ICT Police banish print media from coverage

Islamabad : It was an unusual and quite perplexing happening when the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Police, apparently, deliberately banished the beat reporters from print media to cover an important event held at the Police Lines Headquarters the other day.

Shahzad Akbar, the adviser to the Prime Minister, was the guest of honour at a campaign arranged by Islamabad Police to help collect blood donations for the patients suffering from the disease of thalassaemia at the Police Lines health facility.

The event and the presence of Shahzad Akbar as well as the top brass of Islamabad Police, which was present there, was an excellent opportunity for the reporters, both from the electronic as well as print media, to seek answers to the questions regarding some incidents of extreme importance that have happened over the last few days in the federal capital.

However, it was indeed a strange incident that only the beat reporters and cameramen from electronic media were invited for the coverage of the event and the print media was completely ignored, either inadvertently or, may be, deliberately.

Since the beginning of the lock down in the federal capital in wake of the spread of coronavirus pandemic the top police officers are usually unavailable to the reporters, again of the print media as their operators attending the calls mainly citing hectic work/meetings schedule being the reason behind their non-availability.

However, leaving the print media beat reporters out of such an important event and keeping the coverage confined to the electronic media was somewhat difficult to understand the caused a great disappointment among the print media beat reporters.

There is a serious concern taking roots among the rank and file of print media beat reporters about such discriminatory attitude by the ICT Police which is only going to create a gulf in the relations between the two important sides, leading to spread of information that may not be in the benefit of both the public as well as the police.

Now the confusion in the whole situation is that the high ups of the Islamabad Police when contacted denied having exercised any such discrimination between the print and electronic media, claiming that invitation for attending and coverage of the event was sent to all the beat reporters.

However, when the ICT Police media/public relations officer was contacted, he extended a lame excuse, saying that because of the short notice for the coverage of the event, he missed the list of print media beat reporters and sent out the invitation to the electronic media beat reporters. He conceded that he made a mistake in this regard.

The ‘excuse’ put forth by the PRO ICT Police in response to the serious concerns raised by the print media beat reporters seemed to be more as offering him as an ‘escape goat’ to take off the brunt from his bosses because he instantly realised that the print media beat reporters were seething and fuming as they believe that they have been deliberately kept away from the coverage of the event.

Though the top bosses have muttered the right words while responding to some print media reporters who managed to have access to them later, but one wonders if that would be enough to maintain good professional coordination and collaboration between the two parties.

Apparently the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Islamabad need to make some personal impression to steady the rocking boat, no matter how busy and tied up he may be amidst the prevailing circumstances.