Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has allegedly escalated a coordinated disinformation campaign against India, with more than 5,000 fake social media accounts reportedly created over the past two weeks to spread misinformation and incite violence amid the ongoing anti-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) protests, according to intelligence officials. An Intelligence Bureau (IB) official confirmed that the sudden surge in fake accounts is directly linked to the protest movement currently unfolding across the country.

Scale and Scope of the Operation

According to officials, the accounts are being operated by a mix of Indian and Pakistani users — a pattern investigators describe as markedly different from earlier ISI-linked disinformation efforts. Previously, the ISI reportedly concentrated its fake-account operations in hubs such as Rawalpindi and Islamabad, making them relatively easier to trace. This time, operations have been dispersed across multiple locations, including Bhimber, Rawalakot, Tarakhal, Sialkot, Kolti, Mendhar, and Peshawar, among others, officials said.

Individuals across these locations are reportedly being recruited to create social media accounts. The ISI allegedly provides them with specific content and directs them to disseminate it, while also instructing them to tag users in foreign countries to amplify reach.

Fabricated Claims and Viral Tactics

The content being circulated focuses predominantly on the actions of Indian law enforcement agencies, with fabricated claims about police firing, lathi charges, and tear gas use being pushed at regular intervals, according to officials. A particularly alarming recent example, officials said, was a false post alleging that Delhi Police had opened fire and that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had been injured — a claim designed, according to investigators, to enrage Congress supporters and trigger secondary protests or violence in other cities.

'The intention is to provoke the youth and push them towards violence. The police would be compelled to act if violence breaks out, potentially triggering a chain reaction across the country,' an IB official said.

Why Misinformation Spreads Before Fact-Checks Catch Up

Officials pointed to a structural vulnerability in the information ecosystem: fact-checking audiences remain a small fraction of those who first consume viral content. By the time Indian fact-checking agencies debunk a false claim, it has already shaped public discourse — especially among audiences in smaller towns and villages, where digital media literacy is reportedly lower and word-of-mouth amplification is faster.

'It takes these people days before they get to know what the real information is, and by that time word-of-mouth takes place, and the damage is already done,' an official noted. At protest sites, the vulnerability is compounded because misinformation emerging from a geographically distant location — where conditions cannot be independently verified by those consuming it — spreads almost instantaneously.

Operation Ground Wire: Indians Allegedly Recruited

Officials said the ISI has not confined its recruitment to Pakistani nationals. Under what investigators have described as Operation Ground Wire, several Indians have allegedly been paid to create anti-state content, shifting the narrative and making the operation harder to attribute cleanly to a foreign source. This tactic, officials warned, significantly complicates the IB's monitoring and takedown efforts given the sheer volume involved.

Response and What Comes Next

The Intelligence Bureau and state police are reportedly monitoring flagged accounts in real time and reporting them to platform administrators. However, officials acknowledged that the scale — running into thousands of accounts — creates an inherent lag between identification and takedown, during which the content continues to circulate. Investigators say the decentralised geographic spread of the operation is being studied to refine attribution methods and accelerate future action.