LAHORE (Web Desk/Dunya News) – Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday said his Kyrgyz counterpart Jeenbek Kulubayev had told him that situation in Bishkek was peaceful and social media had been used to create a hype about the situation.
Addressing a press conference, Dar, quoting Kulubayev, said a total of 16 foreign students were injured in the attacks on Friday, including four to five Pakistanis, and described the reports about alleged deaths as completely false.
The Kyrgyz authorities have said that paid bloggers are spreading rumours, he said and added that social media was being used to incite people to violence.
Dar, who is also the deputy prime minister, said they had initially planned to leave for Bishkek, but Kulubayev informed him that there was need to do so as the situation had been controlled.
No incident has been reported since Friday, said the foreign minister who added that more flights would be operated to bring those Pakistani students back who wanted to do so.
Speaking on the occasion, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the incident wasn’t targeted against Pakistan, as situation developed only after a brawl between the locals and some Egyptian students which later also affected those from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
Without naming the PTI, he said a political party, which had previously written a letter to the IMF against Pakistan’s interests, had launched a social media to promote lies about the state of affairs in Bishkek.
Neither any student has been killed nor anyone raped, said Tarar who added that a certain political party was busy in inculcating wrong and negative information into the minds of students’ parents.
Dar said a total of 11,000 Pakistani students had been studying in Kyrgyzstan, out which over 5,000 were in Bishkek while the remaining in other cities. The incident involved a group of medical students, he told the press conference.
He said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was monitoring the situation personally and described Kyrgyzstan as friendly nation, adding that one had trust the Kyrgyz officials and one could not derail diplomatic ties with another country just because of rumours and fake news.
The Kyrgyz foreign minister had informed him that some of the individuals involved in violent acts had already been arrested and the government would not spare anyone.