Pakistan has unleashed a malicious propaganda campaign through electronic and print media to defame New Delhi by presenting a distorted picture of events, including the communal riots in Gujarat, taking place in India. The banning of Pakistan Television by the Gujarat government was the result of this malicious campaign. PTV, Pakistan radio and newspapers in Pakistan have been making all sorts of allegations against the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and launched a propaganda on communal lines to create tension in India. New Delhi has taken note of the anti-India propaganda launched against it and says that Pakistan was highly exagerating the events in India and presenting a distorted facts to derive 'propagandist mileage'. ''This amounts to interference in our affairs and presents hostile approach of Pakistan towards India,'' an external affairs ministry official said on Monday. Giving details of the campaign, sources said that radio Pakistan in its programme, 'Punjabi darbar' carried out an episode alleging how Hindu imperialists in India were bent upon converting the country into a 'Hindu rashtra' and the Sikh homeland into a battle field. In the episode, the Indian army was accused of harming the interests of the Sikh farmers living near the Indo-Pak border by not allowing them to visit their fields. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was described in one of the programme on PTV as an 'actor' responsible for enacting dramas like the hijacking of the Indian Airlines aircraft and attacks on the Kashmir assembly in Srinagar and Parliament in New Delhi.
One of the programmes last month had even alleged that the troops deployment at the borders with Pakistan was aimed at influencing voters during the assembly polls in the four states. The Pakistan media had also blamed the government for the attack on the American center at Kolkata.
Bureau Report