Pakistani Papers Publish Fake WikiLeak Cables Bashing India

State Department diplomats are convinced that India is up to no good, Pakistan’s top newspapers declared today. Nearly identical stories in four Pakistani papers claimed that WikiLeaks’ cable cache contained communiqués from US diplomats saying they had evidence that India was allied with both Hindu fundamentalists and Islamist militants in Waziristan and Balochistan. India’s generals were described as genocidal, not to mention vain and egotistical. It’d be shocking stuff—if any of it were true.

But the Guardian ran extensive searches of WikiLeaks' documents, and didn’t find anything at all supporting the papers’ allegations. An editor at the English-language paper The News said the story was “agencies’ copy,” and promised to investigate. Pakistan’s media has also conspicuously avoided publishing any of the many cables criticizing the country’s military—although it has gleefully harped on diplomats’ criticisms of civilian politicians like Asif Ali Zardari. (More Wikileaks diplomatic cables stories.)