The question that cost him his job

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, JULY 23. The Chief Reporter of a leading Urdu daily here is believed to have become the first casualty of the televised press conference of the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, on Friday last.

The episode, as reported in the English daily, Dawn, and some observations of Gen. Musharraf in the course of the two-hour press conference has raised some disturbing questions here.

The Dawn said today that the Chief Reporter had been relieved of his post and sent to the editorial desk at the behest of the Government's media managers.

The charge against him is that he enraged the General by asking him a ``question that was against the paper's policy.''

The report believed ``that the management of the newspaper has taken this action against its Chief Reporter at the behest of the Ministry of Information and Media Development.''

It quoted concerned journalists as saying that the media managers of Gen. Musharraf conveyed the `message' to the Resident Editor of the Urdu daily, who, in turn, handed over a letter to the Chief Reporter saying the question asked by him was not in line with the policy of the newspaper.

The ``question'' that cost the Chief Reporter his position was innocuous by any standard. He wanted to know if the outcome of the Agra summit would have been different if a civilian Government was in place in Islamabad.

A civilian Head of State, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had managed to negotiate the Shimla Agreement in 1972, and another, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, had secured the Lahore Declaration, the scribe said.

``Are you joking with me,'' was how the General responded. The Shimla Agreement was negotiated against the backdrop of 90,000 Pakistani soldiers languishing in Indian jails, he said.

As for the Lahore Declaration, it was not the military but the people of Pakistan who had rejected it.

Besides the Chief Reporter episode, certain other observations of Gen. Musharraf have left an uneasy impression in Pakistan's civil society.

In the course of the conference, he made no effort to hide his anger against the noted human rights activist and lawyer, Ms. Asma Jehangir, when a mediaperson wanted to know if his Government was contemplating any action against her for her `anti-Pakistan tirade' during her recent visit to India.

``I have many things to say against such people who speak ill of their own country abroad. But I am restraining myself at this juncture,'' the General said.

He left no one in doubt that he was convinced of the military's superiority in all spheres of governance.

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Section  : International
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