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Pak Chronicle Report
Karachi
A senior journalist Muzaffar Hussain Askari has asked fellow journalists to award him some financial assistance for making arrangements of his daughter’s wedding.
The date of his daughter’s wedding has been set on January 17, 2020 in Karachi.
Askari has spent over a quarter century in journalism in Pakistan and currently he himself is suffering from chronic disease of stomach’s cancer for the past many months.
During his career spanning over 25 years he served many leading Urdu newspapers and private TV news channels. He served Daily Ummat, Daily Jurat, Khabrin, Qaumi Akhbar, Sachal, Metro One, Dhom TV and many other media organizations in his journalistic career mostly as a court reporter.
The ongoing recession in the media industry also rendered Askari as jobless along with thousands of other journalists.
Media Industry crisis worsening in PTI’s regime: This is pertinent to mention here that current regime of Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaaf led government has proved to be fatal for the media industry.
After taking the reign of power in the country, PTI’s government intentionally or unintentionally paved way for creating environment of uncertainty in the media industry. When this environment set the ball rolling, the working journalists were at the receiving end. The government has been acting as a silent and helpless observer throughout its tenure when it comes to address the issue of the fraternity.
Thousands of journalists rendered jobless: There are thousands of working journalists who lost their jobs throughout the country from different media organization and those who are still working have been facing one or the other issue during this period.
Many media organizations have been failing to pay salaries to their staffers on account of one or other reason. There are many media organizations which need to pay pending the salaries of their staffer of the past several months. Several media organizations asked their staffers either to accept 40 to 50 percent cut in their salaries are get ready for layoff schemes.
Crisis taken away lives of many journalists: This sort of environment pushed many journalists to extreme depression and anxiety. There are several journalists who have passed away from this mortal world to eternity but the government remained unmoved.
Muzaffar Hussain Askari is also the victim of this PTI’s led era who got no place to register his protest against this unjustified state of affairs. The Unions of Journalists (UJs) miserably failed to struggle against this dilemma. These UJs even could not register their protest properly to raise the issue at proper forms. In individual capacities some members of the fraternity have been making efforts for the rights of the journalists but it’s obviously not enough keeping in view the severity of the issue.
Syed Irfan passed away due to financial issues: Syed Irfan, a journalist of Karachi passed away, a few months ago, because he was not being paid his salary for many months by his media organization. A cameraman, Muhammad Nasir struggled against deadly cancer disease and lost battle against it in a room of Rawalpindi Press Club. His body was taken to graveyard from this room of the club where he was residing with his wife and four years old son. Nasir was the staffer of the most prominent news TV channel of Pakistan and this channel could not come up to assist him when he had badly needed it. Even his family members disowned him when he had needed their attention. He had no place to live so he was accommodated in a room of the club along with his wife and young child.
Karachi’s journalists ,the worst victim of media crisis: The journalist of Karachi proved to be the worst victim of this media crisis because they lacked resources which the journalists of Lahore or Islamabad/Rawalpindi had. The journalists of Lahore and Islamabad were blessed with residential plots by the government whose prices swelled up to Rs10 million or even above it in the present circumstances. So they had opportunity to live a descent life.
However, this was not the case with the journalists of Karachi. The members of Karachi Press Club (KPC) were also awarded these plots by the government at Hawksbay but the prices of these plots could never touch reasonable level. This housing scheme of these journalist got the price tag which is the cheapest in Karachi. There are cases when some needy journalist sold his plot against meagre price of Rs500,00.
During his career Muzaffar Hussain Askari dug out countless corruption cases of bureaucracy and against those who are at the helm of the affairs. However, during this process he just made both his ends meet. He never had enough money to live a descent life. However, as he himself opted to choose this profession he continued to perform his duties sincerely and to the best of his abilities till he was also rendered jobless. Besides facing everyday expenses of his family he is supposed to bear expensive treatment of cancer too.
How to financially assist Askari: Now he needs financial assistance for the wedding of his daughter. Askari can be directly contacted at his cell number: 923432430827 or he may also be credited on his CNIC at: 4210181084417 via easy paisa money transfer.
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