DNA Edit: Virtual front – Pakistan’s fury is spilling out in all directions

Pakistan finds itself in an unenviable position. The spectre of defeat at the UNSC and the inability to rake up international interest in Kashmir, despite best efforts, is driving the country up the wall. Leading the diatribe is Pakistani premier Imran Khan, who is spending more time these days on his Twitter handle than in office.  His latest tweet warns of the safety of India’s nuclear arsenal under the Modi government as “this is an issue that impacts not just the region, but the world.” This comes after Rajnath Singh’s remarks that India could review its no-first-use nuke policy. This has been followed by alleged threats to the visiting Indian cricket team in West Indies and arson at the Indian high commission in London. Indian tourists have been heckled at in third countries like South Korea, which are far removed from the scene of any action. 

In other words, the Pakistani anger is spilling in all possible directions and all possible ways, where it thinks it can hit India. This battle of perception has now spilled into the virtual world. Islamabad has taken to defaming Indian Army officers and spreading lies about ‘Indian atrocities’ in Kashmir through its official social media handles. Needless to say, it has backfired. The latest in this sequence of events is the hacking of the Twitter account of a serving Colonel with two tweets posted there: One talked about the deaths of a large number of Indian soldiers in Kashmir, the other was the Colonel’s resignation. As it turned out, the officer in question was posted in Rajasthan and not Kashmir! Then came ‘news’ of the death of a Major General rank officer in a Pakistani attack. Yet again, the Pakistanis had not done their homework. The officer in question has long moved out of Kashmir to Dehradun.