Police stand guard at the Red Zone area after security forces conducted an overnight operation against the supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party [Getty]
A Pakistani journalist investigating claims of casualties in a protest march demanding the release of jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan was picked up off the street on Wednesday night and charged with terrorism, according to a colleague and his lawyer.
Television host Matiullah Jan is known as a critic of the military’s heavy influence in Pakistani politics.
Hours before being picked up, he had done a TV show where he read from what he said were hospital records contradicting the government’s denial that live ammunition had been used when security forces dispersed the protest, or that any protesters had been killed.
Jan’s colleague Saqib Bashir said on Thursday that they had both been picked up by men wearing black uniforms from the car park of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad.
They were blindfolded and bundled into a car, he said, adding: “We were collecting data on the casualties.”
Bashir was dropped off in a street three hours later.
Jan’s son Abd-u-Razaq confirmed the account in a video statement, demanding authorities release his father.
His lawyer Imaan Mazari, however, said he had been charged with terrorism, drug peddling and attacking police. The charges alleged Jan had been under the influence of drugs at the time of the arrest.
“It is all fake, funny and fabricated,” Jan told reporters at a court appearance broadcast by local TV channels. “We will continue our work. I was investigating about the dead bodies.”
Bashir said Jan’s family had been given access to him at a police lock-up on Thursday morning.
Neither Islamabad police nor the Information Ministry responded to a request for a comment.
Jan had also cast doubt on official assertions that some security personnel had died after being run over by a vehicle in the protesters’ convoy.
Thousands of supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had over the weekend stormed Islamabad. The government said they had killed four security officers.
The PTI said hundreds of protesters had been shot, and between eight and 40 killed.
The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed “grave alarm” over Jan’s “abduction” and demanded his immediate release.
Amnesty International termed the arrest “an affront to the right to freedom of expression and media freedom” and demanded that authorities drop the charges, which it said were trumped-up and politically motivated.
Jan had also been abducted for around 12 hours during Khan’s rule in 2020.
