The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has so far arrested 12 suspects for alleged involvement in launching a social media campaign against the Pakistan Army and malign security institutions, following recent political developments in the country. Reports 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,” as per Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s directives. Sources within FIA said that nine cases have been registered against the suspects. They said that high-level social media monitoring is being done on a daily basis in Islamabad, which brought a top social media trend below no 4. The “mastermind” behind the anti-Army social media campaign was the first one to get nabbed during a raid by the FIA in Lahore’s Sabzazar area. During interrogation, the detainee – who was reportedly behind over 2,100 Twitter accounts involved in the propaganda against the Pakistan Army – revealed the names his six accomplices operating in different cities, who were later arrested. It was learnt 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. The FIA’s cybercrime wing director said at an internal briefing that at least 50,000 web pages had been identified in connection with the propaganda campaign against the Pakistan Army and the judiciary and 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 Tuesday.
FIA arrests 12 for ‘maligning’ army, judiciary
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has so far arrested 12 suspects for alleged involvement in launching a social media campaign against the Pakistan Army and malign security institutions, following recent political developments in the country. Reports said that seven more suspects, including a “mastermind” and six other members of his network, have been arrested by […]
