Pakistan runs fake social media campaigns over killing of Punjabi Singer Sidhu Moose Wala
Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, popularly known as Sidhu Moose Wala, was shot dead by unidentified assailants who opened fire at the singer on May 29, near his native village in Punjab, India.
Pakistan is frequently lambasted by the global community due to its violation of human rights. The country also has unstable politics which is gripped by constant protests and demonstrations. And yet, Pakistan finds the killing of Sidhu Moose Wala as an opportunity to play its agenda card. Pakistan found it an apt opportunity to sail their ship of propaganda, reported Digital Forensics, Research, and Analytics Center (DFRAC).
Fake Pakistani accounts are running hashtags like #RawKilledMoosewala and trying to blatantly diminish the reputation of India’s intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Following the news of Moose Wala’s death at around 6:15 pm on May 29, the first tweet which came up on Twitter was from a Pakistani account.
This was just the start and after this first post, many Pakistani accounts divulged the social media similar accusations against the prestigious institution of India. The investigation into the accounts reveals that all of these accounts were Pakistani accounts.
All these users have blamed and spread disinformation about RAW killing Sidhu Moosewala. All of these accounts belong to Pakistan. @masheengunmulla has tweeted a maximum number of times followed by @haiderzarrar1 whose account no longer exists. @awaisikram788 and @truthse68829926 also tweeted on the same topic.
The crucial thing to note here is that some of these accounts were created for the sole purpose of defaming India. After pushing the agenda they changed their username.
The propaganda took off very quickly. Soon after renowned personalities from Pakistan picked the agenda, some Sikh organizations jumped in to fuel the facade. They even attempted to draw parallels between the incident of 1984 and the killing of Moosewala.
All behind the screen who were fuelling this agenda campaign seemed to be copying each others’ content to escalate the fake narrative. A total of 26 accounts contributed, all being Pakistani and among them, most of them were of former Prime Minister Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.