Almost three months before the high profile Shahzeb Khan murder on December 25, 2012, a dead body was found in the same affluent area of the Defence Housing Authority, on September 26, 2012. The man murdered was identified as Ghulam Asghar Wagan.
The story, like the victim Wagan himself, got killed and went unreported, said a police officer associated with the case, one who wishes not be named. In both cases, the accused killers belonged to highly influential families. However, different media coverage yielded different results. The killer of Shahzeb Khan — the lone college-going son of a police officer of Deputy Superintendent (DSP) rank — was the son of a feudal lord, Sikandar Jatoi, from rural Sindh. On the other hand, one of the nominated murderers of Ghulam Asghar Wagan — the brother of a police officer of Superintendent (SP) rank and an employee of the local government department — turned out to be the nephew of a stockbroker who was also chairman of a business group.
Though Shahrukh Jatoi was eventually jailed due to extensive media and civil society pressure despite the enormous influence wielded by his landlord father, the nephew of the stockbroker, who maintains cordial relations with media owners and journalists alike, was never arrested and is enjoying protective bail from the Sindh High Court (SHC). According to the interim charge sheet, the FIR (No 437/12) was lodged at the Darakhshan police station of Karachi. Five of the accused, Rizwan, Syed Moazam, Syed Sagheer, Pervez Ali Shaikh and Muhammad Waseem, are behind bars on judicial custody and two accused, Metho and Feroz, are absconding. Meanwhile, the stockbroker’s nephew, Muhammad Akbar, son of Muhammad Ameen, is out on bail.
Unlike the Shahzeb murder case, which was resolved within months, the Wagan murder case has been pending for nearly three years. According to investigators, due to the ‘ideal’ relationship the suspect’s family maintains with the media, the case has not been in the papers and on television screens.
However, though the suspect’s influence earned him an emission from the highly vigilant ‘media eye’ of Pakistan, the same wealth became a source of fast resolution of the case for investigators. “On one hand the enormous financial influence of his family helped him escape media coverage, which at that time could have been crucial for the case, but his expensive Tundra became a clue for investigators to reach him,” said a senior cop. The accused allegedly drove a few feet inside the plot that captured the marks of the tyres of his vehicle. Upon taking the snaps of these tyre marks the investigators visited showrooms on Tariq Road in the city where the strange tyre marks were identified as being that of a Toyota Tundra. Such a car is only imported.
The lane towards suspicion was further narrowed when police got information through customs that two such cars were white in colour, just like the one identified by an eyewitness.
It was a big murder story but there was no one there to cover it. Senior journalists say that the financial element in the ‘killing’ of such stories is not confined to any specific country. Its impact on stories is seen more often in developing and under-developed countries, they say. “Many incidents, despite being in the interest of journalism, do not make it to the newspaper,” concurred Khursheed Tanveer, the vice president of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) and a senior journalist who has worked with leading English dailies in Pakistan.
The negative aspect of this, he says, is that society loses checks and balances. According to him, there are many stories that seem to have been deliberately ignored. “The story of Pakistani supermodel Ayan Ali is not what it is being shown in the media,” opines Tanveer, adding that the economic element seems to be killing the real story behind her case. Idrees Bakhtiar, a senior journalist who has worked with Herald and the BBC, “I filed a story on the transactions of a bank chairman but it could not be published.”
Pakistan is a country familiar with all sorts of serious threats from state to non-state actors, and, from the Taliban to sectarian proscribed organisations, every threat stands right in front of journalists, challenging their valour. The International Federation of Journalists terms Pakistan the most dangerous country for the media, with 14 journalists killed last year alone. But this is not confined to proscribed outfits as violent political gangs have equally turned dangerous for the fraternity, particularly in Karachi. Earlier this year, the paramilitary Rangers raided the headquarters of the MQM in Karachi and arrested Faisal Mota, the convicted killer of a television reporter, Wali Khan Babar, who was killed in January 2011 on his way home from work.
In some cases, state actors have also been alleged to have eliminated journalists challenging their wisdom. “Despite such a volatile situation, we see reports that demonstrate the fearlessness of Pakistani journalists,” says Ziaur Rehman, a Karachi-based reporter, covering conflicts and militancy for an English daily.
To Rehman, it is hard to establish a figure but given the dominantly finance driven nature of the Pakistani media, economic interests seem to be the ‘bigger killer’ of the news stories than life threats. Though many still insist that life threats are killing more stories, there are many here who concur with Rehman.
The writer is a Karachi based investigative journalist. He can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @NKMalazai