‘Fake threat originated from India caused New Zealand to cancel the tour,’ says Fawad
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry in his recent press conference has said that fake emails from India is behind the withdrawal of New Zealand’s tour of Pakistan.
Fawad Chaudhry along with Sheikh Rasheed disclosed the facts behind NZC abandonment of their Pakistan tour. Information Minister said that Pakistan was facing the fifth-generation warfare and tweets were posted from India to harm the revival of international cricket in the country.
In the press conference, it has been disclosed that a fake threat was sent via email which basically originated from India. However, the location had been changed via VPN to Singapore.
Fawad added that the device has 13 other IDs as well, all of which are named after Indian movies and songs.
“Only one of these IDs is named Hamza Afridi, just to show that it has been generated from Pakistan,” said the minister.
Fawad Chaudhry stated about the development of a fake social media post that was shared which falsely quoted the former TTP commander Ehsanullah Ehsan’s name, stating that the New Zealand cricket team could be targeted while touring Pakistan.
“The post stated that New Zealand cricket team should not go to Pakistan as Daesh would attack it, Abhinandan Mishra wrote an article in the UK newspaper by making the fake post as a base,” disclosed the information minister.
On August 24, Chaudhry mentioned, New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill’s wife received a threatening email from an account titled “[email protected]”. The alleged email said that Guptill would be killed in Pakistan.
The minister further stated: “This email account too was created hours before it generated its first and the last message [….] despite these threats, New Zealand arrived in Pakistan and conducted full practice sessions for two days.”
Fawad said the New Zealand team’s security officials, at around 11 am on the eve of the first match, told the local authorities that they had wanted to cancel the tour.
“Upon asking the details, they had no idea about any of the threat and said they were advised by their government to abort the tour,” he continued.
Fawad said Prime Minister Imran Khan was informed about the development minutes after his address at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tajikistan.
The minister said the PM then contacted New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and told her that the decision would end up in bitterness and would have a long-lasting negative impact before the tour was finally called off.
Fawad Chauhdry has mentioned that Pakistan is contacting Interpol on threat alerts and fake email IDs.
After reviewing all the threats and issues, our security agencies declared them as fake, Fawad added.
Due to this withdrawal of tour by New Zealand Cricket Team, England Cricket Team has also canceled their tour of Pakistan which was supposed to be held in October before the grand event of ICC T20 World Cup.
