“I’ve never had any training,” he told us in a message, “this was rather spontaneous but the song is one I grew up listening to and one I quite admire myself”.
Junaid was seen crooning to the chartbuster song, Kya Hua Tera Waada from the hit Bollywood film Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahi starring Rishi Kapoor. Although they hired a professional singer, Navin Kundra, who enthralled the audience with his songs, Junaid’s rendition of the famous song took the Nikkah and social media by storm.
The song was sung by one of India’s most legendary playback singers, Mohammed Rafi. We asked Junaid that since the song was way before his time, how did he know the lyrics to one of Bollywood’s classics and if he had any other oldie favourites.
“Many of Rafi Sahib’s,” he responded, “I think I just grew up listening to them and appreciating these lyrics.”
Even though the song wasn’t planned and was ‘spontaneous’ as Junaid mentioned, we had to ask if he sings to his wife Ayesha and if they do any duets.
Late Monday night, PMLN Chief Nawaz Sharif’s grandson Junaid Safdar uploaded a picture on his Instagram account only to delete it a few seconds later. Our hawk-eye NewsDesk took a screenshot before he deleted the picture taken at his wedding.
The picture Junaid uploaded and then deleted
The picture shows a glowing Ayesha and a happy Junaid smiling at the camera with the caption “22.08.21❤️”. Junaid deleted the picture from his Instafeed and then made the picture his display picture instead.
We reached out to Junaid and asked him why he deleted the picture from his Instafeed. “I deleted the pic because they’re emailing me the original with pixel quality…the picture I uploaded was not clear,” he said via message, and also told us to expect pictures and videos next week that capture some “emotional moments”.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) says it is ready to support a no-confidence motion to overthrow the government provided the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) comes up with a workable proposal.
“We’re ready to support the PPP’s idea for dislodging the PTI government through a no-confidence motion but it should put forward a workable proposal for this purpose,” said PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal, reported Dawn.
If PPP brought a successful no-trust motion against the Senate chairman, then the PML-N would follow suit by moving a no-confidence motion in the Punjab Assembly, where the PPP has only six seats, said Iqbal.
Iqbal said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) chairman was “dancing to the tune of the government” because the latter had some (objectionable) video clips of the NAB chief.
He challenged the NAB chairman to ask retired general Asim Saleem Bajwa as to how he had gathered assets worth millions of dollars through his salary.
Regarding Prime Minister Imran Khan’s image of “Mr Clean”, the PML-N leader said he was living in a one kanal rented house and was paying more income tax than the premier who lives in a 300-plus kanal palace.
Iqbal asked PTI supporters to explain this oddity to the masses.
A report released by the Digital Media Wing (DMW) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting titled, ‘Anti-State Trends: Deep Analytics Report’ is deeply misleading and based on assumptions instead of facts, The Current has discovered after analysing the report.
Glaring errors and almost comical additions, the report makes a correlation between analysing hashtags on Twitter to determine if someone is anti-state and is responsible for starting trends against Pakistan.
Before analysing the report, The Current researched and spoke with analysts who are well-versed with digital analysis. There is no record of any report on hashtag analysis to determine trends at a government level in any country at any time. Pakistan is the only country that has created a report based on hashtag analysis. Worldwide, hashtag analysis is considered to be deeply unreliable since it cannot understand what is written in the tweet – it is just able to see what is being discussed.
WHAT IS THE REPORT?
The report is a compilation of hashtags that created trends that the government deems anti-state. The report shows information collected about hashtag trends and then lists pages of screenshots that show different Twitter handles sharing tweets that have the ‘anti-state’ hashtag. They do not differentiate between users and also label ‘influencers’ – people with a following who have tweeted or retweeted/replied to the hashtag.
In effect, the report seems to declare all the users in the report as anti-state, until one prominent journalist got them to add a disclaimer last night.
HOW WAS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED?
Since the whole report is based on hashtag analysis, it will be considered to be unreliable data collection and cannot be considering as a legitimate report in any institution.
When The Current reached out to General Manager of the Digital Media Wing (DMW), Imran Ghazali, he responded to the question of faulty analysis of hashtags by saying, “The purpose of this report was to ascertain factual data and to analyze social media trends that were anti-state, Data was collected after analysing Pakistan Twitter Panel from June 2019- August 2021. Those hashtags were marked for data collection where the content of tweets were planned and propagated through a network to spread anti-state trends.”
According to a source in the government, the information used is public. “Publicly released data is accurate. It’s no rocket science, anybody with a credit card can get this data. Hence made public.”
From The Current’s analysis, the data was collected by using a web application called, ‘Tweeps Map’, which is open to the public.
From our findings, the 134-page report has 85 pages that have screenshots of tweets, which means that 63.4 per cent of the report is based on screenshots of people who are using a certain hashtag that the government has identified as being anti-state. The number of tweets that are in these 85 pages amount to 666 tweets out of which 142 tweets are from three accounts, which means that 21.3 per cent of the tweets used in this study came from three people.
After further analysis of the three accounts, The Current discovered that all three accounts had a combined following of less than 11,000.
We discovered that the hashtag #SanctionPakistan was ‘analysed’ for 41 days, Pakhtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) hashtags were clubbed together as “PTM Trends Tantamount to National Security” (the report doesn’t list which hashtags were used within this topic) and were ‘analysed’ for 22 months, #AbAwamSmashNahiHogi was ‘analysed’ for one day, and #StateKilledUsmanKakar, #IsraeliJetinPakistan, ‘JUIF Anti State Trend’, was ‘analysed’ but no time duration is given.
WHY AND WHEN WAS THE ‘DISCLAIMER’ ADDED?
The report was released Wednesday evening around 5:30PM and a few hours later a disclaimer was added to the report. According to journalist Fereeha Idrees, the disclaimer was added after she raised the issue with the DMW for being highlighted in the report as a ‘replies with the most followers’ account.
“I have always raised my voice against any propaganda against our state but the way the report was compiled, it made me look as one of the culprits and suddenly social media was rife with messages calling me anti-state,” Fereeha told The Current, “When I made the query, I was given the following explanation.”
The explanation given to Fereeha by the DMW stated, “All the accounts in the report doesn’t mean they took part in the anti-state activity…It shows the whole journey of the trends/hashtags, so in this case Fareeha Idrees replied/rebutted on the Israeli related trend and that’s why it mentions ‘Replies with most mentions’ in the report.”
After the DMW response, Fereeha demanded that they add a disclaimer to the report. A disclaimer was added which stated, “If an account is listed in a report – it doesn’t always imply that the content of the tweet is Anti-State. Some accounts have engaged/replied with an anti-state hashtag to rebut. But since they used the hashtag their accounts got listed in the report.”
Imran Ghazali admitted to adding the disclaimer after Fereeha raised an objection about the fairness of the report.
The Current asked Ghazali about how they have divided the report to show which people mentioned were anti-state and which ones were considered pro-state. Ghazali refused to directly answer the question and stated, “We have not given any number for pro-state or anti-state accounts but showed below the hashtags we highlighted the accounts which contributed to a certain hashtag – tweets, top contributors, replies etc.”
When we pressed him to answer the question about how the people selected were separated into anti-state and pro-state, he said, “If an account is listed in a report – it doesn’t always imply that the content of the tweet is Anti-State. Some accounts have engaged/replied with an anti-state hashtag to rebut. But since they used the hashtag their accounts got listed in the report.”
The implication of his answers show that the report does not – and cannot- differentiate people’s points of view on a tweet, which means that someone who has posted a ‘pro-state’ tweet condemning the hashtag will also be added into the list of someone who is considered anti-state.
WAS THE GOVERNMENT ALLOWED TO USE THE APP ‘TWEEPSMAP’?
The Current reached out to TweepsMap, which was the primary analysis app used by the government for this report. The maps and information all have the Tweepsmap link on the maps and all charts in the report. We asked the CEO of TweepsMap Samir Al-Battran if they considered the analysis of the report to be authentic since it used their app service. Samir told us, “The government of Pakistan is not authorised to use our service. We will investigate how they got access to our analysis and get back to you on this.”
We asked him for further details, asking if an individual used their service for analysis for a government funded report, would that be against their rules, to which Samir replied and said, “…Government agencies go through a vetting process before we allow them to use our service. We were never in communication with the government of Pakistan…Yes, [using the app without informing us what it is for] would be a misrepresentation and is definitely against our rules.”
The Current asked Ghazali if they used the application and if they had authorisation to which he said, “We used different tools/APIs including our internal tools to analyse data”. We asked him since TweepsMap is the only one that is being listed in the report, if they had gotten a subscription for the government of Pakistan to which we got no response.
WHAT ELSE IS IN THE REPORT?
We analysed the tweets used in the 85 screenshots present in the report and found some comical discrepancies. One retweet had the #SajalAly hashtag along with the ‘anti-state’ hashtag ‘#AccountabilityofZarbeAzb’. We went through the Twitter account to find that the tweet mentioned in the report was a meme of Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan.
A tweet by former Interior Minister Rehman Malik is included in the #SanctionPakistan list in which he is criticising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US.
The tweet Rehman Malik retweeted
The report also includes references to “a group of Wikipedia Admins most of whom are based in India,” giving state level credibility to an online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. With glaring spelling mistakes and analysis based on unauthorised data, the summary of the Digital Media Wing Deep Analysis report has been summed up by one senior data analyst based in Singapore, “That just goes to show… they don’t understand how it works.”
The date has been announced and the Nikkah invite has been sent out. Junaid Safdar, the son of PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz and Capt (r) Safdar, will be getting married to Ayesha, the daughter of former National Accountability Chairman, Saif-ur-Rehman.
According to reports, Maryam Nawaz and Captain (R) Safdar will not be attending the Nikkah ceremony.
Maryam Nawaz has tweeted about not being able to attend her son’s wedding due to her name being on the Exit Control List.
My son Junaid’s nikah with Ayesha Saif-ur-Rahman Khan will take place in London on 22nd August Insha’Allah. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the ceremony owing to blatant victimisation, bogus cases and my name on ECL. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/7HYrm5mNaH
The wedding invite states that the wedding is on Sunday, August 22 at 6PM. The Nikkah is taking place at a fancy hotel in London, called The Lanesborough.
The hotel is reputably one of the most expensive in London, situated near Hyde Park.
View of one of the marriage halls in the hotel
View of the hotel from the outside
Since the wedding invite states that the event is the Nikkah, it is being speculated that the rukhsati will not take place until Junaid’s parents can be in attendance.
Maryam also tweeted that she was unable to see her mother before she died and now she has to miss her son’s wedding.
I was in jail when my beloved mother passed away and now I won’t be able to share my son’s happiness, but, I will NOT make any request to this government for travel abroad. I leave the matter to Almighty Allah. https://t.co/hNXBSpa7yB
Former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif says that his party will continue its fight against the violators of the Constitution.
Nawaz Sharif, who is in London for medical treatment since 2019, posted a series of tweets and reaffirmed his party’s stance.
“This struggle is not for winning or losing seats (in AJK polls) but for freedom from the transgressors and violators of the Constitution and standing on the right side of history without compromising on our self-respect,” tweeted Sharif.
یہ جدوجہدمحض چند سیٹوں کی ہار جیت کے لئے نہیں بلکہ آئین شکنوں کی غلامی سے نجات کے لئیے ہے۔ اور اپنی عزتِ نفس پر سمجھوتہ کئے بغیر تاریخ کی درست سمت میں کھڑے نظر آنے کے لئے ہے۔ مسلم لیگ ن اور عوام کے درمیان خلیج ڈالنے کی کوئی کوشش کامیاب نہیں ہو گی اِنشاءاللہ۔ 3/3
Nawaz Sharif said that the people who are suffering due to inflation, poverty, and unemployment, are raising their voice in the streets to get rid of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). They are also decrying the PTI government for raising the prices of flour, sugar, ghee, and medicines, Sharif added.
آسمان سے باتیں کرتی مہنگائی، غربت اور بے روزگاری کی چکی میں پستے عوام، آٹا، چینی، گھی اور دواؤں کے لئے ٹھوکریں کھاتے لوگ، PTI سے نجات کے لئے گلی گلی دہائی دیتی خلقِ خدا، مسلم لیگ ن کے پُر جوش تاریخی جلسے اور حکومتی سربراہوں کا خالی کرسیوں سے خطاب۔ 1/3
The PML-N leader further said that nobody will believe in PTI’s victory where they secured 26 seats in AJK elections with 600,000 votes, while PML-N got six seats with 500,000 votes.
“The results of AJK and Sialkot elections came out before the public way before these elections were held,” added Nawaz.
PMLN کی 5 لاکھ ووٹوں سے 6 سیٹیں اور PTI کی 6 لاکھ ووٹوں سے 26 سیٹیں۔ PTI کی ایسی فتح پر کون یقین کرے گا؟ آزاد کشمیر اور سیالکوٹ کے نتائج جس طرح حاصل کئے گئے اُس کا تذکرہ اِن انتخابات کے دنوں سے پہلے ہی منظر عام پر آنا شروع ہو گیا تھا، باقی آنے والے دنوں میں اور بے نقاب ہو گا۔ 2/3
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif has threatened to quit party leadership, reports Daily Jang.
Shehbaz has shown anger after his strategy for the Azad Kashmir elections was ignored, resulting in the party’s loss.
Leader of the Opposition in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shehbaz has reportedly stopped his father from stepping down.
“Hamza has also assured Shehbaz of taking up this matter with PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif.”
It is also being said that PMLN-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz will remain inactive for at least one year.
When contacted for a comment, senior PML-N leaders, chairperson Raja Zafarul Haq, secretary-general Ahsan Iqbal, spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb, and Ata Tarrar, did not attend phone calls.
In May, senior anchorperson Shahzeb Khanzada revealed that Shehbaz Sharif wants Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz to take a backseat from political activities and stay quiet. The focus should only be on the 2023 general elections. If Nawaz agrees to give full control to Shehbaz, then he will take all Opposition parties on board. He will then also hold a dialogue with the establishment. If Nawaz does not agree, Shehbaz will quit politics. He will not take part in any political activities after that.
Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Ali Amin Khan Gandapur has once again come under fire for making sexist and violent remarks against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz.
Taking a jibe at Maryam, Gandapur said: “You [Maryam] have spent Rs80 million [tax payers] money on surgery. I will unmask your real face before the public by removing [cosmetic surgery].”
“We will slap you in the face so much that your real face will be revealed to everyone,” Gandapur said.
This isn’t the first time Gandpur made such remarks. In November last year, Ali Amin Gandapur had claimed that Maryam Nawaz “owes her beauty to cosmetic surgeries performed at the expense of taxpayers”.
Speaking at a public gathering, the lawmaker went on a sexist tirade against the PML-N vice president. He said the PML-N leader became “beautiful” by spending tax money on her alleged plastic surgeries.
Twitterati reacted to Gandapur’s sexist and misogynist remarks.
PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif tweeted, “His [ Ali Amin Gandapur’s] words are not only violent but also deeply misogynist. Just imagine that people with this mindset have been given the responsibility to govern a country of 220 million people.”
Disgusted by the shameful language Ali Amin Gandapur has used against Maryam Nawaz. His words are not only violent but also deeply mysoginist. Just imagine that people with this mindset have been given the responsibility to govern a country of 220 million people.
“Govt’s claims of its ‘commitment’ to women’s human rights and equality will ring hollow What’s worse is that Gandapur is a serial offender and has made such statements before as well with impunity,” says lawyer Reema Omer.
Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan openly making sexist, inflammatory comments about Maryam Nawaz before a charged crowd using violent language
Almost didn’t believe the reports and had to watch the speech myself
Social Activist Jibran Nasir tweeted, “Prime Minister Imran Khan endorses it & encourages it. About time everyone stops making excuses for PM that he isn’t surrounded by the right people or he is ill-advised.”
IK endorses it & encourages it. About time everyone stops making excuses for PM that he isnt surrounded by right people or he is ill advised. Those who don’t wish to see are unfortunately cult worshippers just like those found in PMLN and PPP who see nothing wrong with leadership https://t.co/GTuwDPr7YX
A Twitter user tweeted, “What are the odds that this is sheer unfiltered hate against women?”
What are the odds that this is the energy of a domestic violence abuser and a rapist? What are the odds that this is sheer unfiltered hate against women? https://t.co/3GqoGiCTAI
Meanwhile, the official Twitter account of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) shared a clip where lawmaker Maleeka Bokhari said, “The language used by Maryam Nawaz for the elected Prime Minister and PTI representatives is reprehensible.”
مریم نواز جو زبان منتخب وزیراعظم اور تحریک انصاف کے نمائندوں کیلئے استعمال کررہی ہیں وہ قابل مذمت ہے اور جو بیانیہ وہ پیش کررہی ہیں وہ بھی قابل مذمت ہے۔ ایسا نہیں ہوسکتا کہ آپ تنقید کریں اور پھر عورت کارڈ کھیلیں- @MalBokharipic.twitter.com/85mENp0rrN
“It is not possible for you [Maryam Nawaz] to criticise and then play the women’s card,” added Bokhari.
Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul tweeted, “Rich of an infamous misogynist Shehbaz Sharif and his abusive deputies who falsely claim PTI encourages such an approach. The track record of the Sharif family is horrific in terms of attacks on women. & Maryam Safdar has actually promoted those who have engaged in openly abusing women!”
Rich of an infamous misogynist Shehbaz Sharif and his abusive deputies who falsely claim PTI encourages such an approach. Track record of Sharif family is horrific in terms of attacks on women. & Maryam Safdar has actually promoted those who have engaged in openly abusing women! pic.twitter.com/1uEa4Joknm
Addressing an election rally in Kotli, Azad Kashmir, Prime Minister Imran Khan said, “Our ally, the one we considered our friend used to do drone attacks on our country. Drone attacks used to occur in Pakistan both during the tenure of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supremo, Nawaz Sharif, and former President, Asif Ali Zardari’s time.
They both used to condemn the attacks but deep with they had permitted for the attacks to occur. Why doesn’t any drone attack happen in my [PM Imran Khan] term.”
“You should not blame the United States for the drone attacks, our own people were involved,” added the prime minister.
PM Khan asked the people to question the Opposition as to what did they do for the betterment of their people while they were in power
“Both PML-N and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) both had five years in power, how much did these two parties advocate for the people of Kashmir internationally?” questioned PM Khan.
Khan reiterated that ever since the Indian Prime Miniter Narendra Modi’s party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came into power, the people of Kashmir have gone through the most turmoil.
“The ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) being practiced by Modi is that of the Nazism, ‘borrowed by the German Nazi’,” said the PM.
“India has the strongest lobby with Israel and our Prime Minister (Nawaz Sharif) was busy inviting Modi to weddings for his own benefit.
Earlier during the day, Prime Minister Imran Khan had rubbished talk of him “wishing to turn Azad Jammu and Kashmir” into a new province of Pakistan.
“I do not know where all this talk has sprung from,” he said, dismissing any notion of such an idea.
“But what I want to make clear now, is that in 1948, there were two United Nations Security Council resolutions which granted the people of Kashmir the right to decide their own future. According to the UN resolutions, the people had to decide whether they want to join Hindustan or Pakistan.
“I want to clarify to all of you today. InshaAllah, a day will come, when all the sacrifices made by the people of Kashmir, will not be wasted. God will grant you that right. There will be a referendum, InshaAllah.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Vice President Maryam Nawaz has alleged that there was a conspiracy to murder Nawaz Sharif when he was in jail.
“Opponents start to tremble as soon as they hear the name of Nawaz Sharif. He was ousted on the basis of Iqama. His position as a prime Minister was snatched from him,” said the Maryam while addressing a rally in Azad Kashmir.
نوازشریف کو اقامے پر باہر بھی نکال دیا بیٹے سے تنخواہ نہ لینے کے مضحکہ خیز جرم پہ باہر نکال دیا وزارت عظمیٰ اور مسلم لیگ ن کی صدارت بھی چھین لی جیلوں میں ڈال دیا لیکن جعلی حکومت کے تین سال بعد آج بھی عمران خان کی صبح شام نوازشریف کے نام سے ہوتی ہے@MaryamNSharifpic.twitter.com/WLZ6kW83cA
