Device used to send threat to NZ team belonged to India: Fawad
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said on Wednesday that the device used to send a threat to the New Zealand cricket team belonged to India.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad alongside Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the minister said that the entire situation started due to a fake post by someone claiming to be Tehreek-iTaliban Pakistan (TTP) militant Ehsanullah Ehsan. Fawad said that in August, a fake post was created under Ehsan's name which told the New Zealand cricket board and government to refrain from sending the team to Pakistan as it would be "targeted".
He said that following this post, the bureau chief of The Sunday Guardian, Abhinandan Mishra, published an article claiming that the team may face a terror threat in Pakistan citing the fake post by Ehsan. According to its website, The Sunday Guardian was founded by politician MJ Akbar, who served as the minister for external affairs in the Modi-led BJP government till 2018.
"Interestingly, [Mishra] has strong links with [former Afghanistan vice president] Amrullah Saleh," he said. He said that on August 24, New Zealand opener Martin Guptill's wife received an email threatening her husband from ID with the username "Tehreek-i-Labbaik".
"When we investigated further, we discovered some facts. Firstly, this email is not affiliated with any social media network [...] and only one email has been generated from this account," he said.
The minister added that the email was sent via ProtonMail, a secure service. "The details [of the email] are not available and we have requested Interpol to assist us and tell us how generated."
Despite these events, the New Zealand cricket team did not cancel the tour at this point and travelled to Pakistan. "As the interior minister said, the security we provided outnumbered the number of people in their forces," he said.
Fawad said that once the Black Caps arrived, the interior ministry issued a detailed protocol programme for them and the teams began focusing on the practice sessions. The New Zealand team participated in the practice sessions "without any issues," he said. However, on the day of the first match New Zealand officials said that their government had concerns of a credible threat and cancelled the tour, he said.
"Pakistan Cricket Board officials, the interior ministry security team, everyone went to them and asked them to share the threat ... [but] they were as clueless as us." He said that a day later, a second
it was threatening email was sent to the New Zealand team using the ID, Hamza Afridi. He said that when authorities probed the email, they discovered that it was sent from a device associated with India. "It was sent using a virtual private network (VPN) so the location was shown as Singapore."
He said that the same device had 13 other IDs, nearly all of which were Indian names. "All IDs were made using the names of Indian actors and celebrities. Only the name Hamza Afridi is different to show that this email was generated from Pakistan.
"His name was used deliberately to show that a terrorist threat is present in Pakistan."
He said that the user of the particular device had been identified as Omprakash Mishra from Maharashtra. "The device used to send the threat to the New Zealand team belonged to India. A fake ID was used but it was sent from Maharashtra."