Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
There is one two words agency of army , not known much
MI
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
If he died he would have been labelled a martyr a la BB shaheed 
but now that he lives he will be labelled a hero a la Malalalala
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
No , He was hero when he was not disclosing things , Now since years , he is a target since he talks about missing persons . Talking about rule of law is an offence .
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
The Hamid Mir case: 'In Pakistan, they used to censor journalists
More than a hundred bouquets line the lobby of the private ward of Karachi’s posh, private Aga Khan Hospital. Outside, dozens of policemen with bulletproof vests and automatic weapons look at every visitor suspiciously, officers speaking urgently into their walkie-talkies. The Karachi police force is really good at strutting about after a high-profile crime has happened. One of the largest bouquets in the lobby is from the force. “Get well Hamid Mir,” it says. “We may not be able to protect you,” it implies, “but we know where to order the best flowers.”
Mir is upstairs recuperating. He took six bullets – in the ribs, thigh, stomach and across his hand – in an assassination attempt on Saturday as he came out of the airport to present a special broadcast on Geo,Pakistan’s largest news channel. Mir had warned about a possible assassination. He had also named his would-be killers. That’s what his brother claims, that’s what his colleagues and managers at the channel say. Geo, just after the attack, broadcast the allegation and, in an unprecedented move, also flashed the picture of the accused: the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence chief, Lieutenant General Zaheer ul-Islam. In that picture he comes across as a big man. We are not supposed to know much about him except the fact that he is a very professional general. According to an internet myth very popular in Pakistan, the ISI has been rated as the world’s No 1 intelligence agency: Mossad is No 5 and MI6 languishes at No 9. According to television ratings, the man with three bullets still in his body is Pakistan’s top-rated TV journalist and one of the most vocal critics of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies.
One of the modest bouquets wishing Mir a full and speedy recovery is from the prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, who visited him in the hospital earlier this week after announcing a judicial inquiry. Going by the history of judicial inquiries in Pakistan, Sharif seemed to be saying: “Look Hamid, we want you to get well but don’t really expect us to find out who tried to kill you. Who is going to go and ask a working general? Meanwhile, here are three senior judges who will help you get over the whole thing.”
The day after the assassination attempt, Pakistan’s army chief General Raheel Sharif visited the ISI headquarters to show that he stands with his intelligence boss.
And the very next day, the Defence Ministry recommended that the channel for which Mir works should be shut down for bringing a national institution into disrepute. Geo’s competitors have joined the chorus.
For years, Pakistan has been one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists. From feudal landlords to Taliban fighters,sectarian groups to separatists, all have killed journalists. The question one needs to ask is: does the ISI, a national body often referred to as “a sensitive institution”, occasionally kill journalists? As any trained journalist would tell you, we need two sources before we can tell you a story. Here are two stories, with multiple sources and two different endings.
The light torture storyI was working in the BBC World Service in Bush House, London, when one of our reporters went missing in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. A couple of phone calls to Islamabad colleagues established that he had been kidnapped from a university campus. He was picked up by people who came in pickup trucks, told the students that they were from the sensitive agency and that they were taking him to ask a few questions. Nobody except me, sitting far away from the crime scene in London, had any doubts that the ISI had kidnapped our reporter. I had heard from Islamabad journalists that they were visited on and off by ISI people to brief or debrief them about national affairs. People were occasionally reminded that we were all brothers. Why, they asked, didn’t some journalists love their brothers in the ISI as much as their ISI brothers loved them.
When our reporter went missing or, as his family and eyewitnesses said, was kidnapped by the officials of a sensitive institution, we were worried. You can’t really call up the ISI headquarters and ask them if they have kidnapped a reporter. So we called everyone else.
A friend of a friend’s contact, a colonel in the ISI, confirmed that our reporter was indeed with the ISI. This colonel must have been a really sensitive type because he assured us that he didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping; it was another cell within the ISI, and our reporter would be released soon. We were relieved and thrilled that the ISI had reassured us that it had our man. We asked, almost in gratitude, if there was anything we could do to expedite the release of our colleague. “Make a lot of noise,” we were told by the sensitive colonel through a friend of a friend. “Make as much noise as you can.” We did make as much noise as we could while still remaining within the BBC’s editorial guidelines. In those days it usually meant overworking the fax machine and petitioning everyone – president, prime minister, chief of army, journalist unions, Amnesty International – basically everyone with a title and a fax contact.
Twenty-four hours passed – there was no sign of our reporter and we were still sending faxes. The BBC’s then Pakistan editor Aamer Ahmed Khan received a call saying that a body had been taken to a hospital and he should go and check. For the next hour, as Khan tried to reach the hospital, we didn’t make any noise. Jittery and relieved, he called to say that the body that had turned up wasn’t our reporter’s. “I felt so relieved I wanted to hug that body,” Khan wrote later.
Our reporter was released the next day, blindfolded and dumped on a deserted road outside the city. He had been tortured. “Light type of torture,” he said. He had been kept awake, beaten on his soles all night and asked about his alleged contacts with militants. He was abused and punched. Like most reporters doing the terrorism beat, he had a couple of phone numbers for Taliban spokespersons. “Can you repeat all of that on air?” I asked him after joking about light torture. “No way,” said the reporter. Before releasing him they had casually mentioned the whereabouts of his family who lived in places far less safe than Islamabad. “They have told me to keep shut about this and I think I should.” We, who were quite pleased with the success of our noisy campaign, also decided to shut up.In fact, the reason I am not naming the reporter here is that he still lives and works in Pakistan. But there was this other reporter who can be named, and now we’ll find out why …
The “They didn’t mean to do it” storyThree years ago, journalist Saleem Shehzad left his home in Islamabad to appear on a TV show. He disappeared on his way to the studio. Months before his disappearance he had written to human rights activists and fellow journalists saying that he had received threats from the ISI. The day after his disappearance, his badly tortured and bruised body was found in a canal, still wearing the suit and tie he had put on for the TV show.
I wasn’t an editor any more. I didn’t know Saleem Shehzad so I didn’t make any noise. Out of curiosity I called up about half a dozen journalists in Islamabad. Every single one of them was sure that Shehzad had been kidnapped by the ISI. But a very senior journalist cautioned me that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. “The ISI does pick up journalists from time to time but they don’t kill them.” A few weeks after Saleem Shehzad’s murder I attended a journalists’ protest in Islamabad where we all made a lot of noise. Hamid Mir was noisier than the others. In between the banner-wavingI asked various journalists what might have happened. “Well, Saleem had just had this operation and they didn’t know it. They were just doing what they do. They didn’t mean to kill him.”
The notion was scary. If the world’s No 1 intelligence agency can’t administer torture properly, what can it do? Journalists often demand reforms to the workings of intelligence agencies. Are they asking for refresher courses in torture techniques? Journalists wanted an inquiry into Shehzad’s murder and the government gave them one. Human rights activists and journalists testified, submitting Shehzad’s email naming his would-be killers. The judicial inquiry didn’t find anyone responsible and basically concluded that we live in dangerous times. And yes, we should reform our intelligence agencies, said the judicial commission.
Now Pakistan’s senior journalists are lining up on TV channels to lecture us about the perils of fingering the ISI. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 28 journalists have been killed in Pakistan in the past four years. Surely the ISI didn’t kill all of them.
Killing journalists used to be a small‑town sport in Pakistan. Reporters and stringers in conflict areas and border towns have been routinely eliminated in the past few years. This sport has reached the metropolises this year. TV stations have been bombed, film crews targeted and most news establishments work from behind concrete bunkers. Media owners and executives go around in bomb-proof SUVs and accompanied by dozens of armed guards. Only last month, journalist and TV anchorRaza Rumi survived an ambush. His driver didn’t. Now Rumi lives in exile and will probably not be seen on TV for a while.
Geo’s president – a former newspaper editor named Imran Aslam – became wistful when defending his channel’s coverage after the assassination attempt on Mir. “There was a time that if they didn’t like what you wrote they censored you. They cut out a word or a line. If they got really angry they got your editor fired. Now they just shoot you.” A bullet in the head is the new form of censorship in Pakistan.
Did I say 28 Pakistani journalists have been killed during the past four years? Make that 29. As I was writing these lines, Shehzad Iqbal,a reporter for SAMA TV, was shot dead in Mianwali. I don’t expect many bouquets for his family. I don’t expect his family to blame any sensitive institution.
• Mohammed Hanif is BBC Urdu’s special correspondent based in Karachi. He is the author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes and Our Lady of Alice Bhatti.
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
GEO? :lightbulb:
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
So any evidence so far? Or are all of you reading from the NYT?
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
Hamid Mir's statement is being read at the moment
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
- Tweets from Murtaza Ali Shah @MurtazaGeoNews
Hamid Mir questions who had planted bomb under his car, why r they still not arrested, I told authorities who was after me bt no action takn
Hamid Mir: ISI was upset with me after I provided coverage to Baloch leader Mama Qadeer Baloch and the long march
Hamid Mir: Intelligence agents approached me at home and told me I will be attacked.
Hamid Mir: I had threats from both the state and non-state actors. Allah saved my life and I am thankful for the prayers
Hamid Mir: I had told my friends and brothers who shall be held responsible if I am attacked and murdered, I had indicated in advance
Hamid Mir: I thank the people of Pakistan, its due to your prayers that I have got another life, I had warned about dangers to my life
Amir Mir: Attack on Hamid Mir was to silence free media, this attack was 2 send a message 2 everyone in journalist community 2 behave r else
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
Continued...
HamidMir says has has utmost respect for Pakistan army but interference of army in political affairs in unacceptable and against Pakistan
HamidMir: the war for the betterment of common Pakistanis will go on and i will be on the side of the disadvantaged
Why no action was taken by the police against those who attacked my innocent children in islamabad, questions #HamidMir
HamidMir says he had informed his family, colleagues about threats to his life from the forces upset with him over various coverages
HamidMir questions why no1 was arrested bomb was planted under his car to blow him up, says police refused to cooperate with him,failed him
HamidMir remains defiant, says he will never surrender, he has never done anything wrong and needs no certificate of patriotism from any1
Hamid Mir: I m now more insecure thn evr b4, my whole family is undr danger of being assassinated n state actors shall be held responsible
Hamid Mir: Pakistan's defence forces rendering great sacrifices to protect pakistan but it doesnt mean takeover of the country shd b allowed
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
lolol Hamid Mir is a dramaqueen; he had armed body guards but they didn't even bother to fire at the gunman, nor were they hurt, and nor was driver hurt, so all six bullets hit him
If the ISI had done this, he wouldn't be alive today, i believe they're not that inept.
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
Hamid Mir defiant, still holds ISI responsible for attack - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
Hamid Mir defiant, still holds ISI responsible for attack
Hamid Mir. – File Photo
Hamid Mir. – File Photo
KARACHI: Senior journalist Hamid Mir, who was wounded after being targeted in Karachi, still holds the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) responsible for orchestrating the attack.
This was conveyed on Thursday by his brother while speaking to the media outside the Aga Khan Hospital, where the wounded journalist is being treated for his injuries.
Amir Mir also stuck a further defiant tone stating that Geo TV network and his brother had faced the similar circumstances when former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf had imposed an emergency in the country and shut down TV channels in 2007.
The journalist is defiant in countering all efforts of suspending Geo TV’s transmission, he said.
Amir said that the senior anchorperson had informed some visiting intelligence officials about the threat he was facing from the ISI. He said that his brother was aware of the agency’s method of threatening journalists and media houses for biased reporting of certain national issues.
He said the ISI officials were apparently unhappy about his brother’s famous talk show, Capital Talk, being broadcast on Mama Qadir’s long march over missing Baloch persons. Mir said the agency was also unhappy of Hamid Mir’s criticism on it in different Capital Talk shows.
The senior journalist was concerned on the government’s failure to hand over written proof of ISI’s threat to his life, said his brother, adding that he was also concerned about the probe of a planted bomb underneath his car in November 2012.
He said that Hamir Mir has vowed to foil all these conspiracies being orchestrated against him and his family members at an appropriate time.
His fight is for sovereignty and security of Pakistan, restoration of peace, eradication of terrorism, rule of law and freedom of speech which cannot be suppressed, said Hamid Mir’s brother.
No individual or Institution is above the law to Hamid, he said, adding that covering up armed forces and its agencies’ role in politics was criminal silence. Hamid Mir condemns the government and other state institution’s efforts for suspending Geo TV’s transmissions.
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
lolol Hamid Mir is a dramaqueen; he had armed body guards but they didn't even bother to fire at the gunman, nor were they hurt, and nor was driver hurt, so all six bullets hit him If the ISI had done this, he wouldn't be alive today, i believe they're not that inept.
Six bullets are drama , Firing was drama , Bomb in his car was drama
Saleem Shahzad died in a drama , thousands missing Pakistanis are a drama .
Go once to Mama Qadeer and ask him .,
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
On the pretext of national interest and security, covering the mistakes of the security/intelligence agencies is not patriotism by any stretch. These mistakes have cost us half of our country. More than half of the current day Pakistan is on fire. Closing our eyes is not going to solve the problem. We should face the challenges, and the first step is to acknowledge them and then figure out ways to sort them out. Most of the times the parents of those children suffer who keep on covering their mistakes.
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
There should be must a grand dialog between civil and estab to define limits .
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
I’m not a very patriotic person but you should open your eyes; Hamid Mir had armed body guards but none of them were hurt nor did they retaliate, nor was his driver hurt, and it’s been 5 days since he was attacked yet neither him nor anybody from family has filed an FIR for an investigation.
Geo News has always been anti-Pakistan, they’re like the polar opposite of Zaid Hamid; they’re other popular anchor Najam Sethi was a marxist(just like Hamid Mir’s father and other anti-state figures), he took part in the Balochistan rebellion and one of their other popular contributors is Asma Jehangir, who is known to be anti-Pakistan and she even met with Shiv Sena leader critiquing the Pakistani army of Indian soil.
Geo was exposed last year for their propaganda about their whole ****ty ‘Aman ki Asha’ campaign.
Indian campaign on ISI exposed – The Express Tribune
Najam Sethi’s background was covered in article by Nadeem F.Paracha:
Crazy diamonds ? V - Blogs - DAWN.COM (skip straight to the ‘London group’)
Asma Jahangir meets Bal Thackeray - News Oneindia
The problem in Pakistan is that if anybody questions the media, or questions what most pseudo-liberals believe is to be true, they write you off as a ‘conspiracy nut’ like Zaid Hamid, or a ‘Jihadi nationalist’.
I’m all for free press, but if a certain segment of the media is toxic and harms the country, so it is appropriate to it shut down for the greater good of the people, but it should be shut down under legal grounds, similar to how the News of the world was shut down in England on legal grounds for phone hacking, so the judiciary should find a way shut down the Geo network.
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
Still any evidence to back up his claims?
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
No evidence yet , Who dares to come forward .
[RIGHT] رسول اللہ ﷺ نے یہ بات تاکید کے ساتھ فرمائی کہ ’’ جب یہ مرحلہ آجائے کہ امت میں ڈر اور خوف پیدا ہو جائے ، وہ کسی ظالم کو ظالم کہنے سے گریز کرے ، تو پھر یہ اس بات کی دلیل ہے کہ امت کا امت ہو نا ختم ہو رہا ہے ۔ اور امت کا تصور رخصت ہو رہا ہے ۔‘‘ ( مسند امام احمد[/RIGHT]
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
Still any evidence to back up his claims?
If ISI is involved, rest assured there will be no evidence...no one can face upto the real rulers.
Thats another thing if things go wrong civilians would be the culprits (Bhutto - Dhaka Debacle, Qadeer Khan- Nuclear Proliferation, Nawaz Sharif - Kargil fiasco, Imran Khan - Taliban Khan, leave BB she was a security risk in any case).
There have been colossal disasters in the country during the past 4 decades, can we ask them the reasons/questions?
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
If ISI is involved, rest assured there will be no evidence...no one can face upto the real rulers.
Thats another thing if things go wrong civilians would be the culprits (Bhutto, Qadeer Khan, Nawaz Sharif, leave BB she was a security risk in any case).
There have been colossal disasters in the country during the past 4 decades, can we ask them the reasons?
Read my comment above.
If the ISI was involved Hamid Mir wouldn't be alive today.
Re: Hamid Mir shot and injured
Read my comment above.
If the ISI was involved Hamid Mir wouldn't be alive today.
I agree with you , This time some other was used .