FIA arrests individuals maligning Pak Army on social media

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 13 April 2022

The Federal Investigation Agency has apprehended multiple individuals linked to a campaign against the Pakistan Army. This crackdown follows Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's directives to combat misinformation.

Summary

ISLAMABAD—The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested 12 suspects for alleged involvement in launching a social media campaign against the Pakistan Army and malign security institutions, Geo News reported.

The "mastermind" behind the anti-Army social media campaign was the first to be nabbed during a raid by the FIA in Lahore's Sabzazar area.

Sources said that seven more suspects, including a "mastermind" and six other members of his network, have been arrested by the agency's anti-terrorism wing. Five others were arrested earlier after the FIA started a crackdown against the "smear campaign," per Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's directives.

Sources within FIA said that nine cases had been registered against the suspects.

They said that high-level social media monitoring is being done daily in Islamabad, which brought a top social media trend below no 4.

During interrogation, the detainee — who was reportedly behind over 2,100 Twitter accounts involved in the propaganda against the Pakistan Army — revealed his six accomplices operating in different cities, who were later arrested.

It was learned that a total of 200,000 tweets against the Pakistan Army were posted through the said 2,100 accounts. Meanwhile, the agency identified another 2,000 accounts involved in hate speech on Twitter.

At an internal briefing, the FIA's cybercrime wing director said that at least 50,000 web pages had been identified in connection with the propaganda campaign against the Pakistan Army and the judiciary. Most of the pages were being operated from abroad.

The FIA director-general also held a key meeting at the FIA headquarters to address the issue on priority.