Pakistan: Official who banned books for 'immoral' content caught 'liking' pornographic posts on Twitter, gets trolled

A Pakistani government official who ordered to ban over 100 books due to “blasphemous and anti-Pakistan content” has been caught 'liking' pornographic content on Twitter and social media users cannot stop trolling him.

Pakistan’s Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) Managing Director Rai Manzoor Nasir issued a statement through his Twitter account in which he said he fired at least 10 employees he claimed were involved in "corruption" and "security breaches on my personal Twitter account".

On July 26, Nasir denied the allegations of inappropriate online activity, terming it "a social media hack".

Nasir said he was "accused of liking an immoral picture on Twitter and also of making inappropriate comments on photographs" after he banned at least 100 books on July 23.

"I deny these allegations emphatically and maintain that I have been the victim of a social media hack. I am making every effort to secure my social media accounts going forward," he added.

Government official trolled

As soon as Twitterati discovered the content Nasir ‘liked’ on the platform, social media users trolled him.

Twitter user @UsmanAhmad_iam wrote: “I’m still struggling to get over the irony of a guy named Rai Manzoor going around banning books.”

Soon after, Nasir changed his Twitter account to ‘private’, giving access to only those who follow him, further triggering netizens.

Tweep @ahmadtalha87 wrote: “So Rai Manzoor Nasir ‘official’ has blocked half the population and has protected his account from the other half so only confirmed followers can see his posts. Do other ‘official’ accounts do that?”

Exercising sarcasm, Twitter user @feministsapien wrote: “Rai Manzoor Nasir's account was destroying this generation, so he heroically banned us from reading his tweets.”

‘Anti-Pakistan content’

Prior to the news that went viral of Nasir ‘liking’ pornographic content on the social media website, PCTB had banned more than 100 books. The Punjab government had been criticised for the move by various educationists and netizens.

Reacting to the ban, Twitter user @iayeszha wrote: “Rai Manzoor Nasir said that instead of including sayings of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Allama Muhammad Iqbal, etc., one of the books carried sayings of Mahatma Gandhi and some unknown people. Idk (I don’t know) what to say on this, wisdom can come from anywhere so what.”

The books were banned due to their “blasphemous and anti-Pakistan content”, PCTB had announced. The authority asked publishers to make changes to their content before making the books available for the public again.

"The affected book publishers have the right to rectify the errors in the banned books and resubmit them to the PCTB in order to apply for a NOC (no objection certificate) if they wish to publish these books in the country.

"I have worked tirelessly as a civil servant for 27 years and remain committed to high moral standards as demonstrated through my track record in government," Nasir was quoted as saying by local media outlets.