Disinformation being used to create anarchy: Ahsan Iqbal

Interior minister appears in Senate to explain Ch Nisar’s claims about existential threat to country

ISLAMABAD: The government has warned that anarchy is being created in the country by spreading disinformation among country’s institutions ‘in order to create division among them’ and that such anarchy is the biggest threat to the country.

“The tool of disinformation is being used in the cyber age to create anarchy in the country and division among [state] institutions and society. We will not need any external foes if there is anarchy in the country,” Minister for Interior Ahsan Iqbal said on Tuesday.

He was speaking in the Senate which had summoned him to explain claims of his predecessor, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, about existential threat to the country.

In a recent TV interview, Nisar had claimed that only four individuals – two civilians including him and former premier Nawaz Sharif, and two armed forces personnel – knew the imminent threats to country.

Iqbal told the upper house that the civil and military leadership was cognizant of the grave threats the country was facing and that there was no challenge which could not be overcome with the muscle of the national unity.

The interior minister was called to the Senate on the demand of Leader of Opposition Aitzaz Ahsan, who had raised the issue last week and requested Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani to summon him.



According to Aitzaz, if Nisar’s claim was true then even the incumbent PM and the current military leadership were not aware of the threat as Nisar had referred to some meeting in which only the then interior minister, prime minister, army chief and Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) chief were present.

Iqbal said there was no such forum where only four individuals were told about a national security challenge. He said the cabinet’s committee on the national security was the supreme forum for such issues.

Not satisfied with Iqbal’s reply, Aitzaz proposed that the matter be discussed in detail at a meeting of the Senate’s committee of the whole where Nisar could also be invited to give an in-camera briefing.



The Senate chairman said media reports suggested that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi would be meeting US Vice President Mike Pence on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session. He advised the PM to only meet the US president and not the vice-president.

“It is downgrading for Pakistan and a ridiculing step against a country which has played an important role in the war on terror in the region. If Trump does not have time for our prime minister then our premier should not have time for the US president,” he said.

Referring to the issue of Baloch separatist placing posters in Geneva, Rabbani said Pakistan is accused by the West of harbouring terrorists but Switzerland is encouraging separatists and terrorists from its soil. He summoned the foreign minister to the house today (Wednesday) for a statement on the issue.