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Pahalgam fallout: Pakistan ministers red-faced on global TV, exposed over terror ties
Defence minister Asif's unfounded claim about downing Indian jets was fact-checked, while another minister Tarar struggled to defend Pakistan's stance.
Since the deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, that claimed the lives of 25 Indians and one Nepalese, Pakistani ministers have been facing a storm of international embarrassment, not just over the country’s continued patronage of terrorism, but also for their gaffe-ridden performances on live television.
Pakistan’s defence minister Khawaja Asif has now made headlines for all the wrong reasons. During an interview with CNN recently, Khawaja Asif claimed that Pakistan’s assertion of shooting down five Indian jets, including Rafales, during India’s retaliatory ‘Operation Sindoor’ was based on social media content.
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“It is all on social media, and Indian social media, not our social media. The debris of the jets fell on their side. It is all over the Indian media,” Asif told the journalist when pressed for concrete evidence.
Also Read | ‘Social media’: Pakistan minister's bizarre reply when asked for proof of downing IAF jets
India’s Press Information Bureau later fact-checked the claim and exposed the disinformation. Pakistani social media handles had been circulating an old, unrelated image of a crashed plane, falsely presenting it as a downed Rafale. “#PIBFactCheck: This image is from an earlier incident involving an IAF MiG-21 fighter jet that crashed in Moga district in Punjab in 2021,” the agency clarified on X.
Asif, in the same CNN interview, said that while Pakistan was trying to avoid a full-scale war, it was “ready” for an all-out conflict. “There is a possibility of expansion of this conflict into a full-fledged war, which we are trying to avoid,” he said.
Pakistan’s I&B minister grilled
As global opinion increasingly shifts in India’s favour, Pakistan’s narrative continues to fall apart, most recently in a viral interview featuring Pakistan’s information and broadcasting minister Attaullah Tarar.
During a Sky News interview with journalist Yalda Hakim, Tarar faced repeated fact-checks and rebuttals while trying to defend Pakistan’s position. When he insisted that “there are no terrorist camps in Pakistan” and that “Pakistan is a victim of terrorism,” Hakim reminded him of admissions made by his own colleague just a week earlier.
Also Read | Pakistan minister embarrassed as anchor fact-checks his claim on live TV | Watch
“On my programme, just a week ago, your defence minister Khawaja Asif admitted that Pakistan has for decades had a policy of funding, backing and using terrorist groups as proxies in the country (India),” Hakim pointed out.
She also cited previous statements made by former leaders like Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, and even quoted Bilawal Bhutto’s recent admission that supporting terror outfits had historically been part of Pakistan’s policy. Tarar had no convincing reply, except to fall back on post-9/11 rhetoric and extend an invitation to Hakim to visit Pakistan.
Hakim's parting shot was a hard-hitting reminder: “Let’s not forget, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11, was found hiding in Abbottabad, right there in Pakistan.”
India’s strikes, codenamed Operation Sindoor, targeted nine strategic locations including known launchpads of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in Mudrike and Bahawalpur.
