- – A foreign intelligence agency was working to counter Bol Media house before its launch.
- – The said agency earlier connived with a local media house to defame the upcoming media organization.
- – Simple media venture by a Software company was earlier portrayed to be financed by controversial underworld Don.
- – Bol media venture also portrayed to be having backing of country’s security establishment through motivated campaigns.
- – After being exposed for joint venture with local media house, foreign intelligence shifted focus on Axact, the parent organization of Bol.
- – People were planted into Axact to push the company into a stage of top controversy, months back.
- – While the planted Axact staffers completed given target of selling fake degrees, with the said foreign intelligence agency providing the haul of buyers via internet, the issue was documented properly with sinister designs.
- – The documented evidences of online sale of fake educational degrees by some Axact staffers was then handed over to a US journalist by the operators of said intelligence agency.
- – The US journalist concerned was not having the professional beat of covering issue related to education affairs in Pakistan or anywhere else as he has no experience for the same.
- – The said US journalist was given the beat of defense, diplomatic and political affairs by his employers and he had nothing to do with the educational sector in Pakistan.
By Makhdoom Shaharyar Babar
The Pakistani media is buzzed with a news about a local software firm “Axact” that had found in a web of conspiracies for online sale of fake educational degrees by some of its staffers. This a mega buzz in local media not because it is something like unearthing of a mega scandal but merely because the company in question has become a huge threat to local media outlets as it is preparing to launch a mega Media House and has already started hiring the media persons and production maestros from the existing media houses.
The Daily Mail’s investigations in this directions indicate that ‘Axact’ has been contributing to global It sector as a leading Pakistani for the past 15 years without any controversy or scandals. It only got itself caught in the web of local and foreign conspiracies after the management decided to launch a mega Media House, with aims and objectives of countering anti-Pakistan media conspiracies and to strengthen country’s ideology and cultural values and announced bringing out country’s biggest ever media platform with the brand name of ‘Bol’, comprising newspapers, Radio Channels and TV Channels, a couple of years back. Axact’s Bol project offered unprecedented salaries and related packages for the journalistic community and production professionals of the country that was set to reshape and redefine Media Industry of Pakistan with a revolution to the lives of the related professionals.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that there were two major factors that earned Axact’s Bol projected a unique confrontation not only from the most dominant media house of the country but also from this media house’s foreign collaborators, especially from the intelligence agency of an enemy State. First was that the said media house and its across the border partners were not feeling comfortable as the Bol project was set to bring an end to the dominance of the said media house that was ‘generously’ delivering to the cause of the said foreign intelligence agency’s propagation in Pakistan and against its security institutions. And the second factor for this confrontation was that the Bol was being considered to come as a very solid force to counter and confront anti-Pakistan media campaigns and psychological warfare by Indian as well as Western media and Intelligence agencies.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that it was because of these two factors that the Indian Intelligence agency RAW, prepared a joint conspiracy with its allied media group in Pakistan and used the platform a leading Indian newspaper to start defaming Bol media house in 2013. The things got crystal clearly exposed when the said Indian newspaper admitted that its platform was misused by RAW and the said Pakistani media house for a premeditated campaign and conspiracy against emerging media house Bol. The Indian newspaper published the details of this conspiracy only after Bol management served a legal notice to it. The said Indian newspaper also extended a formal and ‘on record’ apology to its readers for unwillingly and unknowingly being part of this conspiracy of RAW and the said Pakistani media house. Under the said conspiracy, a news report was ‘got’ published in Hindustan Times in September 2013 in which it was portrayed that Bol was being launched by an Underworld Don and that Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was also a partner in this venture.
The Daily Mail’s investigations further indicate that after the conspiracy of local dominant media house with the cooperation and blessings of RAW was exposed completely by none other but India’s own leading newspaper, the local media house as well their mentors at Delhi were left to chew their own butts. This nexus was later exposed further when the said local media house, with the collaboration of RAW, tried to twist the attack on one of its anchorpersons in Karachi by using the incident to defame ISI and its chief in 2014.
The investigations of The Daily Mail reveal that after this nexus of evils was very badly exposed, the Indians withdrew their links with the said local media house to give it a face saver but it did not stop its efforts to continue countering the emergence of Bol to ultimately keep the dominance of its allied media house in Pakistan. These investigations indicate that after a number of failed attempts and after miserably failing to establish any link between Bol management and underworld Dons or Bol’s connection with ISI or any other intelligence component of Pakistan, RAW shifted the focus on defaming the parent organization of Bol; the Axact.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate the conspirators, both from local and abroad, first started planting their pawns in Axact to different slots of the company. Once they were planted successfully as an ordinary software company could never have been suspecting any such mega conspiracy, they started the sinister plan of the online sale of educational degrees from the platform of Axact though these pawns while the management of Axact was told by these planted pawns of RAW that a unique sales promotion program with the syndication of some foreign universities had been launched and that the same would enhance the revenues of the organization. Like any revenue seeking business group, the top Axact management, did not seek any detailed report from the plan devisers as long as the ‘new sales plan’ was generating added revenues and was apparently of no harm to the organization and the State as well and thus the Axact management was later caught unaware by the organizers of the high profile conspiracy.
The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal that on the other hand, the RAW and one of their ally from amongst the Western Intelligence agencies that have very close liaison with media organizations like New York Times, Washington Post etc and who also enjoy ‘very cordial’ relations with certain American journalists, were documenting everything with regard to the online sale of educational degrees by their pawns in Axact. The well organized conspiracy was being run with such a comprehension that even the above mentioned foreign intelligence agencies even created a haul of buyers of these degrees from different countries across the world and made payments to them for the purchase of these educational degrees and diplomas. Nonetheless, these intelligence agencies kept maintaining complete data of the sale of all such degrees and their buyers as all was being operated by these intelligence agencies themselves. Since keeping eye on provision or sale of educational degrees has never been a duty or mandate of Intelligence agencies like the ISI, in Pakistan and furthermore that the Pakistani security were very deeply engaged in the prime mandate of countering the menace of terrorism, no efforts could be made to such a unique and unexpected conspiracy by a foreign agency against a private software firm of the country. The motivated campaign by RAW and its partners could easily be evaluated from the fact that as part of the so-called media exposure, it was also shown as evidence that Axact even sold a degree to a dog for $ 400. This is a clear evidence the other way around as it confirms that there was a proper campaign going on that was documenting everything with regard to online sale of degrees by Axact and such outrageous ‘evidences’ were also being included in that documentation while use of such ‘ outrageous evidences’ is a routine policy of RAW operators of psychological warfare. The documented campaign also included the use of paid actors in the campaign as professors etc.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that once 5the planted pawns of RAW in Axact achieved the given targets, the conspirators made a comprehensive media investigations package, and this time, very smartly, instead of handing it over to the said local media house, as a pre-planned move, handed it over to a US journalist with special assignments on Pakistan. On the other side, RAW’s local allied media house as well as the other media house that also feels threatened by the arrival of Bol and is in on-record collaboration with NYT were told to buckle up for the new and fresh scandal against Bol that was to come out through NYT. Since the entire issue was documented in a highly professional style, the NYT also had no objection to publish the said report, especially when the same had certain blessings of their country’s own top intelligence agency.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that the said US journalist of NYT was assigned duties as a journalist with regard to Pakistan by his organization to cover and report the matters related to defense, diplomatic and political matters while covering the matters related to the educational degrees was never his assignment and has never been his subject of reporting throughout his journalistic career. The said journalist fails to explain while his official assignment was to cover political, defense and diplomatic affairs, where did he get time to dig out an issue related to a software company or to be more precise, a matter related to educational sector that has never been his cup of tea at any occasion in the past.
The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that the way the issue of online sale of unverified degrees by Axit has been given such a media hype in Pakistan as well as in India and US in such a manner as if this has come as the most sensational issue that never happened in the world before. The Daily Mail’s investigations also indicate that in fact the home country of the said NYT reporters in fact leads the world in sale of educational degrees with India being no exception while the menace exists all over the world for the past three decades. However, the issue was never taken up in such manner neither by NYT and its relevant reporters nor by any other media organization in the world set aside the Pakistani media.
The Daily Mail’s investigations conclude that the Axact episode and its media handling has got nothing to do with countering fake educational degrees but is merely a fresh bid to counter the launch of Bol Media House and make this media house as even more controversial.
