Islamabad: Leading Pakistani newspapers acknowledged Friday they were hoaxed after publishing reports based on fake WikiLeaks cables that contain crude anti-Indian propaganda.
Much of Pakistan's media toes a pro-military, anti-Indian line, which was reflected by the papers' extensive coverage of the fake memos.
The instigators of the hoax remain unclear, though the material appeared to have originated on a news website that features anti-Indian and pro-Pakistani articles.
The Express Tribune, which partners with the International Herald Tribune in Pakistan, said it "deeply regrets" publishing the story. Other papers acknowledged the reports were false.
Still, Jang, which had carried the fake WikiLeaks on its front page, made no mention of the affair Friday, while The Nation daily ran an editorial saying the hoax had exposed "India's true face."
The WikiLeaks disclosures have dominated Pakistani media since they appeared, with pundits highlighting elements that appear to confirm their stance on the country's military and political leaders, as well as the influence of America and other countries on Pakistan's internal affairs.
PTI, reporting from Islamabad, said the papers had "reproduced an elaborate Internet hoax". The Guardian, which is one of the newspapers partnering with WikiLeaks in the publication of the cables, said the reports could be "the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes".
"An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations," said The Guardian report on the fake cables. Pakistan's The News ran a screaming front-page headline 'Enough evidence of Indian involvement in Balochistan, Waziristan'. A similar story was published in the group's mass-selling Urdu daily Jang. The Urdu Nawa-i-Waqt too carried the story.
The Nation ran a story on its front page headlined 'Kashmir genocide like Bosnia'. The Express Tribune, a partner of the International Herald Tribune, reported the fake leaks on an inside page.
The reports claimed former Indian Army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor had been described in the cables as an "incompetent combat leader" and "rather a geek", and that the Army was split into "two groups" led by Gen. Kapoor and current chief Gen. V K Singh.
The PTI story on the fake WikiLeaks reports referred to unspecified Pakistani bloggers noting that the "Internet hoax" for which the newspapers fell "was first traced to the website of the Daily Mail, a Pakistani newspaper known for publishing conspiracy theories.
The Guardian reported that the stories were credited to Online Agency, "an Islamabad-based news service that has frequently run pro-Army stories in the past". Shaheen Sehbai, Group Editor at The News, told The Guardian that his paper had carried "agencies copy" and that he would investigate.
The Guardian noted that the publication of the stories "fits in with the wider Pakistani reaction to WikiLeaks since the first cables emerged". While reports in the West have focussed on US worries over Pakistan's nuclear weapons and its establishment's backing of terrorists, the Pakistani media has, in general, "given a wide berth to stories casting the military in a negative light", the newspaper said.
"The lopsided media coverage highlights the strong influence of Pakistan's Army over an otherwise vigorous free press," The Guardian wrote.
Source: AP/The Indian Express