Attack on Pakistan journalist ensures deterioration of state

“Destabilizing armed forces and media ensures deterioration of a state as both institutes ensure the protection of any sovereign country,” said a political writer of the 80s. A regrettable and condemnable attack on a leading media man, journalist, and anchorperson, Hamid Mir, has shaken the country and made political weather “cloudy with thunderstorms.”

Hamid is currently in the hospital, after being shot 3 times, and he will be in a position to give his statement in the next two or three days about the suspects who attacked him. His younger brother, Amir Mir, who is also a journalist, claims that Hamid visited him and informed him of a plan by ISI chief Lt. General Zaheerul Islam to assassinate him.

Hamid Mir was two-year senior to me in school and college and about 3 years senior to me in journalism. I always found him a man of courage, bravery, risk-taking, innovation, and a successful planner and born leader.

I got several telephone calls, sms texts, and emails from all over the world asking about the attack on him and his wellbeing. The telephone number of Amir Mir that is available to old friends has been switched off. I had been working with Amir Mir at the Frontier Post for five years and two years in The News. He is an aggressive and honest journalist. He is person who leveled allegations that his brother is being attacked by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on the direction of the Chief of ISI.

I feel the State of Pakistan, important institutes, and freedom of press are at risk, and something serious is in clouds that can turn this society upside down – a society already on the fast track of decomposition and decay. All institutes in the garb of fetching power are aggressively encroaching the realm of others and are ready to destroy each other over this power game.

When I started journalism in late 80s, journalistic norms and standards taught to us were that a journalist must get versions from persons or institutions he was writing a story about and could not give a story to a newsroom about armed forces without taking the version from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) although we had the whole story in our notebook. These are bygone days, and now we are facing a “new journalism” where there is no concept of taking version of all stakeholders who are part of the news we are printing or broadcasting to the ISPR. Now this is “free for all journalism.” Important civil and military institutions are also responsible for this free for all journalism, as these institutions started planting stories to their blue-eyed journalists, and these journalists became more powerful than the owners and the editors of the newspapers and media houses.

There are several viewpoints in the market and many theories and opinions about this attack on Hamid Mir. These theories are versatile, contrary to each other, and full of personal opinions. I reproduce these opinions and theories as follows:

Opinion 1

A senior journalist, Ansar Abbasi, believes that a journalist should be an “opinion maker” instead of just a reporter who reports events and lets people make their opinions about right and wrong, good and bad. Ansar Abbasi Sahib is head of the Investigative Unit of The News, a leading English daily of Pakistan. His statements indicate that he writes his opinion instead of investigative reports. He is person who has demanded resignation of the Chief of the ISI, stating that since Lt. Gen Zaheerul Islam is under allegations, he should be relieved of his post. He is the same person who was of the view that the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Ch should not be relieved of his post although he was under allegation in the Arslan Iftikhar case.

Opinion 2

Training of armed Forces injects an exceptional confidence in its officials that they think they are the best and they do best, and that is the reason they use slogans like “men at their best.”

Working journalists begged former General Musharraf for not allowing cross media, however, he was of the view that he knew the best and did the best and introduced cross media anyway. Writers and journalists in the 80s begged Gen. Ziauh Haq not to allow radical forces to eat out Pakistan in the name of Jihad, and journalists and writers in the early 50s and 60 begged Gen. Ayub Khan to give the same rights to Bangalis as the people of West Pakistan, but he did not listen. One can write thousands of “the best acts” of generals in an article, because every general did the best in Pakistan, and a general cannot do “less than the best.” The attack on one of the leading journalists and anchorman Hamid Mir was followed by a hurricane of allegations against the prime intelligence agency of Pakistan and its chief. Amir Mir, who is the younger brother of Hamid Mir, accused Lt. Gen Zaheerul Islam for this attack. Amir is a veteran journalist who works for some Indian journals and newspapers. He wrote a book about the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the role of intelligence agencies in this unfortunate event in Pakistani history. So allegations coming from Amir Mir against the ISI chief were received negatively and “dubious” by many circles. But his allegations were followed by statements of different leading journalists who confirmed that Hamid Mir expressed fears and told them about threats he received from the ISI. Amir Mir switched off his telephone that is available to his colleagues, so he is out of the reach of journalists who wish to talk to him to know more of the whole event. He is only in contact with those he wishes to be in contact with or who knows some other contact number.

Opinion 3

Every television channel and newspaper in the country took a position either against the ISI or in favor of the ISI. Television anchors that have green channels with ISI tried to bail ISI out of these allegations, even by sitting in at Geo television, the organization that has had a direct contra with ISI for a long time and who are colleagues of Hamid Mir. The two top anchors of Geo —Saleem Safi and Aftab Iqbal – tried their best to bail ISI out of this whole crisis. While Moeed Pirzada, Nasim Zehra, and many more are having wonderful relations on Hali Road, they did their best for their friends in their talk shows. Mubashar Luqman’s case is different, because he has taken a strong position against Geo for a long time. He is justified to blow this issue out of any proportion.

Opinion 4

Implicating ISI in a murder attempt on a senior journalist is a serious issue. ISI is yet to come out of allegations of killing Saleem Shahzad, a foreign journalist who had very cordial relation with agencies while covering the Afghan war and Afghanistan. He was in contact with Afghan Taliban and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and always had exclusive stories about them.

Opinion 5

Social media is full of hate messages, abusive expressions, and allegations against Hamid Mir and in favor of Hamid Mir. Pseudo names and fake twitter accounts and blogs are being produced for this war of accusations and allegations. Some people even made a fake account of the Chief of the ISI.

Opinion 6

The government of Mian Nawaz Sharif very tactfully has kept itself away from the whole show; the Ministry of Information for the government of Pakistan did not take any action and did not comment against those who are leveling serious allegations against the prime agency of the country before the start of any investigation of this attack.

Opinion 7

Circles that are close to the ISI believe that Indian and Jewish lobbies want to destroy the ISI, and these lobbies are using Geo Television for their own purposes, while the Geo television administration believes that it stands for truth and fights for the cause of democracy, rules of law, the freedom of the judiciary, and freedom of opinion. Journalists who are close friends of the ISI believe that an attack on the ISI is attack on the State of Pakistan, while neutral journalists believe that the ISI is not the State of Pakistan but a protector of Pakistan, and making ISI weak is actually an attempt to strip Pakistan from its strength to fight against its enemies, but that the ISI should refrain from playing with journalists.

Opinion 8

Hamid works for foreign intelligence agencies against the interest of the country. He released a fake interview of Osama Bin Laden (OBL) that ensured a decision of the Security Council of United Nations to allow America to attack Afghanistan when he published an interview that OBL said that he had a dirty bomb (a sort of atom bomb) and would use it against America, etc.

Opinion 9

Hamid Mir had been working for the ISI, and it promoted him over the years to this high pedestal of journalism by providing him secret reports, giving him access to diplomatic circles, and providing him with top contacts all over the world.

My Opinion

What are the opinions of people around us? The reality is simple. Hamid Mir was attacked, and he is in a hospital. There are some elements somewhere who want to destabilize the country and its institutions including the armed forces and media, as both ensure protection of any sovereign State.

Whether Hamid Mir is bad or good, right or wrong is not the issue right now. The former Gen. Musharraf and retired generals were on his talk show, as were almost all of the former Director Generals of the ISI. If he is an anti-Pakistan element (as claimed by a certain strata of the journalistic divide), then why would patriotic elements wish to be a part of his talk show? Has he suddenly become a traitor now that he has been shot and received a bullet to his belly?

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