Lawyers beat up another journalist
LAHORE – A group of lawyers of Lahore Bar Association (LBA) on Wednesday again manhandled a private television news reporter and its cameraman at the premises of session court for no reason.
It is pertinent to mention here that it was not the first time when the lawyers gave a good thrashing to journalists. It was the fourth incident of manhandling the journalists by the lawyers after the restoration of Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhry.
On Wednesday, Dunya News reporter Muhammad Ashfaq along with his cameraman Irfan went to district and sessions court for media coverage where advocate Rana Shakeel along with his three unknown accomplices attacked on them claiming that media’s entrance in sessions court was banned.
They slapped the Dunya News team and snatched their camera and mobile phones. After this, they locked them in a room besides the new canteen at sessions courts building.
Later, Secretary LBA Ahmed Yar Chawali arrived at the spot and freed the detainees from cruel lawyers. In July, the first manhandling case took place at a Sessions court where some 20 lawyers of the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) attacked the crew of a private TV channel, severely injuring the cameraman, for airing footage of the lawyers’ beating of a policeman on previous day.
Punjab Bar had suspended the licences of four lawyers Saeed Anwar, Rana Sajjad, Rana Asif and Malik Haneef Awan involved in the infamous incident but within next five days when a case was being heard at High Court against these lawyers the Punjab Bar restored the licenses of all these lawyers.
In the second incident a group of lawyers manhandled Geo Tv cameraman within the Lahore High Court premises. When contacted to president LBA Rana Zia Abdur Rehman, he showed reluctance to comment on the incident and instead guided to the secretary LBA Ahmed Yar Chawali who while explaining the stance said that, the LBA is totally helpless under these circumstances and there is not anything that the lawyer body can do to curtail this problem.
When a similar incident happened in past journalists launched a protest rally from PUJ office too Aiwan-e-Adl at which the LB officials apologised and ensured that such an incident would not be allowed to happen in the future.
However when the secretary LBA was reminded of that assurance, he said LBA cannot control the whole lawyer’s community and such activities do not represent the LBA and disconnected the call.
Source: The Nation
Date:11/26/2009
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