In recent weeks, Geo has gone from a provider of news to millions of people, to a major subject of the news, to a blank screen. As well as depriving those millions of people of a major source of information, the saga underscores an urgent need to address the safety of the thousands of staffers at Geo and its affiliates.

Geo’s most recent troubles began with the attempted murder of its outspoken anchor, Hamid Mir, in April. An outpouring of concern quickly turned into condemnation when the channel aired allegations that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the country’s powerful intelligence agency, was behind the attack. Critics say Geo’s reporting of the allegations was irresponsible. Mir was labeled a traitor and an Indian agent by many in the country, including some members of the journalism community.

In the following days, Pakistan’s Defense Ministry brought a complaint against Geo for “undermining the integrity and tarnishing the image” of the ISI. Staffers at The News–including Umar Cheema, who wrote critically about the attack on Mir–began receiving e-mailed threats. This was just the beginning.

On May 20, some members of PEMRA tried to take Geo off the air, announcing that licenses for Geo News, Geo Entertainment, and Geo Tez, channels under the Geo TV Network, had been suspended. But later that day, PEMRA issued a press release saying the meeting had only been attended by 5 of its 12 members and had “no legal standing.”

Regardless, Geo News had already been virtually blacked out across 90 percent of Pakistan, according to Ibrahim Rahman, CEO of Geo TV Network. Cable operators were pressured to bump Geo down their channel listings, and then to remove it altogether, he told CPJ.

On May 26, the Geo and Jang groups issued a front page apology to the ISI chief for its coverage immediately after the attack on Mir, but this did not diffuse the tensions.

To add to the pressure, Geo recently was labeled blasphemous by religious conservatives for airing a morning show that reenacted a celebrity wedding accompanied by a Sufi song, according to news reports, which said thousands of public complaints poured in against the network.

At stake is not only the group’s ability to operate freely, but the lives of 7,500 people that are directly employed by Geo, according to Muaaz Ahsan, Geo’s director of programming and branding. “Each one of their livelihoods and safety remains vulnerable,” he told CPJ.

Vans carrying Jang’s newspapers have been torched in Lahore, Lodhran, and Rawalpindi. I was told that some advertisers have also come under threat recently. “It seems their strategy is to bleed us financially to death,” Ahsan said.

Taking up the offensive, Geo News today brought a defamation suit against the ISI, the media regulator, and the defense ministry for “defaming and maligning” the channel, giving them 14 days to publicly apologize and pay damages of 50 billion Pakistani rupees (US $507 million) or go to court, according to a report published in one of the group’s papers. “We have been left with no other option but to turn to the courts,” Ahsan said. “We had to pursue such options or else we will never be safe in Pakistan.”

Committee to Protect Journalists

The driver was shifted to the Holy Family Hospital after the “well-known captors” threw the blindfolded man in critical condition somewhere at Rawat.The Banni Police, however, have registered the case against unidentified criminals under sections 436, 427, 341, 342, 147 and 149 PPC but haven’t yet traced the “criminals” embroiled in the anti-Jang Group activities.

The driver of the delivery vehicle, Mohammad Razzaq, an employee of the Universal Distribution Network (UDN), said he was attached with the delivery network of the Jang Group as a driver for the last two years, adding that he left the Al-Rehman Building on his vehicle (registration number AJKA-3103) loaded with thousands of copies of the Friday’s edition of Jang for the Akhbar Market, Aabpara, at 2:10am.

He said gunmen on two vehicles intercepted him and straightaway dragged him out of his vehicle and pushed him into one of their cars. The driver said that the gunmen thrashed him inhumanly, blindfolded him and tied his hands on his back with a nylon rope. He said that they kept torturing him during about one-hour-long drive and later threw him out of their vehicle.

Razzaq said that as the light of the dawn appeared, a passer-by untied him and on query, he told him he was at the Chamber Road near Rawat. He, however, walked to Rawat and sought help from a van driver and informed his brother from the van driver’s mobile phone who reached there and started searching the delivery vehicle, which was left at the place from where he was kidnapped. His brother shifted him to the Holy Family Hospital as his condition was worsening, the driver said.

In the meantime, an employee of Geo TV living on the however, shifted him to Holy Family Hospital as his condition was worsening, the driver said.In the meantime, an employee of Geo TV living at Kuri Road (Sadiqabad) found the Jang’s delivery van which was burnt along with Friday religious edition of the newspaper. He informed chief security officer of the Jang Group about location of the van at Kuri Road.

The management of the Jang Group reprinted the burned copies and sent them for distribution.Earlier, on May 30, unidentified assailants equipped with lethal weapons, set the van carrying The News and Jang Friday edition to transport to Islamabad, after creating fear among the people at Committee Chowk. People who witnessed the last Friday attack confirmed that the assailants were carrying lethal weapons and they acted as professional fighters. “Their delivery was not like normal citizens or agitators but they seemed as trained people,” the witnesses said.

Mohammad Razzaq said that about 10/12 gunmen, carrying kalashnikovs, suddenly jumped in front of the van and pointed their guns towards him, asking him to come out of the van if he wants to save his life otherwise they would burn him alive. He said that three were holding pistols and remaining were carrying kalashnikovs.

The News