Criminal Case on Kashmiri Editor on Yaum e Estehsal – Very Unfortunate Incident @ PID

Mr. Mohsin Naveed ,the Personal Staff Officer of Deputy Director General PID has complained to the police that Mr. Ijaz Abbasi Editor of Sadai Chinar with some other persons from other newspapers broke into my room and asked for Mr. Asim Khichi DDG. They were mad at him for not releasing advertisement related to Yaum e Estehsal that is one year of IoK’s lock down.

PSO further alleged that they were armed and entered into Asim Khichis room without permission. They fixed pistol on Mr. Asim Khichi and threatened him to release the advertisement for their newspapers otherwise be ready for dire consequences including taking his life.

PSO did not find it enough and added that the accused tortured me ,picked up files and broke the furniture before leaving the office.

Police Station Aabpara has registered the FIR with sections 506/34, 353/186 and 427 of Pakistan Penal Code.

Here it is worth noting that Ijaz Abbasi is well known in all Kashmiri and Pakistani newspaper. He is considered a gentleman editor with no previous record of such activities or what the PID staff blamed him.

Mr. Asim Khichi is also known as a good officer. Many journalists find him a cooperative person within his powers and whatever is fair to be done. Therefore it seems that some misunderstanding overwhelmed in between the two parties.

Demand for gov advertisements is the right of every newspaper and for that the only office to contact to is the same office of Mr. Asim Khichi. GoP has centralized all federal gov advertisements to one officer that is DDG PID.

Editors can be rude and harsh and that only when their papers are ignored continuously but carrying arms and threatening for life and that at a gov office is something that is more a concocted story than what actually happened.

Further , the FIR is against the PID staff itself that they have no security arrangements and people can enter into the building with weapons.

Editors of Pakistani newspapers in general and Kashmiri papers in particular have expressed concern over the FIR .

Azad Kashmir Newspapers Society AKNS is planning to launch a series of protests against registering of criminal cases on editors by such a gov department that is supposed to take care of them instead.

President AKNS Mr Zahid Tabassum , Editors of different Kashmir Newspapers, Mr Amir Mehboob, Raja Kafeel Ahmad, Abid Abbasi has condemned the registration of criminal case against Mr Ijaz Abbasi and others.

Mr Zahid Tabassum has said that we will not tolerate such allegations on our fraternity. He has called upon the government of Pakistan to suspend DDG PID and initiate an inquiry into the release of advertisements in return of kick backs and commissions. He  has demanded the arrest of the staff that attacked the editors and misbehaved with them.