by China and Pakistan after the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing earlier this month. As per the joint statement, the two sides signed or concluded a number of agreements / MoUs, covering bilateral cooperation in areas of economic and technical, industry, investment, infrastructure, space, vaccine, digitalization, standardization, disaster management, culture, sports and vocational education.

“It is a very comprehensive joint statement. It covers all aspects of bilateral relations between Pakistan and China,” Muhammad Asghar told the reporter, adding a number of new projects are being included and signed. “With the passage of time, CPEC will change the fate of the people, especially in Pakistan.”

As he sees it, India has been doing so for long and it mainly targets Pakistan, China and especially CPEC. “Basically, India wants to damage this cooperation. It doesn’t want this project to develop and prosper,” he added.

A study by the EU DisinfoLab released in 2019 found that at least "265 fake local news websites in more than 65 countries are managed by Indian influence networks with the aim of influencing international institutions along with elected representatives and swaying the public perception of Pakistan." By the year of 2020, the number of such pro-India fake news websites was revealed to have grown to 750 across 116 countries in an investigation titled the Indian Chronicles.

“It is a comprehensive strategy against Pakistan. The Indians are targeting Pakistan. Through this way the Indian leadership actually distracts the attention away from their internal issues,” Muhammad Asghar explained.

He said that the Indian government is mainly responsible for the prevalent false news because they want to divert attention domestically and internationally. “The present Indian leaders particularly when took power, made very tall claims that they will make Indian economy very strong, but the government was not able to fulfill its promises,” Asghar pinpointed, adding that instead of paying attention to real issues, India always tries to divert attention and makes its people emotional.

“There are so many human rights violations against the Muslim minority in India, and also there is an ongoing military oppression against people in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK). They cannot control it,” Muhammad Asghar explained, further saying that it is why India wants to divert the world’s attention from their domestic issues through such kind of propaganda.

“It's damaging the relations between the countries, not only in the region, but at the world level. And the people of this country also suffer,” Asghar added. “Prosperity and development are linked with peace and security. The victims of false news are the people and they don't know how they are being used. There should be some strategy to stop these things.”