Thread by @thehawkeyex

Pakistani propaganda handle "South Asia Index" again shares fake news about India.

Qatar security has detained 8 former Navy officials, working on contract at Doha, on espionage charges in Sept'22.

SAI has posted a thread today with all unverified and misleading claims.

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SAI cited "Qatar Media" without naming one that navy officials "may be awarded capital punishment".

DFRAC has performed a fact check & found there is no such news or press release has been published on any account.

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SAI said India didn't "acknowledge" it for "a year".

Both claims are wrong.

The detain happened on 30Aug'22, so can't be "one year".

And then Asianet news in Oct'22 & Dec'22, the Indian officials were in touch with Qatari counterpart & consular access was provided.

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"We attach high priority to the matter", said MEA spox in a media briefing 5 weeks back.

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Now, some info about this handle.

In Jan'23, DFRAC has done detailed profiling of this propaganda handle that often shares fake or misleading news about India, though Pakistan remains in the soft book.

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These are a few samples of Fake News posted by South India Index, compiled by @DFRAC_org .

In a nutshell, the handle doesn't leave any opportunity to malign India's image and feeds misleading materials to some ppl in India & outside who love to exploit situations.

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Even their domain southasiaindex(dot)org is connected to few of "(dot)pk" websites, which is being used by Pakistani websites.

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The headlines of the articles published on their website are good enough to understand on whose behalf South Asia Index works and what is their credibility.

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And if that is not enough, "Rebel attack" and "Indian-administered Kashmir" are the terms that South Asia Index used for the recent Poonch terror attack carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba, where we lost our 5 soldiers.

Do you still want to believe this handle?

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This is not just one handle but this is a Pak agenda-driven network, part of #InformationWarfare and #PsyOp. These handles work in tandem, share misleading or fake news in order to cause political or social chaos, exploit situations against India and build a false narrative.

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