The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday alleged that its official websites had been intentionally “blocked” within Pakistan seeking an explanation from federal authorities.
The PTI had strategically nominated its leaders as independent candidates after the Supreme Court upheld the ruling of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) regarding its intra-party polls.
The ECP, in its ruling, declared the PTI’s intra-party polls as illegal leading to deprivation of its iconic electoral symbol “bat”.
The party has recently launched an online portal on its official website, insaf.pk, along with a contingency “back-up site,” pticandidates.com.
Additionally, a feature was introduced allowing voters to message Imran Khan’s official Facebook account for information about PTI-backed candidates.
The initiatives were taken to alleviate confusion among voters and streamline access to election-related information.
On Friday, the PTI’s official social media account directly addressed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), interim Information Minister Murtaza Solangi, and interim IT Minister Umar Saif, questioning the reasons behind the alleged blockage.
The party highlighted the paradox of the situation, noting that voters were still obtaining symbol information from Imran Khan’s Facebook page despite the purported website blockade.
Jibran Ilyas, a member of the PTI’s social media team, directly addressed Saif, seeking an explanation for why the websites of the country’s most popular political party were seemingly blocked.
A day earlier, the PTI complained about surfacing of a spurious web portal, masquerading as the official platform designated to furnish information about independently endorsed candidates in the upcoming elections.
The alleged impostor website, pticandidate.com, purportedly disseminated inaccurate details to misguide unsuspecting voters.
The claim of PTI was verified by a fact-checking platform iVerify Pakistan that gave the glaring disparity between the candidate information disseminated by the questionable website and the verified records from both the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the party’s internal archives.
Previously, there were reports of internet suspension that coincided with the PTI’s virtual political gathering. However, the interim government attributed the disruptions to “technical” issues and ongoing system installations.
