GILGIT, Aug 28: Senior newsmen of Gilgit and Baltistan on Tuesday boycotted the award-giving ceremony of the K-2 Publications.

The journalists said award list had included names of the regional bureaucrats who always remained hostile towards the newsmen and the Press.

It was amazing that a newspaper group like the K-2 Publication, which had suffered one-year closure owing to the bureaucrats, was now awarding medals to them merely to under-rate the efforts of the journalists who had fought for the restoration of the publication, they said.

They flayed the owner of the K-2 for excluding the names of those newsmen from the award list who, they said, upheld the freedom of the Press, despite the state oppression. They said it was the first time that bureaucrats were being awarded medals for their ‘contribution and cooperation’ in the promotion of journalism in the Northern Areas.