Pictures of the Day: Spreading Lies

Adil Najam

I do not like being taken for a fool. Especially, when the trick being pulled off is offensive as well as stupid. That is why I am feeling really angry at these emails people have been sending me.

Over the last many hours I have now received five different copies of (a much forwarded) email with the title “House of Akbar Bugti.” One of them from a Pakistani blogger who asks that we “MUST put these pictures on ATP to expose the lies of Bugti supporters” and that “these pictures prove he was only interested in his own comfort and not the Baluchi people.” Other versions of the email simply has long, very long, strings of email addresses of hundreds, possibly thousands, of people it has already been forwarded to (which is itself bad Internet etiquette) and then carries a string of photographs, including the ones below.

Did you really think we woudl fall for something as imbicile as this!

We have already had a long and open discussion on ATP on Nawab Akbar Bugti’s killing, how it was done, what it meant, and his political career. People are most welcome to hold whatever opinion they wish. But please do not try to make a fool out of other people.

Of course, the idea is to convey the image that Mr. Bugti was living in great luxury in the caves (which he may well have been) and, therefore, somehow (but I fail to see how) his killing was justified!

The problem is that a half-wit with only half of his wits handy would be able to tell that these pictures are not from Mr. Bugti’s caves. These are publicity pictures from a hotel. (A real picture of Mr. Bugti in the mountains is at the top of the post).

For Heaven’s sake, look at that dining room and bathroom; yes, these were in the same email! You really think we was the kind of guy who would serve meals to his tribesmen there in those crystal glasses. Just how stupid do you think we Pakistanis are!

Indeed, the stunt is so very lame that it took me less than 15 minutes to find out where they are from. These pictures are from a luxury hotel (although not 7-star!) the Cappadocia Cave Hotel in Turkey. My first thought had been that it might be a hotel in Petra, Jordon since I had stayed in something like this there.

I do not know who came up with this idea. If it was some zealot intelligence agency wallah, then it is particularly un-intelligent, even for our intelligence agencies. Or, maybe, it was just another super-patriot thinking that this will somehow help Pakistan; think again, you just made us all look not just needlessly violent, but abjectly dumb. Well done!

As you can see I am deeply angry and offended. Not just because this has wasted my time, gotten on my nerves, distracted me from better things, and is such a cheap trick to defame and misinform. Much more so, because whoever pulled this stunt believed that ordinary Pakistanis would fall for this; and – tragically – there are some out there who actually did!