SHO says the investigation officer has been arrested, charged with neglect. PHOTO: FILE

Doctors who treated Muhammad Zubair, 14, at Allied Hospital said he was unconscious when the police brought him to the hospital some minutes before iftar. Dr Ali Naqi said a post-mortem examination would be carried out on Sunday (today) to determine the cause of death.

SHO Farrukh Waheed said the assistant sub inspector who was in charge of the investigations had been arrested and a case registered against him under Section 155-C of the Police Order (neglect). He said murder charge would be added to the FIR against ASI Muhammad Ali if it was confirmed in the autopsy. “We are interrogating him (the ASI) about the matter,” he said.

He said they had delayed the child’s production before a court on his father’s request who said he was negotiating a settlement with the complainants.

Muhammad Rafiq, father of the deceased, however, rejected that he had made such a request. Instead, he said, the police had approached him and said that they would mediate a settlement between him and the complainants.

He said no inquiry carried out by the Jhang Bazaar police would be credible. “They have killed my son. How can I trust them with holding an impartial inquiry?” he asked.

He said he had himself taken his son to the police station on August 1 thinking that he would be release after questioning. But, he said, the police refused to let him see his son until Saturday evening when he was called to the hospital.

He demanded that a senior officer be assigned to probe the matter.

Besides, Zubair, 14, three others mentioned in the FIR were arrested on July 22 and sent on a judicial remand on July 24. The FIR, registered on July 21, accused the four children of sexually assaulting a boy who lived in the same neighbourhood. The FIR is registered under Section 377 (unnatural offence) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

Published in The Express Tribune, August 5^th, 2012.

The men posing as officers showed a warrant complete with the court’s affixation stamp. PHOTO: FILE

FAISALABAD: A state of fear and panic has spread among the Christian residents of Town Toba Tek Singh (TTS) after a prominent pastor was kidnapped under mysterious circumstances on Saturday.

Pastor Victor Samuel Maseeh was kidnapped by seven unidentified armed men, three of whom were allegedly wearing police uniforms. Victor Samuel Maseeh who hails from the Christian Colony, which houses some 300 Christians, was a pastor at the church of a Christian school of thought called ‘God’s Grace Bible churches’.

Sikandar Samuel, brother of Victor Samuel, told to the police that seven men arrived in two vehicles, one similar to a van used by the Punjab police, adding that the unidentified visitors showed search warrants issued by a Lahore judicial magistrate, Mian Shahid Amin Joya.

Samuel told the police that one of the kidnappers identified himself as an Assistant Inspector Police and told them that he came from Aray Bazaar, Police Station, Lahore and has to interrogate Pastor Victor Maseeh.

The officers asked intrusive questions about Victor’s ex-American wife and also inspected various files in Victor’s laptop, confiscating the machine along with some documents and his mobile phone. They then asked Victor to accompany them to the district police office for further questioning.

Sikandar said he also got into the car with them but instead of going to the police office, they dropped him near the Gojra bypass but took Victor with them to an undisclosed location.

Later, when Sikander approached the Toba city police, an official said they were unaware of any police visitors from Lahore. Police registered a case of kidnapping of Victor on the complaint of Sikandar against unidentified people.

Sikandar also told the police that “the kidnappers showed them warrants issued by Mian Shahid Ameen Joiya, a Judicial Magistrate from Lahore, complete with affixation stamp of the court.”

“In the presence of my joint family members, the police personnel used very abusive language with my brother and also grilled him,” he told the police.

SHO TTS police station Jamshaid Iqbal Chishti told The Express Tribune that “a case was immediately registered on the complaint of Sikandar Samuel vide FIR No.495/12 under section 365 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).”

He further said that “on the basis of the information furnished by the complainant, a special police party had visited the Aray Bazaar Lahore police station to ascertain whether any team was sent by them, but no such record was found from that police station.”

The SHO further said that they tried to locate Judicial Magistrate Mian Shahid Ameen Joiya and the court from which arrest warrants for the pastor had been issued. But the efforts bore no fruit.

SHO Chishti added that two teams have been constituted by the police who were now looking for the pastor and his abductors.

 

They questioned the need for dissolution of the department in the Punjab while its counterparts in other provinces were not being dissolved.

Khadija Sarwar, one of the protestors, said the department was working day in and day out to control population growth in the province.

“The government should boost the morale of workers so they can improve their performance rather than forcing them to take to streets to protect their jobs,” she said.

Muhammad Akram, another protesting PWD employee, said the government should also regularize the services of all contractual employees.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2012.

US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will continue to develop the agricultural sector of Pakistan by providing funds for development projects and research work. PHOTO: FILE/REUTERS

FAISALABAD: US Embassy’s Deputy Agri­culture Counsellor Devid Wolf has said the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will continue to develop the agricultural sector of Pakistan by providing funds for development projects and research work.

America assisted developing countries in the agricultural sector to make it more efficient, productive and sustainable, which would lead to an increase in supply and reduce the cost of food, Wolf said during a visit to the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF).

He also reviewed USDA’s ongoing projects aimed at developing the agricultural sector and said the goal of the projects was to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and required significant investment from the donors and private sector.

Talking about various initiatives, Wolf said US was working on developing agricultural markets, trade and finance, promoting food and nutritional security, funding collaborative science and technological research and developing and supporting sound programmes for livestock and sustainable agriculture.

Speaking on the occasion, UAF Vice Chancellor Dr Iqrar Ahmad said the university was running around 150 agricultural projects with financial assistance from the US. These funds were used in faculty development, technology transfer, product commercialisation and research.

The university is also working on outreach programmes for educating farmers about increasing productivity.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2012.

The writer served as federal minister for information and oversaw the drafts of the Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Ordinance in 1997 and the RAMBO/PEMRA Ordinance in 2000.

The media sector is possibly the single most complex and challenging sector to regulate.

In contrast, regulation and verification of drug quality deals with physically tangible products whose ingredients can be precisely measured.  Whereas media deal with intangible material which primarily affects the mind, the great invisible, immeasurable unknown.

A notable part of what is presented as news is speculative and under-researched. A significant portion of views is skewed and prejudiced. When news and views are mixed together as they increasingly are, the blend becomes a sticky, indistinguishable mess.

Just as the claim to patriotism is said to be the first refuge of the scoundrel, the claim of threats to freedom of expression is the first refuge of the news media.

The media in general, and non-news media in particular, bring us enormous wealth of valuable information and enjoyable entertainment. Though the media is often referred to in the singular, the word and the diversity it represents is thoroughly plural. Each mass medium — print, radio, TV, cinema — has its own characteristics. Regulation requires specificity about such individual features.

There are two broad aspects of regulation. One is the grant of permission by the state to own and operate a mass medium.

Relatively, this is quite straightforward even though in actual implementation, law and policy should navigate carefully to avoid creating undue concentration of media power by allowing unchecked cross-media ownership. Or, by auctioning licences to the highest bidders, thus promoting wealth rather than public service as a core criterion.

The other aspect is regulation of media content. The content of news media, hard news as also current affairs  programmes is of special concern. This is far more complicated than licencing. Several factors shape content. In recent years, viewership ratings agencies in the case of TV,  and media buying houses which purchase large blocks of time and space to deliver optimal benefits to advertiser-clients have become powerful new influences on shaping media content. Yet they remain virtually invisible to public scrutiny and accountability in terms of the public interest as distinct from the commercial interests they serve.

While the grant of permits and licences is an inescapable state responsibility, the determination of which content violates laws, codes, norms and parameters is rife with multiple interpretations and prone to dissent.  Most sensitive of all is the question of which entity has the moral right to determine boundaries. Almost all the factors that shape media content are fluid and volatile, not fixed and static.

This variability and unpredictability causes further complications.

Rapid changes and uncertainty sweeping the world also shake the durability of legal frameworks which, in any case, are normally some steps behind reality. Pakistan itself is going through a process of extensive social, cultural, economic and political turbulence.

New media such as the participative Internet and new modes of content distribution such as the cell-phone have emerged as fast-growing parallel means of sharing information and entertainment on a mass scale to end the monopoly of monolithic mass media disseminating tightly-controlled content.

A fusion of three categories of regulation would be the ideal blend. The first is self-regulation by members of the media themselves. But as experience has shown, this will be effective only if the administration of such self-regulation is conducted on their behalf by independent professionals of acknowledged integrity such as the laudable inititative taken in Pakistan by this newspaper by theappointment of an eminent person as the newspaper’s ombudsman.

Otherwise, self-regulation becomes a cover for protecting self-interest.

And making excuses for frequent lapses.

The second category is inevitably state regulation through legislation that is fully debated and informed by extensive consultation with civil society, media specialists and journalists. Reform of existing laws and rules, the need for entirely new concepts and forms are long overdue in Pakistan. Now that PEMRA and the PTA have completed over about a decade, there is scope to examine their improvements and the inter-face between them.

Even though the Press Council has finally been established, much work is required to make its output purposeful.

The third category is the most formidable. And perhaps this is why it is virtually non-existent in Pakistan, along with elsewhere as well. And yet it is also the most needed. This is social regulation. By which the interests of the public, and not the interests of media owners, advertisers, journalists or governments are given the highest priority. Without allowing extremist forces to use violence or threats a hazard requiring eternal preventive action — social regulation  has the potential to be the most progressive influence for fair, balanced media content and an equitable media system. To an extent, state regulation represents aspects of social regulation. But the power-authority feature of the state can sometimes distort the benign yet firm purist public interest perspective which social regulation alone symbolises. Details on another occasion soon!

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2012.

“This university is currently housing over 20,000 people. We need a centre that caters to the needs of residents living here,” VC Prof Iqrar Ahmed Khan. PHOTO: APP

FAISALABAD: The University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) plans to set up a civic centre comprising of shopping malls, banks and outlets of international food chains near the Post Office.

This was announced by UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Iqrar Ahmad Khan while inaugurating a branch of Muslim Commercial Bank Ltd on Saturday. Khan was flanked by Faisalabad Circle Bank general manger Ibrar Hussian and branch manager Kashif Nazir. All deans and directors were also present on the occasion.

“This university is currently housing over 20,000 people,” the vice chancellor said, adding “We need to develop a centre that will provide opportunities to residents living here and give them easy access to all basic facilities at their doorstep.”

The VC said that the banking was one of the most important sectors in the country and was playing its due role for the development of the country.

“The UAF is currently establishing an exhibition centre aimed at showcasing new technologies before the farming community,” he said, adding that the exhibition area was aimed at persuading farmers to shun traditional ways of farming and adopt modern trends that would increase per acre production. He added that using the modern techniques was the need of the hour to meet the challenge of food security which was engulfing the country. The VC said that a project of setting up six lecture theatres was also on the cards.

Ibrar Hussian said that the MCB was operating 1,200 branches with online facility across the country and that the UAF branch would also facilitate its customers with import transactions and maintaining foreign exchange accounts.

“The bank is functioning globally and we have seen a remarkable tenure of more than half a century of competitively edged and well positioned banking,” he added.

The vice chancellor said that the new Civic Centre would be ready by the end of the year and several proposals for buildings, theatres, shopping malls and sports grounds were currently being entertained by the university administration.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2012.

CPWB is working to rehabilitate the children and register them so that they don’t return to their former life.

According to a bureau spokesperson, most of the children were found begging in the streets and others were addicted to drugs. “Most of these children have grown up on the streets and we seldom notice their circumstances. The CPWB is taking an initiative to recover and rehabilitate as many street children as it can,” said CPWB official Badar Qasim. CPWB officials said that the recovered children included Mudassar, Mubasshar, Ali Hasan, Adeel, Atif, Bilal, Imran, Kashif Azeem, Hashim, Muhammad Kashif, Mukhtar, Hamid, Noor Muhammad, Qaisar Iqbal, Adil, Babar, Muhammad Atif and Kamran.

“Nearly all of these children were involved in beggary and others were hooked on drugs,” said social worker Mehtab Shakeel. “One of the children I have been working with is a heroin addict and he is only nine years old,” she added. “We are trying to get him medical help for the detox process but there are many more like him out there,” she added.

CPWB worker Mukhtar said that many of the children at the centre were also garbage collectors.

“These children have been forced to work and collect trash to support their families but we are trying to rehabilitate them. They will be made wards of state and then we will work to ensure that they can be returned to their parents.

This will only be done if we have enough evidence that they won’t be back on the streets,” he added.

Mukhtar said that at present the CPWB centre was housing a total of 64 children. “These kids are being provided with the best educational and vocational training possible and we hope that their time here will help make them productive members of society in the years to come,” he added.

He said that the families of 12 children had already been traced out during previous week and the parents were called in for interviews. “We have handed back some of the children after completing legal formalities after producing the children before the court,” he said, adding “now that they are already in the system if their parents fail to comply with directives they will become permanent wards of state.”

Informal education and entertainment facilities are also being provided to 14 children at the centre.  “I am glad to have been taken off the streets. I have been with the centre for almost a week and it means I get three square meals a day without having to beg and I am also in school,” said Hamid, 11.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2012.

Waqas allegedly killed his baby daughter and wife after she refused to return home.

According to police officials Bajwa was implicated for killing his wife, infant daughter and a neighbour on December 18, 2011. The suspect allegedly fled the scene after committing the triple murder. “At the time we formed six police teams and we have been searching for him for weeks,” said Batala Colony sub inspector (SI) Muhammad Rizwan. Rizwan told reporters that the police received a tip-off regarding Bajwa’s location and then raided a hideout in Quetta.

A team headed by Sub Inspector (SI) Muhammad Ramzan, Investigation Officer Batala Colony, and succeeded in arresting the suspect on Saturday and brought him to Faisalabad.

The suspect Waqas Bajwa had contracted a love marriage with Muslim Park Peoples Colony No2 resident Faiza, 22, nearly one and half years ago. Initially, the bride’s parents opposed the match but they eventually accepted the marriage. “They told her that Bajwa was a thug but she would not budge. Later they accepted it,” said Faiza’s neighbour Beenish.

Faiza gave birth to a baby girl about a month ago and went to stay with her parents for 40 days. “Bajwa wanted her to return home sooner,” she added.

On December 16, Bajwa went to Faiza’s parents house in the evening and demanded that his wife return home with him but she refused. “She told him that she wanted to stay with us for 40 days but he got violent,” said Faiza’s mother Ismat Bibi.

At this Bajwa allegedly began beating her and his infant daughter. “Waqas said that if she didn’t accompany him, he would shoot her and the baby but she didn’t believe him,” she added. When Faiza refused to return, Waqas opened fire on her and his daughter.

On hearing the firing, Faiza’s neighbour Sajid, 19, rushed to their rescue and tried to over power Waqas who was about to escape. The suspect then fired upon Sajid who also died on the spot.

Batala Colony police has registered a case against the accused under Section 303 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of Sheikh Nasir against the accused and his five accomplices. Though Bajwa escaped, the police were able to apprehend two of his accomplices.

Investigation Officer, Muhammad Ramzan told reporters that now that Bajwa had been arrested the remaining three men would soon be arrested. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2012.

Rs10,000 award to people who provide information about manufacturing and sale of equipment used in kite flying. PHOTO : FILE

In a statement issued on Thursday, DCO Sadiq said there was a ban imposed on kite flying and that anyone found manufacturing and selling, string reels and kites in Faisalabad district will be prosecuted in accordance with the law. He said there were reports that some elements in the city were still active in manufacturing these substances. He urged the public to report anyone found involved in these activities to the government so that any loss of human life due to the activity could be prevented. He said the identities of these individuals would be protected.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2012.