KARACHI: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) on Friday denied that any of its official social media wings posted defamatory material against the Jang-Geo Group on the web, saying that the so-called “whitepaper” appears a conspiracy by hidden hands to pitch the party against the country’s largest media group.

“It is a conspiracy to set the PTI against the Jang Group,” Shafqat Mahmood, a senior PTI leader and its MNA from Lahore, told The News. “Some third force, having nefarious designs, wants to exploit PTI’s name and spoil its relations with the Jang-Geo Group.”

The so-called “whitepaper” has been posted on various social media sites earlier on Friday allegedly by the PTICyberForce (PTICF). The highly slanderous material echoed the groundless allegations that were recently made against the Jang-Geo management mainly by a private news channel and its anchorperson. A powerful stock broker, a senior journalist and a self-proclaimed spokesperson of Pakistani intelligence agencies remain the other three main actors in this organized propaganda campaign aimed at maligning the Jang-Geo Group and its management.

However, the PTICF too denied “writing or publishing” any whitepaper against the Group. “PTICyberForce’s name is being used by publishing an article…PTICyberForce strongly denies this act,” the PTICF said in one of its tweets. “PTICF did not write or publish any whitepaper against Geo or Jang.”

Asad Umar, another lawmaker, said that PTICF supports the party, but it should not be seen as any official wing of the PTI. “As far as I know, the PTICF has already said that it was not behind this propaganda campaign,” he said. “The agenda of using the PTI’s name is clear… someone wants to stoke friction between the PTI and the Jang Group.”

He said that PTI leaders plan to discuss the issue in detail on Saturday.

Successive civilian and military governments have a stained history of targeting and victimizing the country’s independent media through a series of overt and covert harsh measures. From outright closure of newspapers and television channels to scores of other arm-twisting measures were used to suppress press freedom. The Jang Group remained the prime target of various kinds of victimization campaigns and paid the price of speaking the truth under various governments in the form of closure of its channels and attempts to stifle its revenue sources. But never before such an organized defamation campaign launched against any media group as faced by the Jang-Geo Group today.

This underlines the possibility of a deep-rooted conspiracy aimed at undermining the Jang-Geo Group, which has a long, proud tradition of fighting such pressures. The Jang-Geo Management has already issued a detailed response to these groundless, biased and highly inflammatory allegations made by a particular television channel and another group’s newspapers.

The Jang Group also announced plans to go to the court of law against all the people involved in this smear propaganda drive and vows to bring them to justice. As in the past, the Jang-Geo Group will continue to uphold its highest traditions of independent, fair, balanced and factual journalism, which makes it the number media group of Pakistan.

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