Mansoor Jafar Al Arabiya A mysterious looking assassination attempt on a senior but often controversial TV anchor, Hamid Mir, rocked Pakistan with a serious political storm that saw the country and its media divided along the sensitive lines of antagonism and support for the country's premier spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Mir, who works for the country's leading news channel Geo TV, was shot and wounded at close range with six bullets while leaving Karachi airport. The incident was controversial right from the start with the country's top spy agency ISI and its chief being accused of masterminding the attack. Geo TV flashed a picture of ISI chief Lt. General [retired] Zahirul Islam for eight hours while repeating the accusations against him and his agency. Pakistan has been a dangerous place for journalists, especially after 9/11, as over 100 have been shot dead under mysterious circumstances - the majority in the troubled tribal region. The incident also highlighted serious problems with media standards and deviation from norms by top media houses for vested interests. Hamid Mir has been a controversial journalist all his life, although he enjoyed popularity as the leading talk show host in the country. He was the first journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden before and after 9/11. In the past decade, he has survived some attempts on his life, reportedly by Taliban militants who charged him with working for the ISI and other secret agencies, but this time events took a U-turn when he held the ISI responsible for the attempt on his life. Immediately after the incident, Hamid's younger brother Amir Mir, who also works for the same media group and a number of media outlets in India, appeared on Geo TV and accused the ISI and country's spymaster Lt. General Zahirul Islam of being directly involved in the attempt on his brother's life. Amir claimed to have a video of Hamid Mir in which he stated that the ISI and its chief should be held responsible if something happened to his life. Strangely, Geo TV did not air that video. A spokesman for the armed forces dismissed the accusation against the ISI and its chief as baseless and misleading. As a countermove, the defense department urged the media regulatory body to suspend Geo TV on charges of undermining the institution responsible for the country's security and defense. Geo was also criticized by rival TV channels and ex-military analysts for its coverage in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Geo has not responded formally to the complaint, saying it only reported the Mir family's version of events and that rival channels have “wrongly attributed the allegations against the ISI to Geo.” A number of political groups and leaders, as well as competitors that Geo TV harshly maligns, slammed Geo TV for sudden, unabashed and unsubstantiated slander of the country's spy agency and its chief. They accused the channel of playing into the hands of “enemies of the state” and “conspiring to incite the armed forces to overthrow the civilian government and impose martial law.” On the other hand, some groups and leaders did come out in support of Geo TV and the channel showed them accusing the army and ISI of committing gross violations of human rights and political rights in the country. Pakistan has been under direct or indirect military rule for more than half of its 67-year history and the army chief is considered to be the most powerful man in the country who controls both internal and external affairs. The footage of Mir's car made the attempted assassination appear mysterious as there was hardly any blood on the car's rear seat where Mir apparently sat. The top surgeons in the panel who removed bullets from Mir's stomach were quoted by the Channel for the whole day as saying that he was hit by only three bullets, and that they had no definite word of his recovery since he was in intensive care. They said his statement can be taken only after his condition is stable. But after 48 hours, Geo TV said Mir was hit by six bullets and that only three of them were removed. The impression that Mir was in critical condition was given another blow by Dr. Amir Liaqat Hussain, another controversial host of Geo TV, citing Mir's driver who allegedly said that after being shot Mir recited prayers and kept repeating “long live Pakistan” as the car sped him to the hospital. This comedy of errors reminded observers of similar claims and counterclaims following the attack on the teenage anti-Taliban activist Malala Yusufzai. Like Hamid Mir, she survived Taliban sharpshooters who attacked her from a close range. Several misleading and illogical claims about her medical condition were made portraying her as in critical condition after a bullet pierced her skull. But she miraculously recovered within a fortnight after neurosurgery that did not require her head to be shaved. A number of other top newsmen working for Geo TV and its mother organization “Jang Group” leveled the oft-repeated accusations against the ISI of kidnapping and torturing political workers and human rights activists, especially those involved in the insurgency in Balochistan and those opposed to the country joining the US war on terror. They openly made the absurd demand that the ISI chief should step down after being accused of involvement in the assassination attempt against a top media man. What followed was nothing more than a series of ugly shows of political power on this issue which is highly sensitive in the country. Meanwhile, Geo TV portrayed the issue as a threat to freedom of expression and continued to muster support from across the world for its “cause.” But what was rather strange was the holding of rallies in all major cities by relatively unpopular political forces that came out of nowhere to express support for the army and accused Geo TV of being a “traitor” and “anti-state.” The mustering of such small entities to extend political backing for the army was seen as an attempt by the armed forces to flex their political muscles, something which is strictly prohibited for institutions of national defense. It was also viewed as a move to counter the decade old aspersions on the army for carrying out the US war against its own citizens led by General [retired] Pervez Musharraf. Moreover, it did not surprise many when pro-army rallies sported large portraits of General Musharraf who is otherwise considered a symbol of hatred across the country. For the majority of Pakistanis, Geo TV stepped beyond the bounds of the ethics of journalism and the norms of impartiality when it accused the country's spy chief of masterminding the assassination attempt and that too without any proof. Nowhere in the world could any TV channel dare to accuse the country's top spy agency of such a crime without any substantial proof. The mere word of Hamid Mir could never qualify as proof in a court of law. Geo TV has already earned notoriety in the country for allegedly being paid by Indian agencies for its forced friendship campaign with India's “Amn Ki Asha,” a Hindi phrase meaning "desire for peace". With sudden and unsubstantiated accusations against the ISI, Geo TV invited the bulk of the nation to suspect that it was actually playing a highly dangerous and dirty game. The defense department accuses Geo of conducting “a vicious campaign, libelous and scandalous in nature... against a state institution tasked to work for the defense, sovereignty and integrity of Pakistan.” Although the news channel later appeared to distance itself from the accusations and it looked as if matters could be patched up between the defense department and Geo TV with the usual customary apology, the latest statement by Hamid Mir from his hospital bed implied that the situation was far from over and was bound to intensify the standoff between the news channel and the military. At this juncture, both the aggrieved TV channel and Pakistan's infuriated top army brass should try to cool matters down as further raising the political temperature could land the country in acute chaos that would benefit neither the politicians nor the army. — Mansoor Jafar is editor of Al Arabiya Urdu based in Islamabad. Follow him on Twitter @mansoorjafar
