KARACHI: In the famous 1950s song ‘Bundar Road Se Kemari’, Ahmed Rushdi — referring to the old building of Radio Pakistan on Bunder Road (now M.A. Jinnah Road) — sings “Yeh aaya Radio Pakistan, hai goya khabron ki dokaan”. While the aforementioned ‘khabron ki dokaan’ moved to another building — near Civic Centre in Gulshan-i-Iqbal after a fire broke out here on Oct 28, 2007 — the old building, from where the news mill had been running since the 1950s, has retained three of its units: the central production unit (CPU), a project cell and an Urdu magazine called Ahang.

However, a new and almost easily overlooked addition to the top of the building in the past nine months is the name ‘Pakistan Rangers’ — written, in black paint, in Urdu to the left of the flagpole. Right below the Radio Pakistan emblem is another addition to this historical building; the title reads ‘Sector Headquarter, Rangers Anti-Terrorist Wing, Pakistan Rangers, Sindh’.

It looks out of place, but the continuous flow of people moving in and out of the building remain largely indifferent — concerned with more pressing issues, such as bailing a co-worker out over a parking dispute, or a suspect ‘mistakenly’ arrested by an officer — and little attention is paid to the security ‘situation’ the country now finds itself in.

“We were told they were only staying there for a few days,” says an accounts manager as he leads me towards the CPU unit. A far cry from the cleaner facade of the historical building, the CPU unit tells a different story altogether. The walls of this otherwise dark and bleak-looking corridor has framed pictures of artists such as Runa Laila, Shamshad Begum and Mehdi Hassan, which, after a while, are still not enough to tempt one to stay longer. Offices to the left and right of the corridor are either empty or have one or two persons, the leather on the sofas and chairs in tatters.

Narrating the chronology of events, the manager says that in Muharram last year the Rangers asked for a room so that they could better manage security — and said that they would eventually leave. “We didn’t ask a lot of questions and let them in. Then we heard from our staff about how they were breaking open the locks of other rooms and shifting in their own furniture and equipment. Since we did not have a written agreement with them, we were not in a position to ask anything,” the manager adds.

Another employee points out how embarrassing it was for musicians and singers, coming in for recordings, to have to present their identification at the gate. “We let it be, because it is for everyone’s safety. But whenever a high-ranking Rangers official comes in, we are herded back into our offices and asked not to leave until the officer is here,” adds an engineer. Others point to the lax attitude of the institution itself by not taking back what is rightfully theirs.

In response to this, Station Director Ghulam Qasim Kausar at Radio Pakistan’s Civic Centre office says: “I can only inform the headquarters in Islamabad about it; apart from that there’s nothing much that I can do about the old building.”

When asked about the longevity of their stay, a Rangers spokesperson at the old building said: “The building has been lying empty since 2008, and we have an understanding with the people at Radio Pakistan.” The part about having an understanding with the employees was rejected by them.

This coming Muharram will mark one year since the Pakistan Rangers moved into the historical Radio Pakistan building.

Speaking of the earlier days of sound broadcasting in the country, Dr Mohammad Iqbal Khan Asadi, a writer and former accounts officer at Radio Pakistan, says that three radio stations were operating from Peshawar, Lahore and Dhaka in 1947. “Not having a radio station in Karachi was a huge concern for a lot of people here. To address that issue, a radio transmission was set up on illegally acquired land in Karachi for a while in 1947, but its services were shut down,” adds Dr Asadi.

On Aug 14, 1948, Radio Pakistan began its broadcasting service from Karachi, housed inside the Intelligence School on Queen’s Road — now known as M.T. Khan Road. “The transmitter was put up beside the sewerage lines, as the space available for the handful of staffers was two to three rooms. But the station eventually moved from there as well,” says Dr Asadi.

Eventually, and ironically, a government district board building on M.A. Jinnah Road — which lay empty at the time — was taken up by the broadcasters on the pretext that they would shift as soon as they got a building of their own, according to Dr Asadi. He also mentions in his book, Radio Pakistan ki 50 saala ilmi aur adabi khidmaat, that a copy of the agreement was sent to Islamabad and that nobody disagreed with Radio Pakistan’s broadcasting from that building.

“It was on July 16, 1951 that the building was inaugurated as the Radio Pakistan station in Karachi,” says Dr Asadi. “Services of Syed Hashim Raza [the then administrator of the city] were commendable in establishing a radio station in Karachi. But there is a difference. Earlier, we used to discuss raag, sur and taal on our premises. Ab unhi rahdariyon main booton ki chaap sunayi daiti hai. And what is unfortunate is that we are unable to do anything about it.”

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2016