Journalists boycott agreement signing ceremony

E-Paper | April 30, 2026

RAWALPINDI: Mediapersons on Tuesday boycotted a ceremony held to contract out garbage lifting in the city to a Turkish company in protest against the ban on their entry to a police station.

The SHO of Sadiqabad, Abdul Sattar Khan, has displayed a banner outside the police station which says: “Journalists can contact the city police officer for any information as they are not allowed to enter the police station.”

However, after the protest, the banner was replaced with another one which stated: “Intercessors and touts are not allowed.”

Former MNA Malik Shakil Awan and PML-N Rawalpindi president Sardar Naseem tried to convince the newsmen to cover the function promising that the matter would be taken up with Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

District Coordination Officer (DCO) Sajid Zafar Dall also assured to look into the matter.

But the protesting journalists stuck to their guns demanding the transfer of the SHO.

But City Police Officer Humayun Bashir Tarar and Regional Police Officer Akhter Umer Hayat Lalika refused to accept the demand.

According to the agreement, the Turkish company, Al-Bayrak, will lift the garbage from 63 union councils of the Rawalpindi city and Murree at a cost of $81.39 million.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2014

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noorilhuda

May 28, 2014 09:45am

So the thing that should be done by city administration is now being loaned off to a third country for an astronomical piece of money! What garbage! All over the world, administration cuts costs of running the local government and doing things, here it is the opposite. I wonder whose pockets the money will go to?

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Muhammad Umar Khan

May 29, 2014 02:34am

how ironic that the city garbage will be disposed off by a foreign company. I am sure it could be easily done by local people especially the poor one as they are in need of employment in these harsh times. They would love to collect and dispose it off for marginal amount rather than a foreign company. By this way employment would be created and the money could have circulated within the country. It would have been great if they(Turkish company) collected methane gases from the garbage and recycled the usable material. I will say then its justified to have contract with them.

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mjn

May 29, 2014 05:05am

" contract out garbage lifting in the city to a Turkish company" Garbage lifting is not a rocket science, why contract to a foreign company ?

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