Police register case against journalist
ISLAMABAD (AFP) – A prominent journalist said Friday that police have registered a criminal case against him after he wrote a series of articles in his Internet weekly journal accusing, President Pervez Musharraf’s regime of corruption.
Police in the nearby district of Rawalpindi confirmed a case had been registered and said it related to a robbery allegedly committed by him and his family members early last year.
Shaheen Sehbai, 54, settled in the United States after he quit an English language daily where he had worked as editor.
The journalist had said he resigned from the newspaper because of government pressure.
Police said the case had been registered on the orders of the Lahore High Court on a petition filed against Sehbai by a former relative.
Khalid Hijazi, former husband of Sehbai’s sister-in-law ‘ alleged in his complaint that the journalist and his family had committed armed robbery in his home and taken away valuables some 18 months ago.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who is living abroad in self-imposed exile, deplored the action against Sehbai, accusing the military regime of victimizing a senior journalist.
“It is most deplorable that the tactics of forging cases against political opposition has been extended to the media as well,” Benazir said in a statement.
“It is a totally fake and bogus allegation made by the military regime using a poor low level employee of the army general headquarters, who once was my cousin’s husband,” Sehbai said i@ an e-mail message to his former newspaper colleagues.
He said the police were raiding his relatives’ homes in Pakistan and harassing women and the children.
Source: The Nation
Date:8/24/2002
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