RAWALPINDI: Angry protesters of Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) attacked and beat up a journalist associated with a private television channel, while he was covering their protest rally near Faizabad on Thursday.

According to the victim – Babar Malik from ARY News – he was covering the PML-N rally brought out by its local leaders when a group of political activists attacked him.

“First the angry activists abused the television channel and its anchors, and then they started beating me. Although I was not injured seriously, I suffered various bruises,” the journalist said.

He said that the local PML-N leaders, Hanif Abbasi and Ziaullah Shah, reached the scene and rescued him. The victim demanded the government to provide security to the on-duty journalists as they cannot perform their duties under such circumstances.

Shaukat Perveez, the former president of PFUJ and advisor of International Federation of Journalists, strongly condemned the attack on Babar Malik and demanded the Punjab chief minister and the prime minister to take notice of such incidents and avert any mishaps in the future.

He said that such attacks on on-duty journalists had already been witnessed in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf rally in the past.

“A journalist’s job is to report the event. If anyone has any reservation on his or her story, they should complain to the editorial staff of the news agency. But it is unjustified to attack and beat the journalists,” Perveez said.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2014