{"id":298470,"date":"2018-06-07T12:49:13","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T07:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=298470"},"modified":"2018-06-28T16:33:17","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T16:33:17","slug":"abducted-pak-journalist-gul-bukhari-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/abducted-pak-journalist-gul-bukhari-released\/","title":{"rendered":"Abducted Pak Journalist Gul Bukhari Released"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">A Pakistani journalist and critic Gul Bukhari was released on June 6, hours after her abduction on Sherpao Bridge in Lahore\u2019s Cantonment area at around\u00a011 pm\u00a0on the night of June 5, the family said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Bukhari is a dual Pakistani-British national.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Ali Nadir, Bukhari&#8217;s husband said, &#8220;She was on her way to record a TV programme on 5 June evening on the late-night Waqt news show, her vehicle was intercepted and she was abducted.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">He further confirmed that &#8220;She is back and she is absolutely fine.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Muhammad Gulsher producer on the Waqt news program, while basing her information on the statement given by Bukhari&#8217;s driver, who witnessed her abduction said, &#8220;a group of pick-up trucks stopped her vehicle and men in plain clothes dragged her way while other men in &#8220;army uniforms&#8221; stood guard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Two persons came out of a double-cabin and asked Bukhari to get into their vehicle. When she refused they bundled her up in the vehicle and sped away,\u201d the driver of the Waqt TV cab told police.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">She was later released as her abduction invited massive outrage on social media, especially it became a trending topic on Twitter in the nation, many Pakistani journalists and activists raised concerns over military involvement or intelligence agencies in the same.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;If true, this would be a most audacious attempt to silence a known critic. Is this Pakistan or Kim&#8217;s North Korea or Sisi&#8217;s Egypt?&#8221; tweeted Syed Talat Hussain, a prominent journalist.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Extremely disturbing and worrisome news of Gul Bukhari\u2019s abduction. This is just cruel &amp; worst kind of oppression. A sad day,\u201d\u00a0tweeted\u00a0Maryam Nawaz, daughter of former PM Nawaz Sharif.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;The police had reached Bukhari\u2019s house but she refused to record her statement at the moment,&#8221; a police official said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">According to reports, the military has outrightly denied playing a role in any abduction or enforced disappearances.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In past few months, Bukhari has penned several articles critical in nature for Pakistan dailies accusing raising concerns over Army&#8217;s increasing interference in politics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Pakistani journalist and critic Gul Bukhari was released on June 6, hours after her abduction on Sherpao Bridge in Lahore\u2019s Cantonment area at around\u00a011 pm\u00a0on the night of June 5, the family said. Bukhari is a dual Pakistani-British national. Ali Nadir, Bukhari&#8217;s husband said, &#8220;She was on her way to record a TV programme [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":299675,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53],"tags":[2091,2092,1476,48,2093,2094,2095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298470"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299676,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298470\/revisions\/299676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/299675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}