17 APP officials booked

Officials of the APP were booked for blocking the national and international news wire service.

ISLAMABAD: Seventeen officials of the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) were booked for blocking the national and international news wire service of the agency.

Manager Admistration APP, Mazhar Veesar, lodged a complaint with Aabpara police station on Friday against 17 officials working in APP’s IT department.

While two of the accused, Muhammad Majid (a technician) and Muhammad Azeem (a computer operator), were arrested by the police on Friday, the remaining 15 officials, including Director Information Technology APP Ghawas Khan, managed to obtain bail-before-arrest.

Veesar in his complaint said that the accused had stolen computer hard drives and corrupted their software. Police officials booked them under Electronic Transactions Ordinance (ETO).

A police official said their initial investigations suggested that the IT department had colluded with Khan to deliberately block the wire service. Director Khan had been served a show-cause notice by the management for misconduct and was also sent on forced leave, which prompted his supporters to take this extreme step.

The remaining 15 officials, police said, will be arrested as soon as their bail-before-arrest expires. The national and international services of APP remained suspended till the filing of this report.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29th, 2010.