Journalists Rights Association of Pakistan (JRAP) and Multan Union of Journalists (MUJ) on Wednesday condemned the issuance of life threats to Chief Editor Daily Baithak Multan Abdul Sattar Baloch and urged the police to take strict action against the
In a statement JRAP spokesman Faisal Karim stated that the government was claiming that press and media were free but threats to live of the journalists are being issued. He said that Multan police was reluctant to lodge the FIR as the accused is an influential person and it took more than one month to Multan police to lodge FIR and police wants to quash the FIR to favour the influential accused. He urged the federal as well as provincial government to give greater attention to media-persons’ security. MUJ General Secretary Mirza Ehtasham said that threats to senior journalist like Abdul Sattar Baloch was a serious matter and government must provide security to him.
He said that the threat to Baloch should be seen in the context of rapidly increasing vulnerability of media-persons.
Multan police on May 21 registered a case against oil dealers for hurling life threats at the Mr Baloch.
Baloch, submitted a complaint before Cantonment police stating that the newspaper had covered a detailed story on illegal oil smuggling and contacted Khan Muhammad Yar and Custom Inspector Arshad Nadeem for their comments.
He said he had received a call from a person Hamid Awan who hurled threats of dire consequences and also threatened to kill him and set their newspaper office on fire. He said the caller directed them no to contact Custom department inspector Mr Nadeem and other smuggler Mr Yar. “I will shoot you in the head and will also set the office on fire,” the FIR available with Dawn states.
It states that the caller also said that he had killed three to four people in the past who tried to report about their business.
The Cantonment police had received the complaint on March 23 and conducted investigation for a month and later registered the case under section 25-D of the Telegraph Act 1885 (Causing annoyance, intimidation and harassment) and 506 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).