June 30, 2006	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 3, 1427

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PESHAWAR, June 29: Activists of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League attacked the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday apparently to foil a news conference there by some dissident members of the party.

The management of the club lodged a complaint against provincial PML president and federal minister Amir Muqam, provincial information secretary of the party Nighat Orakzai and heads of League’s youth, labour and students wings, for the attack.

The assailants, who were armed with Kalashnikovs, pistols and sticks beat up journalists and the dissident PML members.

Others who have been named in the complaint registered at the East Cantt police station, include PML’s labour wing president Arbab Akbar Hayat, youth wing president Dilawar Khan and students wing president Rahamdil Nawaz.

A police team which reached the place after the attack arrested six rioters. They seized one AK-47 and ammunition from a car with a Kohat number-plate.

After an emergency meeting, the Peshawar Press Club announced complete boycott of PML functions and their press releases and decided to cancel the membership of any club member covering a PML event.

The meeting described the incident as part of a conspiracy to pressurise the journalists and stop them from carrying out their professional work and investigating the murder of tribal journalist Hayatullah Khan.

Members of the club and the Khyber Union of Journalists announced that they would not negotiate with any PML leader till the accused named in the FIR were arrested. They held a protest walk to the Chief the Minister’s Secretariat and staged a sit-in.

NWFP’s Senior Minister Sirajul Haq and Maulana Amanullah Haqqani condemned the incident and assured the journalists that an FIR would be registered against people responsible for the attack and the assailnts.

The press club was stormed when PML’s forward bloc president Haji Ulas Khan and Zikria Khan and Ihsanullah were to hold a press conference. When journalists asked the attackers to leave the club premises they and forward bloc Leaguers were beaten up.