No role in disinformation campaign: MEA

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 11

The government on Friday denied involvement in a 15-year-long disinformation campaign that was allegedly being fronted by a Delhi-based think tank.

“India as a responsible country does not practise disinformation,” said MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava when asked about a NGO “EU DisinfoLab” pointing fingers at a website “The EU Chronicle” which, it said, was “the newest iteration of an influence campaign run by an Indian organisation called the Srivastava Group”.

The website was said to be a feeder for mainstream Indian publications via an Indian news agency that gave articles published in “The EU Chronicle” an aura of credibility by quoting from them.

The NGO also said the website mainly drives Indian security interests mainly against Pakistan and China by publishing content against their activities which is reused by an Indian news agency and hundreds of other domains.

The MEA said on the contrary it is the “country next door that purveys fake news’’ by manufacturing fictitious dossiers. In a thinly veiled hint at Pakistan, it said such sleights are practiced by “those with records to hide” such as sheltering Osama Bin Laden or to “cover up their tracks such as after the 2008 Mumbai attacks”.