Washington: Observing that Pakistan has
become a battle ground, country`s envoy to the US, Husain Haqqani has said that there may be elements in the Pakistani Government who are responsible for the criminal behavior.
"Pakistan today is a nation brutalised by the
arrogance of some who impose their ideology on the country,"
Haqqani said at a meeting organised at the National Press Club
in memory of the slain Pakistani investigative journalist Syed
Saleem Shahjad.
Organised by Pakistani journalists based in the US in
association with the National Press Club and Committee to
Protect Journalists, the meeting was attended by a large
number of journalists from the sub-continent and mainstream US
media.
In a resolution they demanded the Pakistani Government
to bring to justice the perpetrators of the heinous crime.
The resolution also demanded the family of Shahjad be
protected and Pakistan government take steps to protect all
journalists and media houses in the country.
"Human rights violations all over Pakistan, in
particular those on Baluchistan should come to an end," said
the resolution read out by Anwar Iqbal, Washington-
correspondent of the popular Dawn newspaper.
Iqbal said that in recent months, one journalist is
being killed in Pakistan and it is increasingly becoming
difficult for journalists to work freely and perform their
duties.
Noting that he was in regular contact with Shahjad,
Haqqani, himself a former journalist said he is in for a full
investigation into the incident.
"I am not only for a full investigation, but also an
end to all this is happening... There are leaders in Pakistan
who recognize that what is happening is wrong," he said.
Haqqani criticised all those people in Pakistan who
have a tendency to blame all the ills inside the country
either on the US or on its immediate neighbour (India).
"There may be elements in the government who are
responsible for the criminal behaviour. But there are people
in the government who are victims of this criminal behaviour,"
the envoy said.
Bob Dietz of the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists said Shahjad was brutally murdered by the elements
in the establishment.
"This is a clod blooded brutal murder, beaten to
death," he said.
"This is time for all journalists to take a stand
together," said Masood Haider of the Dawn newspaper.
PTI
