950824

BBC bureau

in Islamabad

ransacked

SIKANDER HAYAT

ISLAMABAD: The local BBC Bureau was ransacked and its Bureau Chief Denial Lak and Correspondent Zafar Abbas were severely beaten up by a group of intruders on Thursday evening.

Denial Lak told the police that the attackers could be the members of Anjuman-i-Sapah-Sahaba of Pakistan (ASSP). He said he himself did not recognize them nor understood their slogans which were in Urdu but the security guards in the neighbourhood were of that impression.

Attackers smashed computers, TV set, broke furniture and badly damaged two cars parked in the house, which is used by the BBC Bureau chief both as office and residence. Two petrol bombs were also thrown inside the house which burnt two carpets.

Using pieces of steel pipe, the intruders beat up Denial Lak and Zafar Abbas. According to one report, the wife of the BBC Bureau chief tried to intervene but she was pushed aside. Denial Lak lives with his wife and a six-year old daughter in the Posh F-7 Sector.

As the local police officials reached the BBC office the attackers had left raising slogans against the BBC and its programme against the ASSP. Within short time the, chief security officer of the United States Embassy along with two other officers also reached the BBC bureau office and was apprised of the happening.

The ASSP had threatened to hold protests in front of the BBC in Islamabad if it continued to indulge in "character assassination" of their party, the ASSP chief Maulana Ziaur Rehman Farroqi had told a news conference in the Rawalpindi Press Club on August 8.

He had accused the BBC of distorting facts about the ASSP by showing a film "Growing Religious Intolerance in Pakistan" for over 50 times. This film was shot many months back with the active cooperation of the ASSP leaders, the BBC staff said.