“The Prime Minister has also constituted a Cabinet Committee on matters related to Wikipedia and other online content,” Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said in a tweet.

Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia that is free, crowdsourced, editable. It is often used as a starting point by millions across the world for basic information.

The development comes after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) banned Wikipedia for not “blocking/removing sacrilegious content” within the 48-hour deadline given on February 4. The move was condemned by many users, lamenting that the country was heading back to old days when YouTube was also banned.

But, the Wikimedia Foundation had said it “does not make decisions around what content is included on Wikipedia or how that content is maintained”.