ISLAMABAD: Taking notice of the Axact scandal, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday to probe into the special report published by The New York Times immediately, Express News reported.
Read: INYT special report: Fake degrees earn company millions
Nisar directed the FIA to investigate “if the said company is involved in any such illegal work which can tarnish the good image of the country in the world”, a ministry statement said.
Following the interior minister’s statement, sources told Express News that a FIA cyber crime team has arrived at Axact’s office in Karachi.
The sources added the FIA team comprising of six members is visiting the office to initiate investigations and gather information regarding the report.
Axact, that has pledged to build a media empire, faced tough criticism on Monday after The New York Times said it was earning tens of millions of dollars by selling fake degrees around the world.
Nisar took notice of the NYT report which claimed that Axact ran a fake education empire that involved paid actors promoting fictitious universities and even fake State Department authentication certifications bearing the signature of John Kerry.
The report, which quoted former employees and analysed more than 370 websites of fake universities, accreditation bodies and other purported institutions, sparked a wave of criticism on social media even as the company denied wrongdoing.
Senate takes up the matter
On Tuesday, the issue was also taken up in the Senate where Senator Aitzaz Ahsan pointed out the issue and said that the management of company has the right to give explanation.
“It is unfortunate that Pakistan is being defamed,” the senator said, adding that CEO Axact Shoaib Shaikh and his TV has the right to clarify.
“But it seems that the story that has been published is true,” Ahsan said. He termed the issue as a matter of grave concern.
The senator said that we should take notice of Pakistanis being so experts in forgery.
On the suggestion of Ahsan, Chairman Raza Rabbani constituted a committee to probe into the issue and submit a report in a month.
“This is an important issue and investigation needs to be conducted,” Rabbani said.
Axact’s response
Soon after the report was published, a message on Axact’s website declared the story “baseless, substandard, maligning, defamatory, and based on false accusations” and added it would sue The New York Times.
The company has said it will launch a news channel named Bol this year, which has already lured many of Pakistan’s top TV anchors and journalists with reportedly the highest salaries in the market.
Read: Axact threatens to sue Pak Tea House for rounding up Twitter reactions
According to the report, Axact created a series of fake websites involving “professors” and students who were in fact paid actors.
The “university” websites mainly route their traffic through servers run by companies registered in Cyprus and Latvia, and employees would plant fictitious reports about Axact universities on CNN iReport, a website for citizen journalism.
The article cited clients from the US, Britain and the United Arab Emirates who had paid sums ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars for their degrees — with some believing the universities were real and they would soon receive coursework.
The post Chaudhry Nisar orders inquiry into Axact scandal appeared first on The Express Tribune.