Islamabad: Pakistani media organisations and some leading television anchors were provided security following threat that they would be targeted by Taliban for their coverage of the attempted assassination of a teenage rights activist, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Monday.
“Several alerts were received that some anchors and media houses would be targeted,” Malik said while interacting with journalists in Islamabad this morning. Additional police had been deployed at the media organisations and plainclothes personnel had been deputed to guard the anchors, he said.
Malik did not give details of the media organisations or anchors for security reasons. He said guards had also been posted at the homes of anchors facing threats.
Security agencies had been directed to follow up leads about possible attacks on the media by the Taliban. Three Taliban operatives based in the tribal belt – Nadeem Abbas, Maulvi Shafi and Abdul Rasheed – were behind the move to target the media.
Abbas was heading the operation, Malik claimed. Media reports have said the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan led by Hakimullah Mehsud had drawn up plans to target media organisations, particularly TV news channels, and some journalists as it was angered by their coverage of Malala Yousufzai.
The News daily quoted its sources as saying that the Taliban felt the media had become biased against the militants and was giving “undue” coverage to the attack on Malala and portraying them as the “worst people on earth”.
An air ambulance transporting Malala, provided by the United Arab Emirates, had departed from Islamabad on Monday morning amidst tight security for treatment and was heading for the United Kingdom, said the spokesman.
She has been on ventilator since doctors removed a bullet lodged near her spine last Wednesday.
“The panel of doctors recommended that Malala be shifted abroad to a UK centre which has the capability to provide integrated care to children who have sustained severe injury,” said the spokesman in a statement.
Malala has become a potent symbol of resistance against the Pakistani Taliban’s efforts to deprive girls of an education. Pakistanis have held some protests and candlelight vigils but government officials have refrained from publicly criticising the Taliban by name over the attack.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying Malala was targeted for backing Western ideals and a secular government.
The Taliban have reportedly held several meetings and decided to suspend their current operations while field commanders and fighters have been directed to “divert their attention towards media organisations instead of the government and security forces”, The News reported.
The militants have selected 12 suicide bombers to target media organisations, particularly the electronic media and some foreign media organisations and their workers, in Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi and other places.\
The suicide bombers were directed to target offices, vehicles and journalists “who had become a party and were issuing fatwas” against Taliban, the daily quoted its sources as saying.
The Taliban have deputed people to closely monitor Pakistani and foreign media organisations after the attack on Malala to assess the coverage and whether journalists were “impartial and unbiased” while reporting the incident. The sources told the daily that militants were divided over plans to target media organisations and decided to target those outlets, which according to the Taliban, had “crossed all limits” in maligning the militants.
The militants would also target who spoke in favour of Malala and gave an opportunity to people to describe the attack as being against Shariah and Pashtun culture.
Journalists in Swat had received threatening phone calls and SMSs warning them of serious consequences for giving coverage to Malala. Security has been beefed up around offices of media organisations while some journalists in Swat have been provided guards.
Chief Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan said militants would “continue to respect journalists” though some had shown their “bias and enmity” towards the Taliban. Sirajuddin Ahmad, the Taliban spokesman for Maulana Fazlullah from Swat, was more critical of the media.
“Right from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to Hillary Clinton and President Obama, all of them used whatever bad language and words they could use on the media but when we tried to reply to them, no media organisation was willing to give us importance,” Sirajuddin claimed. (PTI)