Over 450 social media accounts shut down for spreading religious, ethnic hatred in Pakistan

• Preventing extremism is helping to counter terrorism, police say.
• Spokesman requests people to stay away from negative activities.
• Legal action will also be taken against miscreants, says police spox.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Police on Tuesday said 462 social media accounts allegedly involved in spreading religious and ethnic hatred online were shut down.

The Islamabad Police spokesperson said the anti-extremism unit had identified 1,522 accounts involved in negative activities.

He said a letter was written to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for closure of those accounts. “Among the blocked accounts, 65 were involved in religious hatred and 47 in propaganda against the country while 350 were involved in spreading terrorism content,” he said.

The police spox said the remaining 1,060 accounts would also be closed soon. Preventing extremism was helping to counter terrorism and improve city's security, he said.

“People are requested to stay away from such negative activities on social media. Legal action will also be taken against those involved in such negative activities,” he said asking citizens to report any such activity on hotline 15.

On December 24 last year, it had emerged that social media accounts — fuelling propaganda and slander against Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa and other Supreme Court (SC) judges — were "linked" to a political party.

The report prepared by multiple federal investigative agencies had disclosed that the slanderous campaign targetting the apex court's judges was "pre-planned".