Asim Saleem Bajwa: Journalist Ahmad Noorani's allegations against former ISPR chief

 Asim Saleem Bajwa: Journalist Ahmad Noorani's allegations against former ISPR chief, Asim Bajwa denies

Former ISPR chief Lt. Gen. (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa has denied a report on his family's assets on a website called FactFocus.

Lieutenant General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa is now the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan for Information and also the head of the C-Pac Authority.
 He denied the allegations on Twitter after the report was published, saying: "An anonymous website has published a story of animosity against me and my family, which I strongly deny."

Last month, when the government released details of the assets and citizenship of Prime Minister Imran Khan's special aides and advisers, they were widely discussed on social networking sites.

 Following the revelations, Lt. Gen. (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa, former head of the Pakistan Army's public relations department and later head of the Army's Southern Command, who is now the Prime Minister's Special Assistant for Information and C-Pack The assets of the head of the authority were sharply criticized.

But on August 27, when a report by journalist Ahmad Noorani about the business of Lieutenant General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa and his family appeared on a website called Fact Focus, a Pandora's box of questions and criticism opened and 'Asim Bajwa' and 'Bajwa Lakes' were constantly trending on Twitter.

The report contains claims about Asim Saleem Bajwa and his family

Journalist Ahmad Noorani has claimed in his article that Lieutenant General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa's 'expansion of the family business empire and General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa's promotion to important positions in the army, both go hand in hand.'

 In his report, Ahmad Noorani has made claims regarding the overseas properties of Asim Bajwa's brothers, wife and children, alleging that these properties are spread across four countries.

 Ahmad Noorani has made a point that Asim Saleem Bajwa did not mention his wife's business capital outside Pakistan in his list of assets submitted after he became the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. In the relevant column, it is regularly written 'No'.

In his report, Ahmad Noorani has made claims regarding the overseas properties of Asim Bajwa's brothers, wife and children.

It may be recalled that in the list of assets released last month, Asim Bajwa showed an investment of only Rs 31 lakh in a 'family business' in the name of his wife and confirmed at the end of the affidavit that The list of his wife's assets is not only complete and accurate, but I did not hide anything.

Claim to have deleted information from the SECP website

A major claim made in Ahmad Noorani's article was that the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), which oversees the system of business companies in Pakistan, had posted on its official website that General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa The data of the companies owned by the sons started disappearing.

 Journalist Ahmad Noorani, speaking to the BBC, claimed that information about the ownership of Asim Bajwa's sons was removed from the SECP's website on Sunday, August 1, which was an Eid holiday.

 "The entire SECP is aware of this and I have all the digital evidence," he claimed.

Reflection of relevant parts of Asim Saleem Bajwa's affidavit of assets submitted as Special Assistant to Prime Minister Imran Khan

Asim Saleem Bajwa 'strongly denies' allegations

Ahmad Noorani writes in his article that when he asked Lieutenant General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa about his wife's property and bank accounts in the United States, he said, "He used his wife's General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa refrained from answering why it was clearly written that he has no business capital outside Pakistan.

However, after the article was published, Asim Bajwa bluntly denied the allegations on Twitter,

When the BBC asked Ahmad Noorani about this, he said: "All I can say is that in order to respond properly, he has to clarify which facts are wrong in my article and give him the evidence." Will have to provide.

 Speaking to the BBC, Ahmad Noorani claimed that Asim Saleem Bajwa's brothers, wife and children had no full-fledged private business before 2002 and that the same year he was a lieutenant colonel under former dictator Pervez Musharraf. He rose to the post and joined Pervez Musharraf's staff.

 Speaking to the BBC, Ahmad Noorani said the real question was "how did all this start and how was the initial investment made and where did the money come from and despite waiting for three weeks for answers, Asim Saleem Why did Bajwa remain silent?

'Attack' on Fact Focus website?

After the publication of the article, on the one hand, there were a lot of questions and trends on this report on social media, on the other hand, access to the Fact Focus website was cut off for a while.

 Rabia Mahmood, a researcher with the human rights group Amnesty, also commented on Twitter that she could not access the FactFocus website.

Explaining this to the BBC, Ahmad Noorani said that the website was not blocked by the Pakistan Telecom Authority but claimed that it was being attacked by DDoS due to which users did not read the article. Are getting

 It should be noted that DDoS (Daniel of Service Attack) is a process by which a website is attacked to gain a large number of accesses at the same time and due to the increase in internet traffic that website Sits down

 However, after one to two hours, the website was restored.

What was the reaction on social media?

When the list of assets was published last month, Asim Saleem Bajwa was asked about the price of his Toyota ZX.

 This time, after the publication of Ahmad Noorani's article, the cannons of social media are once again on him.

 Addressing Lieutenant General (retd) Asim Saleem Bajwa, Farhatullah Babar, a former senator from the Pakistan People's Party, said: Denial will not be enough.

Military affairs analyst and researcher Ayesha Siddique also responded to Asim Bajwa's tweet by saying, "General, it would be very appropriate if you refute the allegations with documentary evidence." One sentence will not work.

Consumer Zeeshan Khan Niazi writes, "The story would be completely wrong. Sir, you should go to court and get punished for this false story. Provide all the money trails so that these day-to-day allegations are eliminated."

 A similar comment was made by another user Shafiq Ahmed who wrote that 'Bajwa sahib as Ahmad Noorani sahib has given full details then you should also answer everything in detail so that we can also condemn his misrepresentation because  They have made such a spectacle ... '