Pak deputy PM quotes fake newspaper clip calling Pakistan Air Force 'king of the skies'
Ishaq Dar cited ‘The Daily Telegraph’, claiming the British newspaper had reported that ‘Pakistan is the undisputed king of the skies.’
By Md Mahfooz Alam
Hyderabad: Pakistan appears to be living in a fantasy, declaring victory in the recent cross-border hostilities with India. While it has claimed to have destroyed Indian airbases, satellite imagery has instead confirmed damage to several Pakistani airbases, with no credible evidence emerging to support claims of destruction of Indian airbases.
Pakistan’s deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar’s high-flying claims
In yet another episode of embarrassment, Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, during a Senate address, dismissed India’s regional dominance, claiming Pakistan to be an equal power.
He went on to declare victory in the recent border conflict, boasting that the Pakistan Air Force had shot down several Indian jets. Dar further cited ‘The Daily Telegraph’, claiming the British newspaper had reported that ‘Pakistan is the undisputed king of the skies.’
However, in reality, Dar was quoting a fabricated front page of The Daily Telegraph, dated May 10, with the headline: ‘Pakistan Air Force: The Undisputed King of the Skies.’ No such edition or report exists.
Errors which raised the red flags
The fabricated front page, which began circulating on social media on May 10, was widely shared and cited by Pakistani journalists, leaders and officials. The dateline on the masthead notably omitted the year of publication, and the website URL incorrectly ended with ‘,cuk’ instead of the correct ‘.co.uk’—clear indicators of forgery.
It was also riddled with typographical errors, casting serious doubt on its authenticity.
Among the glaring mistakes were misspellings such as ‘Fγααωσε’ instead of ‘Force,’ ‘preformance’ for ‘performance,’ ‘Aur Force’ in place of ‘Air Force,’ and ‘advancemend’ instead of ‘advancement.’ Additional errors included ‘conflicft’ (conflict), ‘recrent’ (recent), ‘Thelegrapn’ (Telegraph), and ‘Pakistaan’ (Pakistan). These blatant inaccuracies quickly raised red flags about the credibility of the so-called front page.
