The Rule of The Jungle

Shahid Aslam’s case highlights the difficulties faced by journalists in bringing the truth to light

Lahore: Shahid Aslam was arrested without a warrant, transferred to the federal capital without a warrant and then forced to share details that he has a constitutional right not to divulge, in what appears to be a case-study of how the government deals with the journalists, who bring the truth to light.

Aslam, an investigative journalist associated with Bol News, was at his residence in Lahore when around 20 people in plain clothes barged into his house on the night of January 13.

According to Javed Iqbal, a reporter associated with Daily Minute Mirror, who was also staying with Aslam, the people did not know their target by face.

“When I told them which one of us is Shahid Aslam, they handcuffed us; seized our mobile phones and laptops and bundled us into a double cabin van with tinted glasses.

“They also searched the house for 20 minutes. These people, who claimed that they belonged to a law enforcing agency, never showed any arrest warrant,” he said.

Iqbal claims that these people were unaware of Lahore’s roadmap and were using the mobile navigation to reach the motorway. “No personnel of local law enforcing agencies were accompanying them.”

“When the van entered the motorway, we realized that they were taking us to Islamabad—without ever showing any transit warrant, in violation of the law,” he said.

During the trip, the people who had abducted the journalists continuously interrogated them. After reaching Islamabad, they took both of them to an isolated building for further interrogation.

“They used different methods to extract information but we reiterated that we did not do anything wrong. We also refused to provide the passwords of our mobile phones and laptops.”

These alleged personnel of a law enforcement agency released Javed Iqbal at night and he immediately went to some senior journalists of Islamabad to inform them about Shahid’s arrest.

Next day, on January 14, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) presented Shahid Aslam in a court which remanded the journalist into the agency’s custody for two day.

The court on January 16 declined to remand him into the FIA’s custody again and he was sent to jail. Two days later, on January 18, the court granted Shahid Aslam bail against a surety of Rs50,000.

How did it begin?

In November 2022, an investigative journal, Fact Focus, published a detailed report on the alleged increase in the assets of some family members of the then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

The article claimed that the assets of General Bajwa’s wife and daughter-in-law had increased enormously since he was appointed as the army chief.

On November 21, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar took notice of the article written by journalist Ahmed Noorani and ordered that people responsible for leaking the data of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) should be identified within 24 hours as leakage of tax records “is a clear violation of tax laws”.

On November 22, Dar revealed that he had received an interim report related to the leak of Gen (retd) Bajwa’s income tax records and that the authorities had traced some FBR officials involved in the act.

In December 2022, the FBR lodged an FIR against three officers from Lahore for “breaching dishonestly and fraudulently the tax data of former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and his family and disclosing the same to unauthorized persons”.

According to the FIR, FBR Member Information Technology Abdul Majid Yousfani lodged the complaint with the FIA anti-corruption circles Islamabad .

According to the FIR, one Shahzad Niaz, Supervisor Corporate Tax Office (CTO) Lahore, accessed the tax record of Qamar Javed Bajwa on 18/01/2022 and 20/01/2022 and his spouse Ayesha Amjad several times on 15/12/2021, 03/01/2022 and 21/02/2022 and subsequently shared it illegally with Arshad Ali Qureshi, Supervisor Regional Tax Office (RTO) Lahore through his WhatsApp number.

Similarly, another Muhammad Adeel Ashraf, UDC at RTO Lahore, accessed the tax record of Mahnoor Sabir, daughter-in-law of Bajwa without authorization and illegally shared with Arshad Ali Qureshi through Shahzad Niaz.

“Arshad Ali Qureshi disclosed the same information to unauthorized persons for wrongful gains. Hence, they have committed offences of criminal misconduct through unauthorized access to information system/data and its copy/transmission,” said the FIR.

According to the FIA, the FBR officials had revealed during interrogation that they had shared the tax record of General Bajwa with Shahid Aslam on alleged receipt of bribes.

Mere Assumptions

Mian Ali Ashfaq, the lawyer of Aslam, said a case was registered against his client on mere assumptions.

He said verbal evidence had been given against his client which had no legal status. He said the former army chief was not present in the court and his statement is not on the record.

The lawyer said as a journalist, Aslam might have contacted the FBR employees but the allegation of bribing them was ridiculous.

“According to the FIA, the FBR data had been extracted many years ago. The FIA failed to tell the court when the data was leaked and from which bank account the bribe was transferred to the FBR employees.”

He said if it is assumed for a moment that his client bribed the FBR employees, then the prosecution will have to prove the day, time and place where the bribe was given.

Ashfaq said in the case of Shahid Aslam, the affected party had never come forward.

Citing the case of Supreme Court judge Qazi Faez Isa, he said the tax record of his family members was also leaked but neither the FBR nor the FIA took any action.

The lawyer of the accused said the agencies conducted an inquiry along with the FIA and registered a case and the accused Shahid Aslam is not named in the case. Later, the editor of the Fact Focus website in a tweet also denied the allegation that Shahid Aslam worked for the website.

Can a source be revealed?

Syed Sajjad Haider Naqvi, an expert in legal affairs, said under Article 17 of the Constitution, a journalist cannot be forced to reveal the source of his news. Article 17 is related to access to information.

“It is a crime to publish fake news. However, the details about General Bajwa’s assets are not wrong. If someone took these details from the FBR and printed them, then it is not wrong.”

As per the FBR rules, the details of any person cannot be provided to anyone else. But there is no problem in publishing or broadcasting such details, and Shahid Aslam is not bound to provide the data, he added

In response to a question regarding the journalist not providing the password to the FIA or any other investigating agency, he said the journalist is not bound to provide data.

“No state agency or authority can compel a journalist to reveal his source and provide a laptop or phone password. This is a violation of internationally recognized journalistic principles.

Senior journalist Shakeel Saeed said the arrest of Shahid Aslam highlights the weaknesses in our democracy and the state’s failure to do the right thing.

“The state cracks down on disparaging coverage of influential circles by arresting media people.

“Aslam’s imprisonment is a continuation of this longstanding practice. It happens far too frequently for journalists to publish articles that raise concerns about military officers without being harassed, intimidated, or taken to court.

“This case demonstrates once more that the authorities would rather kill the messenger than look at the message. The detention of Mr Aslam and attempts to get passwords to access his phone and laptop are a breach of the legal protections of journalists,” he said.

PML-N’s history of muzzling the press

Shahid Aslam’s arrest is the latest attempt by the besieged Shehbaz Sharif government to muzzle the press and remains in line with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s vindictive actions against independent media whenever it comes to power. Since coming to power in April 2022, the Shehabaz government has taken unprecedented steps to victimize and target independent journalists. The targeting of Arshad Sharif, which led to his assassination in Kenya, and the arrest and torture and framing of fabricated cases against a number of journalists remains the biggest assault on free press in the 21st century Pakistan. But despite all the brutal victimization of the independent media houses and critical journalists, the Shehbaz government has miserably failed to cow down the press.