Pakistan Muslim League (PML) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain PHOTO: APP/FILE
Former prime minister and chief of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, said on Saturday that the generals and the rank and file were equally disturbed over the vilification campaign targeting the country’s armed forces.
“Only the enemies of Pakistan have benefited from what Geo TV did,” Shujaat said referring to the baseless allegations levelled by the news channel against the country’s top spy agency – the Inter-Services Intelligence – and its chief Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam soon after the gun attack on anchor Hamid Mir in Karachi on April 19.
“The ongoing confrontation is ominous. Even a subedar [petty officer] is wondering that first a former army chief was dubbed traitor and now the head of the most sensitive institution has been accused without any evidence and investigation,” Shujaat told Imran Khan, the host of Express News talk show ‘Takrar’.
The PML-Q chief accused the government of siding with one television channel in the ongoing confrontation. “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should have avoided becoming partisan and instead tried to find a way out. “However, [unfortunately] the prime minister is standing with one media group, not with the entire media,” he added.
He was referring to the prime minister’s silence on the issue. Although Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said on Friday that it was a legal and constitutional duty of the government to protect the honour of the armed forces and its premier intelligence agency, the premier hasn’t said a word on the matter.
Shujaat said that during his brief stint as prime minister, then information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed had suggested a fee for private television channels. “However, I’d told Rashid that instead of fee we should have a code of conduct for TV channels so that we could cancel the licence of a channel if it broadcasted anything against the national interest,” he said.
Shujaat said that Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Dr Tahirul Qadri has also contacted him to express shock over the vilification campaign against the armed forces. “Although he [Dr Qadri] is ready to launch a country-wide campaign, he’s not likely to return to Pakistan anytime soon,” he added.
Also speaking in the talk-show, former chief military spokesperson, Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi said that Geo TV has been exposed to the entire nation. “The eight-hour-long campaign on Geo TV provided an excuse for foreign media to criticise Pakistani state institutions,” he said. They tried to malign Pakistani armed forces because they want to weaken Pakistan.”
Meanwhile Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said on Saturday that Geo TV has gone too far with its deliberate campaign to malign the military and demoralise Pakistan’s soldiers. “The ambiguous government posturing on this issue is equally condemnable,” he said in a statement issued by PTI’s Central Media Cell.
Imran criticised the channel for its defamation of the security establishment at a time when Pakistan is confronting security threats and terrorism internally and externally.
“While all state institutions must function within the law and Constitution, it is unacceptable that media houses launch campaigns against any institution without adopting the legal route of providing proof and approaching the courts,” he said.
Imran said it is ‘ironic’ that Geo TV has a one-sided and accusatory approach, given its inability in the past to name known killers belonging to or affiliated with certain political parties who killed journalists like Wali Khan Babar with impunity.
Imran added that Geo TV had also aided and abetted in the May 11 election rigging from prematurely announcing the results when barely 30 per cent of the vote count had come in, to pre-electoral polls fixed to give certain outcomes.
“In the interest of an independent media, the PTI kept silent despite seeing that GeoTV/Jang Group had effectively become a surrogate media cell for PML-N and reaped financial rewards including cricket broadcasting rights,” he added.
Imran demanded an apology from Geo TV for what he called baseless allegations and vilification of Pakistan Army and ISI.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 27th, 2014.
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