May 19, 2007	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 02, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 18: Journalists of Islamabad and Rawalpindi and their unions on Friday condemned the beating up of the journalist of a news agency by some people and termed it another attack on the media.

The journalists announced to hold a series of demonstrations to force the administration to arrest and punish the culprits. The first demonstration will be held outside the Islamabad Press Club on Saturday.

The journalist, Shakil Turabi, had earlier been picked up by some people on March 16 when he was returning from the protest march in support of

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. He was blindfolded and detained for over six hours.

He was warned by the people who had picked him up that he might find his name on the list of disappeared people if he did not ‘mend his ways’.

Mr Turabi said that he had been receiving threatening phone calls from senior officials of the information ministry asking him to kill certain news items.

Shakil Turabi said he was going to G-10 Sector from G-9 on Friday morning when two men in a pick-up chased his car, intercepted it and forced him to come out.

The two men threw him on the ground, thrashed him and left him in an isolated area. His friends picked him up and took him to the nearby Kahuta Research Laboratory Hospital. He was later admitted to the private ward of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS).

Police were called at the PIMS to register a complaint. Efforts were being made to get an FIR registered against the unidentified men.

Journalists who visited their colleague at the PIMS complained that they were maltreated by the chief executive officer.