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ISLAMABAD: The federal government has expanded the scope of investigations into the smear campaign launched against the military officers who were martyred in the Lasbela helicopter crash, including the officials from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in a six-member inquiry committee established to ascertain the facts.
The Ministry of Interior has issued the notification of the six-member team to be constituted by the FIA.
Lt. Colonel Saad of the ISI and Waqar Nisar Deputy Director Intelligence Bureau will be the part of the joint inquiry team of FIA, and intelligence agencies will investigate under the supervision of Additional Director Cybercrime FIA Mohammad Jafar. The team includes FIA Director, FIA Cyber Crime Wing Waqaruddin Syed, Additional Director, Cyber Crime Ayaz Khan and Assistant Director Imran Haider.
According to the authorities, the six-member joint inquiry team of FIA and intelligence agencies will find out those who ran the negative campaign related regarding the helicopter accident and the martyrs. The team will also find out who was behind these elements or who were involved in running this campaign to defame the country.
Following the inquiry by the Joint Inquiry Team, legal action will be taken by registering cases against those found involved.
Earlier, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) had condemned the social media campaign on the tragic Pakistan Army helicopter crash which left six military personnel martyred.
“The regretful social media campaign after the unfortunate helicopter crash on August 1 has caused deep anguish and distress among Shuhada families and rank and file of the Armed Forces,” said the military’s media wing.
On the other hand, the PTI vowed that if it was attacked in the name of the FIA probe, it had all the due “capability, skills and human resources” of social media to prove the lies and bring forth the truth.
“We have all the skills and resources to carry out the forensic analysis of any social media campaign,” PTI Secretary General Asad Umar said.
“It’s ridiculous to blame and target the PTI for this campaign. We have a very strong social media team, which has always worked for awareness and respect of the institutions. We have the capability to determine and trace who’s behind all this negative campaign.”
The former minister welcomed the move to penalize those who were running the negative campaign against the institutions, but demanded that any move should be in line with the defined rules and not intended for political vendetta.
He then referred to a youth, who was identified as one of those behind the smear campaign against the army and had later apologized in a video statement for the “objectionable” posts on his accounts.
“That particular boy didn’t have many followers nor was a known person,” he said. “But to make a case, his unnoticed tweets were used by some influencers and media professionals with hundreds of thousands of followers. This proves that it’s more to settle scores than showing respect for any institution.”