The past week has seen a vicious electronic and press campaign maligning President Asif Ali Zardari through a forgery. Someone forged a garbled version of his remark recorded in the visitors’ book at the mausoleum of the Quaid-e-Azam and sent it around. Mr Zardari had carefully written, “May God give us the strength to save Pakistan”. This was changed to, “May Gaad give us strut to save Pakistan”. After a week of this vicious campaign in which people in Lahore were seen handing around copies of the forgery in restaurants, the hoax has been exposed.

The paper which showed a photographic comparison between the real text of the message and the forgery, wrote: “Some hidden hands have sent an email to different journalists, newspapers and electronic organisations claiming that the President had misspelled the words God and strength”. As for the probity of the journalists who received it, the newspaper said: “It was distressing to note that a senior English-language columnist did not bother to verify the facts and added fuel to fire in his column while referring to this fabricated story”. (Daily Times)

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