ISLAMABAD: The United States is seeking assistance of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to trace a person sending threatening messages to US President Donald Trump from Pakistan, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Government Assurances was informed on Monday.
A top FIA official informed the NA body about US’s request, as well as complaints about social media posts depicting Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan as Lord Shiva.
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FIA Cyber Crimes director retired Capt Muhammad Shoaib said it was hard to track down people who posted blasphemous material on social media.
About the US request, he said the US authorities had last week contacted the FIA with a complaint that someone had threatened Mr Trump and sought help to identify the person who had sent the message. But the FIA couldn’t trace the person so far, he informed the lawmakers.
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According to report, US authorities have been advised to contact the FIA through proper diplomatic channels that is Foreign Office. “We will start investigation after getting a request through diplomatic channels, and after identifying the person who threatened Mr Trump, we will provide information through the same channel,” he added.
Recently a picture of Imran Khan was going viral on Facebook and Twitter, depicting him as a Hindu deity. The FIA official said as many as 17 accounts had been identified from where the pictures had been posted. About 15 of them were based in India, and only two of them were from Pakistan, he said, adding that of the two accounts in Pakistan, one had deleted the post but the other still carried it.
Mr Shoaib said that since social media [Facebook] was controlled from the US, they had forwarded a request to the US Webmaster for information about the user who had initially uploaded the picture.
According to Indian Express report, the edited photo of Khan was posted on social media by a Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), PML-N, supporter on April 8, 2018, and since then, it has gone viral on several online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Screenshots of the picture shows it being posted on a Facebook page called ‘We Love Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and PML(N)’, although, after a search through Facebook, the post is no longer available.
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