New Delhi: When several Pakistani newspapers got hoaxed recently into publishing some stunning, but fake, WikiLeaks “revelations” about India, they became victims, again, of a dubious website that has now established itself as the preeminent source of anti-India fiction for gullible readers — and, as the latest embarrassment showed, journalists — in that country.
The hoax, called immediately by The Guardian, which is one of the news organisations partnering with WikiLeaks to publish the cables, led to retractions and apologies by the newspapers the next day.
The source of the embarrassment was The Daily Mail, a small-time Islamabad-based website (no connection to the British tabloid of the same name), from where the report was lifted. The website, thought to be funded by the ISI, is comic in the vehemence with which it denounces India; it also, however, provides an insight into the workings of the propaganda machinery in Pakistan.
The "revelations" by the "crack team" of the website's reporters, allegedly based in India, have included a series of "scandals", mostly about the debasement of the Indian military, raised serious concerns about the moral character of Indians, and lamented the increasing alienation of India's Muslims.
Consider these stories "broken" by the website -- often sprinkled with names of actual officials, and quoting Indian media reports taken totally out of context:
The Indian Army deployed a battalion of sex workers in Kashmir to provide soldiers with "fun". The prostitutes, disguised as soldiers, were sent out in September 2009. Nine months later, the website published a "follow-up" that reported that the battalion from "red light areas" was pregnant, and scores of "officers" had contracted "sex-related diseases".
The Delhi Commonwealth Games were in fact a cover for a government-sanctioned "mega prostitution extravaganza". But Delhi was "approximately 50 per cent" short of the number of women required, so several other cities and "Punjab and Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the North East" supplied the rest.
ICC president Sharad Pawar has been conniving for five years to get the Pakistani cricket team banned. R&AW has masterminded the grand scheme to taint Pakistani players, "handpicking" bookie Mazhar Majeed, who was a "ticket blacker at movie theatres in Mumbai till a few years back". Majeed now holds a key position in R&AW, and runs "mafia wings, brothel houses, prostitution syndicates, gambling dens, and betting on cricket, soccer and tennis".
The list is endless, and the most sensational articles are bylined "Christina Palmer", an "ace sleuth" of the Daily Mail. Most stories have a flimsy basis in disjointed bits from Indian media reports, which are then distorted to build a story of Indian moral decadence and corruption.
Besides the filth in India, the other theme in the stories is the shining competence and moral uprightness of the Pakistani army. So the recent fake WikiLeaks story on India made the (fake) point that the leaks have said nothing on ISI links to terror organisations - "The cable refused to confirm any involvement of ISI in any terror incident across India and did confirm intelligence collection by its agents and operatives¿"
When contacted, Makhdoom Babar, the website's 'Editor in Chief', was reluctant to talk about his "ace team of reporters". Their names have been changed to protect identity, he said. A detailed email sent to the website got no response.
Source: The Indian Express