Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
After proxy war in Kashmir, Pak launches cyber war against India and PM Modi
Security officials had noticed a similar social media campaign last year when Jammu and Kashmir was placed under a communication lockdown last August
INDIA Updated: Apr 23, 2020 11:52 IST
Shishir Gupta
Hindustan Times, New Delhi
Indian security agencies have linked the spurt in social media messages targeting India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a coordinated effort that has the “imprint” of Pakistani intelligence.
According to an assessment handed to the government on Wednesday, the effort was designed to flood social media with messages to fuel anti-India sentiment, particularly in the Gulf countries, “by spreading false propaganda on Islamophobia in India”.
The Pakistani deep state, the report said, was attempting to bring a schism between India and close allies in the Gulf by attacking PM Modi who has invested heavily to deepen India’s ties with the Middle-East.
The assessment by North Block includes a long list of troll handles based in Pakistan and in the Gulf countries that were being used to achieve this objective.
The spike in social media messages targeting New Delhi isn’t a first.
Security officials had noticed a similar pattern last year when Jammu and Kashmir was placed under a communication lockdown last August, hours before Parliament took up legislation to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status under the Constitution.
On social media and otherwise, Pakistan had made a concerted effort to embarrass India over nullification of Article 370 but didn’t get far, a government official said.
There was, as reported by Hindustan Times, also evidence how new terror groups funded by the Pakistani deep state first made their presence felt on social media even before it launched the first attack in Srinagar. All when the Internet was still banned in Kashmir.
“What has been the novelty in the instant case is the use of prominent personalities in Gulf countries to scale up a systematic agenda of fake propaganda … This effort has clear imprints of the involvement of Pakistan ISI,” a top government official told Hindustan Times, citing the analysis of tweets that targeted New Delhi.
On Tuesday, the hashtag that was powered by entities in Pakistan was “ShameOnModi”. A day earlier, the hashtag was “ChaosInIndia”.
The campaign that targeted PM Modi was driven by systematically engineering circulation of video clips of isolated incidents of attacks or harassment of Muslim individuals in India to project as if the entire community was under attack.
The assessment classifies the Twitter handles into four categories: among the hundreds analysed by security agencies, the report classifies aggregators, feeders, spreaders and influencers.
Twitter handles classified as feeders collect the videos from aggregators, devise the appropriate messaging for the videos or photographs and then forward it to the spreaders. Officials said it was not a coincidence that the Twitter handles of most of these feeders were created recently - between January and April - and indicated there was a clear plan and organised effort to target New Delhi.
Many of the handles classified as spreaders are based in Pakistan as well.
Like the handle that has the picture of a 20-something. She (it could well be a male) had started her day on Twitter this Tuesday with a few posts remembering Iqbal, the pre-eminent poet revered on both sides of the border. Then, she got down to work. By the end of the day, she had posted 200-plus tweets and retweets; an average of one every three minutes with the same hashtag.
The report listed scores of Twitter handles, each echoing tweets posted by the others, and using graphic images and videos - many of them several years old - to provoke outrage.
This time, however, the report said, there were also spreaders located in different countries of Gulf Cooperation Countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. These are all old but unverified Twitter handles, the report said.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...and-pm-modi/story-81Ic2r5lwATXUKWyGiRAYI.html
New Recruit
One arab princess who was speaking too much on Twitter has backed down now
LoL, actual number I didnot push for kids like you, Kerala has 2.5 million in Arab States, and the Gulf have already send back 100,000.
And now if you take in account all of India states and not just Kerala, the reparation flights which India is refusing to allow and take back Indians from gulf countries is about 50 + this month. Go check the schedules first, idiot.
What has Pakistan got to do with it?
Arab fck you, and you come crying on Pakistani forums
One arab princess who was speaking too much on Twitter has backed down now
I love how that Arab Princess speaks glowingly of Mandela and Gandhi. As if anyone is ever going to speak that way about anyone from Pakistan.
Yup Arabs and Arabs Princess speaking so glowingly about super power India:
So Glowing about India:
You should follow the trending now:https://twitter.com/search?q=#HindutvaVsArabWorld&src=trend_click
Tell me these are not official Arabs and Royal talking loud on your face but Pakistani masquerading accounts...
Oh you people are priceless. Truly priceless. Nowadays he's Pakistani??Besides it's a Pakistani Canadian Tarek Fatah who wrote that comment.
Please carry on exactly as you are.This is a deceptively edited video from an extremely left leaning media organization headed by a Pakistani-Canadian.
The interview in it's entirety and what the guy might have said probably would have garnered negative reactions from their audience anyway, but this is yellow journalism.
More tweets. State policy by random tweets and that is how ALL those Indians are going to be thrown out. Pure gagaland . Plain lunacy. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN . Far more likely that Pakistani's are going to be made redundant in vast numbers and asked to leave the Gulf in the coming months.
Are there people in the world who hate Modi. Of course there are. (By the way I was never, and never will be his fan as he has FAILED to carry out competent reforms of the Indian economy and egregiously turned to identity politics to hide his many failures)
The idea of Indians being deported en-masse is for the birds. The Potentates of the Gulf know who butters their toast. Now more than ever they need the Indians.
Thank youPlease carry on exactly as you are.
That's the spirit old chap!Thank you
Will come again
Lol. Who has denied this? Let them speak. If they can do anything, let them. I was referring to the video of the Princess.
You are the ones who regularly want money or oil or loans from the Arabs or Americans or the Chinese. If the Arabs want to bad mouth us, let them. If they want to praise us, that's fine too. It's not a big deal for us.
What can Indians do against Arabs?? Arabs have been bad mouthing you Indian on face, deporting Indians, threatening you, you are just born slaves, check flight details, even UAE offered for returned flights.
Fact is India has been made a joke in the Arab world and whole world where Indians are left to defend themselves whether its Pakistanis u intentionally included in ur Arab-India spats or the Arabs themselves fixing and exposing RSS and Indians 1.2 billions of them all over world. I donot know if u donot understand it by now what has happened with Indian dignity, super power self esteem, Bharat super power and all the big tall claims. Aukat dekha di saab nein Indians ko.
Har koi ly raha Indians ki, so aplogetic on media and RSS extremist at the same time tell u Indians straight on ugly faces.