Ahfaaz Rahman; No one was a student of appearance and name

A few days ago, a commemorative ceremony was held at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, in which Mehnaz Rehman awarded Nasir Zaidi with the Ahfaz Rehman Award in the presence of Dr. Jafar Ahmed. Seeing the picture of this event, my eyes got teary eyed.

The award was a tribute to Nasir Zaidi’s services in the 70s for the freedom of the press. Ahfaz writes in this regard in his book “The Great War”.

“Time flies. In the twinkling of an eye, a mountain fell. Then the memories leave. The mind begins to be invaded by foggy thoughts. The past events start playing with the eyes, the image that used to shine in the mirror of the heart, starts to fade, but the moments that pass through the flames of desire, they may never leave each other. Every corner of such memories shines in On Ki On. It seems like it happened today.”

Several books have been written about press freedom and the “chained press” in Pakistan, and some of them have become popular, but those in the know, of whom Minhaj Burna was certainly the most knowledgeable, were shocked. That the historic and biggest war of 1977-78 has been briefly mentioned in them. No justification can be given for this view.

More reference is given to Zameer Niazi’s book. He has written in the foreword of his book “Press in Chains”, “The main idea of ​​this book is based on restrictions imposed on newspapers and disciplinary actions against journalists who dare to disagree.” . The first chapter contains the mention of oppression and oppression of the entire two centuries of foreign rule.

The remaining four chapters discuss four different periods of our own tumultuous history, and focus on the various restrictions on the press, various governments and agencies, and the role of newspaper owners, editors, activist journalists and their organizations during these periods. The statement contains: “At that time, Ahfazur Rahman used to cry for his companions who were flogged. One of them was Khawar Naeem Hashmi who wrote.

1982 was also the most difficult year for the entire nation, I got a new job in a well-known Urdu daily, all the focus was on my profession, I was working day and night, when suddenly I was declared the main accused of rebellion against the state. , I was arrested at night from home, dozens of officials came in white clothes and private cars to arrest me.

A case under 120 BTP was registered against me in police station old Anarkali, the complainant became a police inspector, FIR was sealed, FI number was 211/81. A special court was constituted to hear the case, the charges against me, the only punishment for them was death, if the punishment was less than that, it was mandatory for the court to state a solid reason for it, before that I Not only had I endured flogging in the Kot Lakhpat Jail in a completely naked state, but had also served various prison terms in five jails in Sindh and Punjab, I was not at all afraid of this new case against me.

Mr. Nisar Osmani himself had formed a one-member release committee for me. Whenever General Zia came to Lahore, Osmani Sahib would put the issue of my release before him, General Zia would have only one answer, Khawar Naeem Hashmi is not a journalist, he is a terrorist, he will not be released, his crimes will be punished. In the same case, around 250 of my colleagues from all over the country were also arrested, most of whom were people I did not even know. I would be taken out of the cell, and different teams would take turns interrogating me.

The procedure of the investigation was that I had to narrate each and every memory of myself from my birth to the time I reached the royal fort in front of these investigators and each team had to tell exactly what was told to the other teams, this was very difficult. Work was, for example, I have two mothers, they have five brothers and they have ten sons and twelve daughters and their names are as follows.

I did not know the names of the children except my uncles, I used to give their fake names to the investigation teams and then I would keep these names in mind in my cell all night, because the other teams had to write the same fake names. These five investigation teams were headed by a detective-type officer named Muzaffar, who smoked K-To cigarettes, his boss was Chaudhry Sardar Muhammad, a former IG who used to offer all prayers regularly, Muzaffar was a very tough and bad-tempered officer. And he himself would interrogate me daily, he would abuse me and put bricks on my handcuffed hands and then order you to bend your knees and stand in the sun…

I was suffering from piles in those days, this punishment would have been very painful for me, the strength that Allah has given me to endure would have been very helpful in such situations, one day Muzaffar took me outside his office for interrogation. When I called, I saw a very beautiful girl standing behind the bars of a cell behind me.

Guessing at a glance that she was very educated and seemed to belong to a big family, I decided that whatever punishment Muzaffar inflicted today, whatever torture he inflicted, he should bear it bravely so that this girl locked behind the bars of the penitentiary. Keep your morale high, while going back to your cell after enduring the punishment of Muzaffar, I saw this girl once again, she did not look like an ordinary political worker or accused, the prisoners of the Shahi Fort would come under the supervision of the ordinary police. It was a few hours when dozens of prisoners in different cells talked to each other, that night I asked everyone who is the girl I saw today in the cell above the penitentiary.

“She is Dr. Nasira, the wife of Rana Shaukat Mehmood, who was arrested in your case and brought here.”

Shahida Jabeen, another active political activist, was also imprisoned in the Shahi Qila, she was kept in a cell far away from us and it was impossible to talk to her. Jai Sindh’s Ali Haider Shah, Yusuf Khattak, Javed Akhtar and many other colleagues would start political discussions at night, Irshad Haqqani’s columns would be discussed, ways of getting rid of General Zia would be drawn, sometimes we would all sing to each other when When it was my turn, I used to sing ” Raat bhar ka hai mahman andhera” …… the name of the one who distributed food to us was Bhai …… he used to give extra half and whole roti to one of us.” Ahfazur Rahman At the same time, he wrote a poem “Sig-e-Azad”, some of his poems are dedicated to you.

Do you remember that association of flowers, Saki? / When the lilies of longing used to shine in the heart / On the wall of the night, we people of the jinn used to put hundreds of pindars / bows.

And the people of oppression used to decorate their/scented wounds on the altar/smiling/rejoicing in the pain and suffering/there was no demand for fame and name.