John Donne, the 17th century metaphysical poet-turned priest has reminded us in one of his sermons that the death of one individual should warn others of the same happening to them. "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee," he admonished. All the multifarious shenanigans of the management of the Jang Group notwithstanding, the newspaper industry might rue the day the government succeeds in steamrollering the group into submission. The tendency in Mian Nawaz Sharif to demolish every obstacle that comes in the way of the fulfilment of his wishes has already expressed itself in a number of ways. His impatience with anyone criticizing his policies might now lead him into taking on the fourth pillar of the state.

Sharif's exasperation with the Press is nothing new. A brief review of his earlier tenure (1990-93) is enough to underline his frustration with the independence enjoyed by the newspapers, and a strong desire to put curbs on it. On May , 1992, for instance, while talking to newsmen in Islamabad, Sharif had remarked that a number of newspapers have "turned themselves into rumour factories." He had further remarked that "newspapers bring all sorts of trouble." In July, Ghulam Hyder-Wyne, the Chief Minister of Punjab, conducted for several days a campaign against an Urdu daily, accusing some of its staff members of being on the payroll of the opposition parties. They had indulged in character assassination of government functionaries and published news items based on supposition, he charged. "I will take the strongest action against such people and will not hesitate to go to the extreme," he declared. "I will raise the issue in the Council of Newspaper Editors. I will do what ever I can as the Chief Minister." The office bearers of various journalists' organisations challenged him to go to a court of law if he had any evidence with him. A few days later the Federal Minister of Finance repeated similar charges. The newspapers, he said, published sensational news in order to increase their sales. The government had to pay a heavy price for the freedom of the Press. "I have prepared 20 cases which I will take to APNS and CPNE," he asserted. Like Wyne, he too failed to take the matter to these forums.

The Jam Sadiq government in Sindh was particularly annoyed with the Press and went ahead with employing strong arms tactics in order to muzzle it. Newsmen were threatened and sometimes physically assaulted. False cases were registered against them and their offices raided. In April 1991, one of the Herald's senior staffers, who had been sending dispatches exposing the high handedness of a certain government agency, was assaulted. In September the same year, another senior newsman and a lady reporter, known for filing reports exposing government tactics against the Opposition, were attacked and badly injured. This led to a countrywide protest strike of all newspapers on September 28. But it did not stop the government from continuing to punish its critics in the media. Next month all copies of the monthly Herald containing the report entitled. "Inside CIA" was confiscated in Karachi. False cases were instituted against the publication. Which were later on withdrawn unconditionally. Even more severe punishment lay in store for the weekly Takbeer, which had embarrassed the government by publishing stories regarding the illegal activities of the MQM, a coalition partner of the PML-N both at the Centre and in the province. One of its issues was forcibly removed from the stalls and put to torch. On October 17, in what constituted a government patronized act of terrorism, the offices of Takbeer were burnt down in broad day light.

The Sharif government became particularly sensitive to press reporting towards the end of its first tenure. A trend towards the abridgement of press freedom started to take shape. In April 1992, the CPNE took notice of the situation, particularly expressing concern over the government issuing press advice in Sindh, which it regarded as reminiscent of the Martial Law days. The worse was, however, yet to come. In September, a sedition case was registered against the Chief Editor, a resident editor and a reporter of an English daily, and it was referred to the Special Court for Speedy Trials. A poem published in the daily was made the basis for the case. The CPNE and APNS stood behind the paper and all newspapers announced a strike on October 2, if the case was not withdrawn. The government finally yielded to the pressure exerted by the entire industry.

The CPNE and APNS had stood by the daily on the plea that newspapers and journalists should only be tried under ordinary laws and in ordinary courts. While the Jang Group needs to ponder why the same unanimous support is not available to it now, the rest of the industry too must consider the ramifications of the action against the Group.

The Jang group maintains that it is being subjected to persecution because it had refused to yield to the government demand to remove its senior journalists and to replace them with those in the good books of Islamabad. The government side was justified its action on the basis of two altogether different counts that make its position weak. It has been claimed on the one hand that the Group has dodged income tax worth Rs. 2.6 billion. It has also simultaneously been claimed that the two newspapers taken out by it publish objectionable stories that are against the national interest, and that the Group had become opposed to the government after permission to run a private TV channel was refused to it. Nobody would have objected if the government had employed normal methods to make the group pay taxes if it had really owed these. The fact that the income tax department and FIA remained inactive till the Group became politically unacceptable to the government leads one to conclude that there is more to the affairs than mere income tax dodging. The interest taken by the chief of the Ehtesab Bureau, and the speed with which the accounts of all the companies of the Group were seized without waiting for the completion of legal process, again is uprising.

Tax dodgers should be taken to task irrespective of whether they support the government or oppose its policies. An impression that a newspaper is being subjected to persecution because it had refused to stop the publication of certain news item despite government pressure, or did not dismiss its senior staffers at the government's behest, is bound to warn other newspapers that they might be receiving a similar treatment.

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