Security beefed up for journalist

Islamabad:  Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir will be provided security after he received threats, said Interior Minister Rehman Malek. Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir said on Wednesday that he received threatening messages after his talk show criticised the security establishment.

Mir stated publicly that if anything happened to him, the security establishment would be responsible.

Rehman Malek yesterday strongly condemned the threatening messages and said the government would ensure full protection and security to Hamid Mir and the journalists' community.

"The government has taken strong notice of this issue and [a] deputy superintendent of police has been deputed for Hamid Mir's security," Associated Press of Pakistan quoted Malek as saying. He said a parliamentarians' committee has been constituted to probe the issue. An opposition leader will lead the committee, he said, adding the government will provide all possible assistance in this regard.

President Asif Ali Zardari too ordered an investigation into the threats received by Hamid Mir.

Hamid Mir also sent his message to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York which quickly issued a blog condemning the threat and accused the Pakistani government of not doing anything about similar threats to journalists in the past. Pakistan has seen journalists being killed in the past.

Munir Ahmad Shahkir, a senior journalist with the Waqt News newspaper, was shot several times and rushed to a hospital where he died on August 14.

On August 10, a journalist was manhandled for exposing malpractices at a premier hospital in Karachi.

Journalist Saleem Shahzad, 40, was kidnapped in Islamabad on May 29. Two days later, his body, bearing marks of severe torture, was found dumped in a canal in Punjab province.

Shahzad is widely believed to have been picked up by intelligence officials for alleging in an article that terrorists attacked a key naval base in Karachi on May 22 after the navy refused to free sailors held for suspected militant links.