LONDON: BBC news presenter Philippa Thomas has been accused of doing the “propagandist work” of Pakistan after she repeatedly shut down a US professor specialising in South Asia, who was claiming that the Taliban were a “Pakistan’s project”, saying: “I know they firmly deny they have created the Taliban”.
The interview with Dr Christine Fair, professor of security studies at Georgetown University in Washington, which was broadcast on Saturday on UK’s domestic channel BBC, created a storm on Twitter. Fair was giving the interview about Pakistan intelligence chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed’s visit to Kabul at the invitation of the Taliban.
Former Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani shared a link to declassified US documents — which illustrate that the Taliban were directly funded, armed and advised by Islamabad — and tweeted: “Her bosses could do with an undergrad research assistant, who would have found this with a simple google search.”

“What a shameful act by @PhilippaBBC & @BBCWorld to invite a reputed academic like @CChristineFair & then shut her down so gracelessly only because she didn’t read their propaganda script,” tweeted historian Vikram Sampath.

Fair said: “For those of us who have been watching these affairs in Afghanistan evolve, this has been Pakistan’s project. Without Pakistan the Taliban would be a nuisance — it would not be the competent and capable terrorist organisation that it is.”
Thomas retorted: “Pakistan denies it has created the Taliban or that it supports it militarily behind the scenes in any way.”
Fair said: “What Pakistan has objected to over the last 20 years is the emergence of a stable Afghanistan that is opposed to Pakistan and is friendly to India. What Pakistan wants more than anything is an instability it can manage. Pakistan likes to be thought of as the fire brigade when Pakistan is, in fact, the arsonist. Pakistan will monetize this.”
“Pakistan will absolutely deny that,” Thomas said, interrupting her, and then disconnected the call saying, “We don’t have a Pakistani official to speak with us now”, but not before Fair alleged: “You are doing their propagandist work.”
A BBC spokesperson said: “It is standard practice for our presenters to challenge guests. The interviewee was given ample opportunity to make her point during a long interview.”
Watch Viral video: BBC presenter faces flak, accused of doing Pakistan’s “propagandist work”