Has Pak journalist Saleem Shahzad been silenced by the ISI?
Islamabad: The dead body of the missing Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad has been identified. According to Pak media reports, the body has been found and it showed signs of torture. Earlier his car had been recovered from Sarai Alamgir, 200 kms away from Islamabad with an unidentified dead body near it. Reports had said that his relatives had been on their way to identify the body. Shahzad and another person's ids has been found in the car.
Saleem Shahzad was the Pakistan bureau chief of the Asia Times online. He had recently written an article which stated: “The brazen attack on PNS Mehran naval air station in Karachi on May 22 after talks failed between the navy and al-Qaeda over the release of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al-Qaeda links.”
Earlier, Human Rights Watch, a human rights group based in Pakistan had said that it had learnt that Shahzad was in the custody of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
HRW’s Pakistan representative Ali Dayan Hasan told Daily Times on Monday that they had documented similar cases of abduction and torture of journalists by security agencies.
Those close to Shahzad told the daily that he was picked up by intelligence officials who have apparently promised to release him soon.
Shahzad was taken away by unidentified people Sunday evening when he left his F-8 Sector residence. His mobile phone has been switched off since then. There is also no trace of his car till Tuesday.
How is the ISI involved?
According to an article by Omar Waraich in the Time magazine, Shahzad was picked by ISI agents around 5:45 p.m. on Sunday. At the time, he was on his way to the studios of Pakistan's Dunya News channel to discuss the contents of his latest report about the naval-base attack.
He had driven there from his house in central Islamabad's leafy F-8/4 neighborhood, some 4 km away. At a quarter to 6, Shahzad had responded to a call from a producer at Dunya News and said he was on his way, says Nasim Zehra, director of current affairs at the channel.
According to the report in Time Magazine, Human Rights Watch says it was able to establish that Shahzad was being held by the ISI.
"We were informed through reliable interlocutors that he was detained by the ISI," says Hasan. Those interlocutors, he adds, had received direct confirmation from the agency that it was detaining Shahzad.
In any case, Hasan says, "in a high-security zone like Islamabad, it is only the ISI that can affect the disappearance of man and his car without a trace."
Human Rights Watch was also told that Shahzad was supposed to return home on Monday night.
Human Rights Watch was also told that Shahzad was supposed to return home on Monday night.
HRW was also told that his telephone would be switched on first, enabling him to communicate with his family. Human Rights Watch says it has made repeated attempts to contact Pakistan's government and establish Shahzad's whereabouts, but has received no response.
According to Time magazine, many of Shahzad's media colleagues speculate that the ISI is holding him to extract the identities of his sources. An official from the HRW adds, "It is very difficult to say what they want from him. But when the ISI picks up journalists in this manner, they are often subjected to mistreatment and torture. The longer he stays in their custody, the greater the likelihood is that he will be tortured."
Other similar incidents in Pak
Last September, Umar Cheema, an investigative reporter for the News, an influential Pakistani daily, was kidnapped, blindfolded, stripped naked, had his head and eyebrows shaved, beaten, filmed in humiliating positions and dumped on the side of the road six hours later.
"If you can't avoid rape," one of his interrogators jeered during the ordeal, "enjoy it." The perpetrators were never found, but when asked about his suspicions, Cheema told the New York Times: "I have suspicions and every journalist has suspicions that all fingers point to the ISI."
These are not isolated incidents, there have been many cases of journalists being attacked and targeted for the kind of news coverage that is detrimental to the Pakistani government or army.
With regard to freedom of Press, the organization Reporters without borders rates Pakistan 151 out of 178 countries. The numbers of journalists’ deaths have gone up in the last couple of years, with 10 of them being killed this year alone.
This January, Wali Khan Babar, a Geo News senior reporter, was gunned down in Karachi while in April, Abdullah Bhittani, a reporter was shot thrice in Rawalpindi but managed to survive.
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