Facebook page Police-e-Melli Afghan is fake: MoI

KABUL (Pajhwok): A social media post associated to Amrullah Saleh, nominee for the first vice president in the State Builder election team, published in Police-e-Melli Afghan (Afghan National Police) fake facebook page has turned to be highly debatable issue in the social media networks on Monday.

The Police-e- Melli Afghan page which has thousands of followers has been active in the social media. The Ministry of Interior (MoI) termed the page fake and added that efforts for its blocking are underway in coordination with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MoCIT).

The Police-e-Melli Afghan facebook page posts a number of photos, videos and speeches of high ranking government officials on daily bases.

The page at 7:00pm on Sunday published a post associated to Amrullah Saleh, a former spymaster and current nominee for first vice president in Ashraf Ghani’s led State Builder team.

The page quoted Amrullah Saleh as saying: “In the government of State Builder Anti-Spying, Anti-terrorism and Criminal Investigation institutions will the powerful and highly authoritative departments of the government.” The post received 2,400 likes, 214 comments and 71 shares.

A well-placed source to Amrullah Saleh confirmed to Pajhwok the comments were Amrullah Saleh’s which he posted on his official facebook page while the admin of Police-e-Melli Afghan page copy and posted them again on its own wall.

In a WhatsApp Group titled Khaparnegaran Wa Faalan-e-Rasana (Journalist and Media Activists) one has written that MoI is promoting the campaign of State Builder team. He said the MoI is responsible to identify the facebook page and its administrators.

He said: “It is a huge notoriety for the MoI.”

Another activist wrote that identity of this administrator is unknown.

According to Pajhwok Afghan News finding, the Police-e-Melli Afghan page has 166,758 likes and was created in July, 19, 2016 under the name of Reyasat-e- Mubareza Aleha Jaraem-e- Sangain Wazarat-e-Dakhela (Department of Anti-Serious Crime, MoI) in Turkey.

Later this page changed its name to Hawadaran Reyasat-e- Mubareza Aleha Jaraem-e- Sangain Wazarat-e-Dakhela (Supporters Department of Anti-Serious Crime, MoI) than to Afghan Army Special Force and then to Afghan Police and lately to Police-e-Melli Afghan.

A well-place intelligence source from MoI told Pajhwok Afghan News that MoI has one official page named Wezart-e-Umor Dakhela (The Ministry of Interior) which has 1.4 million followers. The official page of the MoI is verified, the source said.

Marwa Amini, deputy spokesperson of the MoI, said the Police-e-Melli page which is fake do not belong to the ministry but the page is created by some other individuals.

“By creating this page, these individual want to develop confusion between police and the massed and to demonstrate that MoI represent individuals.”

She said they official asked the MoCIT to ban the page and MoI also launched investigation to unearth the administrators of the page and deal with them according to the law.

However, a source, at the MoCIT said MoI did not officially ask them to ban the Police-e-Melli Afghan page and therefore he did not want to further comment.

Sher Shah Nawabi, spokesman for the MoCIT, said he will respond late in the day or tomorrow on this issue after he gets information from the concerned department.

Zarghoona Salehi

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