{"id":6300,"date":"2017-11-13T17:31:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T12:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pakistanpressfoundation.org\/?p=89564"},"modified":"2017-11-13T17:31:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T12:31:20","slug":"ayubs-attack-on-progressive-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/ayubs-attack-on-progressive-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayub\u2019s attack on Progressive Papers"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mazhar Ali Khan recounts events of that fateful day in April 1959 when Pakistan’s press suffered its most grievous blow.<\/p>\n
WHEN the people of our land attain full freedom and genuine democracy, and Pakistan\u2019s history is written by honest scholars searching for the truth, and not as a panegyric on, or apologia for, the ruler of the day, the Ayub regime will be found guilty of a long and varied list of heinous acts. It will not be easy for our future historians to determine which single action of the self appointed president and his government of courtiers did the greatest harm to the national interest, for they will have a wide field to survey.<\/p>\n
Many will probably conclude that the dictatorship\u2019s gravest crime was its deliberate destruction of Press freedom, because so many other evils flowed from this act of denying to the people of Pakistan one of their fundamental rights. It is, therefore, pertinent to recall the Ayub regime\u2019s first step towards this fascist aim, namely, its attack on Progressive Papers, an institution created under the patronage of the Quaid i Azam.<\/p>\n
The dastardly attack was made at dawn on Saturday, April 18, 1959. Two ministers, one a general, masterminded the operations, with their main headquarters at the residence of the Martial Law Administrator of Zone B, and a tactical headquarters at Lahore\u2019s Gymkhana Club.<\/p>\n
By midnight the offices of the Progressive Papers \u2013\u00a0The Pakistan Times<\/em>,\u00a0Imroze<\/em>, and the weekly\u00a0Lail o Nahar<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 were surrounded by an array of armed police and CID men, and they were captured as the night shift left the premises.<\/p>\n At the same time, similar detachments besieged the residences of Mian Iftikharuddin, the company\u2019s chairman, who also owned a majority of its shares, and its managing director, Syed Amir Hussain Shah. The police carried search warrants and were authorised to use \u201creasonable force\u201d to take possession of all documents connected with Progressive Papers.<\/p>\n For some weeks before the event, we had heard rumours that the government was unhappy with\u00a0The Pakistan Times<\/em>\u00a0because it was not giving the regime full support, and, more recently, sympathetic individuals connected with the government had discreetly whispered the warning that \u2018something terrible\u2019 would happen to our papers.<\/p>\n We were naive enough to believe that any action contemplated would be legal action of some sort. Our naivety was rudely shattered, and we learnt the lesson that a usurper\u2019s regime, guided by unprincipled and lying toadies, was capable of illegal and unscrupulous action to gain its own ends.<\/p>\n The last warning received by me before the event was at 1.30am, when a friend woke me up to say that he had heard from a minister at the Gymkhana Club that he would be coming to see me at 5am to discuss \u201cthe future of\u00a0The Pakistan Times<\/em>\u201d. At about 5.30am, the threatened ministerial visitation, which by morning I had begun to discount, materialised. He told me in plain terms that the government had taken over\u00a0The Pakistan Times.<\/em>\u00a0In reply to the protest that this could not be done as there was no law which allowed such action, he said that it \u201chad already been done\u201d and that the Security Act had been amended two days ago to make it possible.<\/p>\n Cutting short the discussion on law and ethics, he said he had come to explain that the government\u2019s only purpose was to oust Mian Iftikharuddin and to change the management. No other change was intended, and, in fact, \u201cbetter facilities\u201d for work would be made available to the editorial staff. The confused and confusing discussion ended when I said that I would give my decision by the afternoon.<\/p>\n About noon I reached the office, and saw that the takeover was indeed complete. Armed police, with handcuffs dangling from their belts, stood at the gates, and CID men were all over the place. When I tried to open the door to my room, I was stopped by a policeman guarding the sanctum. The managing director\u2019s office was occupied by Mr Mohammad Sarfaraz, the newly appointed administrator, and only at his intervention was I allowed to enter my room.<\/p>\n Sarfaraz gave me the details of the government\u2019s monstrous action, and I saw the relevant orders and notifications which had been issued, clearly showing that the coup was a well planned conspiracy. I also saw a copy of \u2018The New Leaf\u2019, the editorial which appeared in the next day\u2019s issues of\u00a0The Pakistan Times<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Imroze<\/em>. Reputedly the work of Qudratullah Shahab, the then information secretary, it is the stupidest piece of bad writing that has ever disgraced the columns of these journals.<\/p>\n