Press freedom rally leaders baton charged | Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF)

Pakistan Press Foundation

Press freedom rally leaders baton charged

ISLAMABAD, FEBRUARY 13: Three persons, including Senator Abdul Hayee Baloch and a lady worker from Lahore, were injured when the police baton-charged, used water cannons and threw bricks on a peaceful procession of the Pakistan Awami Ittehad at Jinnah Avenue in front of the parliament house here on Saturday.

The march, organized by the PAI for the freedom of the press, was led by PAI president Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and secretary general of the alliance Hamid Nasir Chatta, besides a number of siting and former PPP MNAs and senators.

Sen Abdul Hayee Baloch of the Balochistan National Movement, who was accompanying the main leader’s on a truck, received, serious head injury when he was hit by a brick pelted by the police on the rally.

Ms Sajjada Mir, a lady worker from Lahore, sustained a fracture in her left hand when some five policemen hit her ruthlessly as she got stuck in the truck. Mushtaq Paganwala of Gujrat fell unconscious due to over exposure of extensive tear gas shelling on the crowd.

The police action was so severe that the unarmed crowd disbursed in no time. The police followed the fleeing workers and retreating leaders and continued pelting bricks and shelling tear gas on them.

It was perhaps the only demonstration in which no police vehicle was damaged. However, two trucks carrying the leaders were badly damaged by the police. Windowpanes of a number of other vehicles of the PPP and PML(J) leaders were broken due to the stone pelting of the police. “It was an attempt to physically eliminate the leader of the opposition,” said Ms Bhutto at a press conference held later at the besieged party central secretariat. She said an FIR would be lodged against Nawaz Sharif for a conspiracy to kill her.

Ms Bhutto, flanked by Hamid Nasir Chatta and Nawabzada Nasrullah, showed stains of blood on her shalwar. The stains of blood were of some worker who saved her from the targeted brick batting. “I will keep it as a forensic evidence,” she said.

Mr Chatta had talked to the COAS and had apprised him of the police brutalities and an attempt on the life of the opposition.

She said a petition would be filed in the SC under its original jurisdiction against police violence on peaceful demonstrators. The petition would be prepared by Iftikhar Gillani, Iqbal Haider and Mian Raza Rabbani.

She said PAI had led a peaceful protest march in Lahore on Feb 4 and participated in rallies organised by the Jang Group all over Pakistan. Today PAI began its peaceful protest against the attempt by Nawaz regime to dismantle democracy in Pakistan by targeting the press, judiciary, opposition and armed forces, she added.

The police had put barbed wires and barricades to disrupt the march, she said. Mr Chatta, she added, started his address when they saw that they could not go any further.

She lamented that when Mr Chatta began his speech the criminal elements in the law enforcing agencies broke the law and their oath of office in an attempt to murder and physically assault the politicians, including Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, herself and other opposition parliamentarians.

She alleged that it had been done on the orders of Nawaz Sharif who had earlier publicly threatened the opposition to behave. Nawaz Sharif became bold as no one yet had taken him to task for his unlawful and illegal actions against the press, judiciary and opposition. “They took out bricks and hurled it directly at the head of the opposition leader who was sitting next to veteran politician Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Abdul Hayee Baloch, Hamid Nasir Chatta and other parliamentarians,” she added.

Responding to a question, she said Nawaz Sharif was maintaining his own intelligence agency which was headquartered. in Raiwind. This agency was involved in a number of, what she called, mysterious murders including that of Murtaza Bhutto, she alleged.

Till the filing of this report Ms Bhutto was sitting in the party secretariat to see that an FIR be lodged against the prime minister.

A press release was issued by the party late in the night condemning Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Senator Saif-ur-Rehman, principal secretary to the PM Saeed Mehdi, Deputy Commissioner Sikandar Sultan, SSP Rai Altaf, AC Iftikhar Shalwani and others and implicating them in an alleged plot to murder the opposition leader. Our Correspondent adds from Rawalpindi: The Pakistan People’s Party on Saturday staged a vehicular rally on Murree Road which later merged with the main rally of PAI at Islamabad.

The rally, known as “freedom of the press rally”, started from Liaquat Bagh at l p.m. and reached Faizabad at about 2:45pm. Some 50 vehicles, including trucks, buses and cars, took part in the rally.

About 2,000 PPP workers participated in the rally, which was led by PPP leaders Rao Sikandar lqbal, Haji Chaudhry Mushtaq, Babu Idrees, Saleem Mughal, Fauzia Habib and others.

Traffic on the busy Murree Road remained choked for two hours due to the rally. Participants of the rally were carrying placards, banners and PPP flags.

Some small rallies staged from different parts of the city joined the main rally at Faizabad Chowk from where the rally proceeded towards the parliament house.

In their speeches on the occasion, the leaders of the rally demanded of the Supreme Court to take suo motu notice against the government’s attempt to undermine the freedom of the press.

Source: Dawn

Date:2/14/1999