- Few PTI leaders have contacted the US section of the party to stop the propaganda.
- PTI supporters staged protests in the US during the army chief’s latest visit.
- Party leaders fear their aggressive supporters rather than law enforcement.
ISLAMABAD: Top leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have become hostages of the party’s social media and certain groups of its supporters in the diaspora, which the leaders say are worsening the problems of the party and its founding president imprisoned, but they are unstoppable.
Following the PTI’s recent march towards Islamabad, campaigns have been launched against the Pakistani army and its leader on social media and on roadside screens in some US cities. Some senior party leaders contacted the PTI’s US section to stop the propaganda, but their requests fell on deaf ears.
A key PTI leader said he was reluctant to make public statements against such anti-army propaganda for fear of being dubbed. “ghaddar (traitor)” and trolled by the party’s social networks.
What is unbelievable is that even the official PTI social media is controlled from abroad and is not even under the control of the party’s incumbent president Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, general secretary Salman Akram Raja and by Information Secretary Waqas Akram Shaikh.
Background interactions with various senior PTI leaders show that the party leadership is under enormous pressure from its social media and some select groups of diaspora supporters to avoid public speaking anything that denies propaganda, even if it is false or exaggerated. .
According to a party member, during the army chief’s last visit to the US, protests were staged by PTI supporters. A PTI leader from Pakistan contacted the US section of the party to stop them as they were not considered to be in Pakistan’s interest.
Another senior party leader said PTI leaders were not afraid of law enforcement agencies or forces, but of their aggressive supporters and social media activists. Referring to the recent PTI march towards Islamabad, a source said KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur appeared to be hostage to the hostile mob he was apparently leading.
The source added that after Bushra Bibi repeatedly addressed the gathering and decided to march towards D-Chowk Islamabad, Gandapur was totally helpless and knew that the charging crowd would not allow him to take a different stance . Gandapur and other key party leaders were inclined to stop the march in Sangjani.
During the recent substantive contacts between the government and the PTI, a party leader asked this correspondent not to mention the names of those in contact with the government for an amicable solution, otherwise they and their houses could be attacked by aggressive party supporters.
Information Secretary Shaikh, when approached, said that those who are carrying out on-screen campaigns in the United States against the army and its leader are doing so on their own initiative and that there is no neither such policy nor any direction from the PTI. He said those involved in these malicious campaigns are also not listening to us (PTI leadership).
Regarding PTI’s social media, he said the party does not have paid social media. It includes party volunteers, supporters and voters. He said most of these social media activists are young and act according to their own will and wishes.
“We don’t control them,” he said, adding that social media doesn’t even control anyone. Regarding PTI’s official social media platforms, Shaikh said these platforms are run by PTI men, some of them are in Pakistan and others operate from abroad.
Originally published in News