ISLAMABAD: Apparently annoyed by Pakistan People’s Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s remarks about Kashmir, a team of hackers claiming to hail from India defaced the official website of the PPP, www.ppp.org.pk.

The hackers, identifying themselves as “Black Dragon, Indian Hackers Online Squad” used objectionable language against the PPP chairman and ridiculed his statement, where he had claimed that he would get Kashmir back from India.

The hackers also posted an Indian flag, a meme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a map showing not only Kashmir, but even Pakistan as a part of India, with the warning, “If you even look towards Kashmir, then the Indian map will look like this in the future”.

The hackers also posted an audio recording, more than five minutes long, claiming that Pakistan “will never get Kashmir”.

“To the citizens of Pakistan, Pakistan’s army, the Pakistan People’s Party and specially Mr Bilawal Bhutto. Without any violence let me tell you that Pakistan will never get Kashmir. This is the truth. You have to accept it,” said the message left on the homepage of the defaced PPP website.

Last month, Bilawal had reportedly said that the PPP would get back every inch of Kashmir for Pakistan.

A spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs had responded to the statement at the time, saying that Bilawal’s comment was “far from reality and takes us back into the past century”.

Addressing Pakistani politicians, the hackers also posted the following message on the website: “Not able to control their own country and want to take entire Kashmir from India.”

Senator Saeed Ghani, who looks after the PPP’s media affairs, condemned the hack and told several TV channels on Wednesday that this action had exposed “the ugly face of Indian democracy”.

Mr Ghani said the PPP wanted friendship with all its neighbours, including India, but at the same time the party could not compromise on the decades-old principled stance of Pakistan on the Kashmir issue.

He said efforts were under way to restore the party’s website as soon as possible.

The website was taken offline shortly after the hack was reported and remained inaccessible until the filing of this report.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2014