KARACHI, May 5: Pakistan People’s Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, who left for Islamabad on Thursday, has expressed his concern at targeting of newsmen and political workers who, he said, appeared victims of worst state terrorism. On the other hand, he alleged, extremists were given a free hand to let loose a reign of terror against the innocent and moderate majority of people.

Mr Zardari was talking to a group of the reporters who had been thrashed by police on April 15 at the Cantonment Railway Station while covering the departure of PPP workers to Lahore.

Mr Zardari said that the press, being the fourth pillar of a state, must be respected and listened to. The PPP, he said, always stood for a vibrant and independent press as pre-requisite for a genuine democratic dispensation.

He told the journalists, who met him at Bilawal House here, that his party would always stand by them and the entire journalist community.