Bugti, US diplomat meet privately: TV reporters thrashed for snooping
Munawer Azeem
ISLAMABAD: Two television journalists’ attempt to snoop on a Baloch leader and a US diplomat meeting privately in a hotel here on Thursday ended in a fracas and detention of four Punjab police personnel.
Islamabad police said they were also looking for seven bodyguards of Jamhoori Watan Party leader Shazain Bugti.
They, together with the Punjab policemen, allegedly beat up a private TV channel crew when they started filming Mr Bugti and US Embassy’s political counsellor Jonathan Pratt, despite his protests that the journalists had barged in their private meeting uninvited.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik arrived at the hotel to enquire after the commotion had ended. His sudden appearance gave rise to questions, if not suspicions, among the witnesses of the incident that lasted about 20 minutes.
Police was interrogating the Punjab policemen at the Secretariat police station but no charges had been pressed till late night.
Local administration and the police were said to be negotiating with Mr Bugti to settle the issue quietly and return the journalist’s cellphone.
Witnesses to the fracas in the heavily protected Serena Hotel blamed both sides – the journalists for intruding into the privacy of two individuals, and the policemen and Mr Bugti’s bodyguards for thrashing them.
One of the TV crew members said Mr Bugti flared up when they started recording the scene on his mobile phone. Mr Bugti snatched the phone and ordered his guards, mainly the police escort provided to him by the Punjab government, to push them out.
He said he fled the scene but Mr Bugti’s private guards caught up with him in the basement of the hotel and beat him up.
He said he freed himself and ran back to the lobby at the upper level where more bodyguards had appeared but did not act because other mediapersons had arrived there meanwhile.
Towards the end of the ugly row, he said, the bodyguards were seen putting their weapons in a Land Cruiser which sped away.
It bore registration number LC-22 and belonged to Punjab Chief Minister’s escort squad, he said.
At no point did the hotel’s security came to the rescue of the journalists under attack, he added.
A guard of Mr Bugti told reporters on condition of anonymity that the journalists asked Mr Pratt about “the agenda” of his meeting with the Baloch leader, a grandson of late Nawab Akbar Bugti, but the US diplomat declined to comment.
“Sardar sahib and the American told the reporters that media was not invited to their meeting and it was a private meeting. But since you are here, enjoy tea in the hotel restaurant,” the guard said.
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