SC Starts Suo Moto Hearing on Incidents of Journalists' Harassment
'Pakistan Times' Wire Service

ISLAMABAD: A two-member bench of the Supreme Court on Monday started hearing regarding incidents of harassment and violence against journalists after taking suo moto notice of the matter.

The bench comprising Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Sayyed Falak Sher asked the complainant, the Press Association of the Supreme Court, to submit complete date-wise record of incidents at the next hearing for which a date will be fixed later.

President of the Association, Sayyed Muzammil Hussain, and his advocate Ahmer Bilal Sufi appeared before the bench. They informed the court that journalists faced harassment, threats and violence in Karachi but other parts of the country including the tribal areas.

They said that a senior journalist Malik Mohammad Ismail was killed in Islamabad last year while Editor of South Asian News Agency, Shakil Turabi, was allegedly tortured by some unknown people in the federal capital. FIRs of such incidents had been registered, they told the bench.

When Akram Shaikh, counsel of Shakil Turabi pleaded for becoming a party in the case, the court asked him to file a petition which would be heard with the original complaint of the Press Association of the Supreme Court.●