Marriyum Aurangzeb on Sunday warned to take legal action against those individuals and platforms for spreading false and malicious claims about the use of the official aircraft of the provincial government.
In a strongly worded statement posted on social media, Aurangzeb said there was a deliberate campaign of falsified stories and misinformation that was being passed around by what she termed ‘pathological liars’ and peddlers of fake news.
She said that the Punjab government has decided to move towards the courts under the Defamation Law 2024 against everyone involved in spreading the allegations.
According to Aurangzeb, no more will there be disinformation against public institutions going unanswered.
She warned that those trying to discredit institutions and spread confusion should come to terms with facing the consequences of the law.
The provincial government, she added, would look for the hardest penalties under the law to send a clear message that fake news could not be equated with journalism and would be treated as defamation.
Earlier, the spokesperson of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Kausar Kazmi had also addressed the controversy of the purchase of aircraft.
Speaking in a television program, Kazmi said that some claims that the aircraft had been secretly purchased were surprising and misleading.
He raised the question of why only Punjab government was being criticised whereas Balochistan government in the past has purchased an aircraft of Rs1.7 billion and also the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa purchased two helicopters.
Kazmi said that the aircraft was already bought and was now the official property of the Punjabi government.
He further said that engineers had advised the government that maintenance costs to the older aircraft were increasing, which led to the decision.
Kazmi also criticised what he had been calling a narrative on social media about the aircraft being a personal acquisition by the chief minister.
Also read: Punjab CM’s Rs11bn jet purchase: Spokesman breaks silence
