ISLAMABAD: A Senate standing committee on Wednesday directed federal ministries and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to pay Bol TV employees salaries from the frozen accounts of the TV channel’s parent company, Axact.

The directions came after the director general of public relations at the ministry of information, Nasir Jamal, informed the Functional Committee of Senate on Human Rights that Bol TV employees can be paid from Axact’s accounts after unfreezing them.

“The Ministry of Information has forwarded the concerns of Bol TV employees to the Ministry of Interior which has said that FIA will be asked to unfreeze Axact’s bank accounts so the salaries can the paid,” Mr Jamal said. Bol TV employees have not been paid for 11 months.

While Nasir Jamal described this as a positive development, National Party (NP) Senator Mir Kabeer Ahmed Mohammad Sahi said that the move did not help Bol employees, who were finding it hard to make ends meet for almost a year now.

However, Nasir Jamal maintained that a legal process had to be followed in order to unfreeze the company’s accounts.

“The interior ministry will ask FIA, which is the prosecuting agency, to file a request in the trial court to unfreeze the accounts to pay their outstanding dues,” he said.

Bol TV’s Senior Executive Vice President Nazir Laghari, however, urged the committee that the clearing of outstanding salaries was not enough.

“It is imperative that the committee try to remove all hurdles which prevent Bol from becoming functional,” he said and asked the Chairman of the Committee, Dr Jahanzeb Jamaldini, to arrange a meeting to discuss the issues of Bol TV.

Members of the committee asked for a brief to study the case before taking it up in the next meeting.

Last year in May, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) ordered Bol TV management to stop transmission till the directors of its parent company, Axact, were exonerated from charges of fraud and money laundering.

The directors of Axact were involved in a fake degrees scandal exposed by The New York Times.

Torture cells

Replying to questions by members of the Senate Committee, Assistant Inspector General (AIG) Islamabad Police, Asher Hameed told the Senate Committee that Islamabad Police were not running private torture cells in the city.

Members of the Functional Committee on Human Rights had picked up the issue after news reports emerged that torture cells were being run in Islamabad and other cities.

“Islamabad is a sensitive area and such activities do not go unnoticed. They are immediately picked up, especially by the media”, he said.

PML-N Senator Nisar Mohammad Khan and NP Senator Mir Kabeer Ahmed Mohammad Sahi said they did not believe the AIG Police.

Senator Sahi said that private torture cells were being run all over Pakistan, especially in Balochistan.

“Innocent people are picked up and detained and tortured in these cells. They are tortured for months before the government realises they cannot find anything against them. The people who are tortured cannot adjust in society after they are released.

Senator Nisar Mohammad asked the chairman of the committee to give members time to find proof of the torture cells being run across the country and to hold a separate meeting in this regard after some time.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2016