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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Govt appears to be helpless for last 14 days: Rabbani

By Mumtaz Alvi
November 21, 2017

ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani on Monday said that whatever he is seeing is not good as the government appeared to be helpless for the last 14 days.


He said the only way for Pakistan to avert a ‘dangerous fate’ was that all the institutions should work within their constitutional limits. Raza Rabbani said this at a function here at the National Press Club after inaugurating the first-ever monument in the memory of journalists who were martyred in the line of duty that ‘warlordism’ in various shapes is attempting to dominate the state.


Raza Rabbani made an appeal to the political workers and parties to put aside their differences to deal with internal forces and those in the region.“The leadership just cannot afford complacency,” he cautioned.


The Senate chairman said politics would thrive only if the Federation survives, and if warlords would control the state, then there would neither be politics, nor parliament. He called for collective efforts to handle the challenge. He pointed out that the present vision of the state was not the one spelt out by Quaid-i-Azam in his speech on August 14, 1947.


“What I am saying after giving it a serious thought, as I am not foreseeing good for Pakistan. And to avert it, there is only one way that all the state institutions should work while confining themselves to their constitutional limits,” he emphasised.


The Senate chairman insisted that where the institutions are weak and the state is facing anarchy and politics is corporatised, they stop taking care as to what stage the Federation and the society have reached, the role of journalists would emerge even more prominently. “Pakistan's masses, political workers, journalists and institutions will have to come together on the same page and decide that warlordism will not be tolerated," he said.


Rabbani said that the Senate Standing Committee on Information had formed a sub-committee to further improve the proposed bill on protection of journalists and then asked what difference would it make, as the real challenge is in the implementation of the law. He regretted that the law was implemented differently based on which segment of society a person belonged to, and stressed the need for equal implementation of law for the ruling elite and the tonga wala. He lamented that presently there were four different standards of application of law and it is applied differently if you belong to the ruling elite, or if you are collaborator of the ruling elite, if you are wealthy and powerful and if you are a common man.


The Senate chairman acknowledged the sacrifices offered by different segments of the society, including students, labourers, journalists, farmers and political workers for the rule of law so that the non-state actors did not succeed in their designs. “They were attacked by both the state and non-state actors,” he said.


Rabbani paid tributes to journalists, including Hamid Mir, Ahmad Noorani and Matiullah Jan and said had media persons, like Noorani not rendered sacrifices, the state might have disintegrated.


Nations, he pointed out, attached prominence, only if they remembered their unsung heroes and preserved their history. “Unfortunately, the state of Pakistan never considered the common man a part of the state, rather always considered him anti-state. But it is the sacrifices by different segments, which have kept the society united,” he said.


Rabbani said he knew it was no more easy to talk: one has to face iron rods, like Noorani, bullets like Hamid Mir and stones pelting like Matiuallah Jan. He promised to continue supporting journalists to make Pakistan a true welfare and progressive state.


Senior anchor Hamid Mir said the monument was a symbolic message to the state and non-state actors that journalists would continue their mission to unmask the wrongs, braving all kinds of machinations.


Ahmad Noorani, senior journalist from The News, while speaking on the occasion, revealed that those, who had attacked him, appeared to be teenagers and students of a seminary. He also recalled the last one, who hit him with an iron rod, as if he had blood in his eyes and wanted to finish him. “But I was saved by some labourers, working at a nearby building. It is alarming that after using terrorists, rascals and militants, now students of seminaries are being used against journalists,” he pointed out while narrating the incident which left him in precarious condition recently near the Zero Point.


Quoting a police report, Noorani said the teenagers were chasing him right from the Faizabad intersection and then they led his car to a site (black spot), which was out of the range of security cameras. None of them carried mobile phones. He noted that normally the seminary students would not have any idea of being seen by a security camera or traced by using a mobile phone call; they were even mindful of geo-fencing. He said their technical knowledge was quite surprising.


Other journalists, who were also attacked and faced harassment, including Arshad Sharif and Matiullah Jan, called for making the findings of the attack on Hamid Mir and why investigations with regards to attacks on journalists remained incomplete, barring three of them. They wanted the minister for interior to explain as to what exactly were the obstacles in completion of investigations.


Seasoned journalist Nasir Malik said that assassins were being hired to hush up the voice of truth raised by journalists. In all, 130 media persons, including 105 journalists, had embraced martyrdom so far in discharge of their duty. He made it clear that journalists would continue to present both sides of the picture and wondered that no lesson was learnt from the 1971 tragedy. “There should be no one-sided coverage: there will be talk on missing persons as well as those martyred in Turbat,” he said.


The NPC President Shakeel Anjum said journalists were delighted to have Raza Rabbani for the opening of the monument for martyred journalists. He lamented that the draft bill on protection of journalists was pending for the last two years, being the government’s last priority. He proposed that each year on November 02, such event should be organised to remember the sacrifices of journalists.