JournalismPakistan.com | Published February 18, 2019
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ISLAMABAD – Journalist Rizwan Razi recounted in a television interview how he was picked up by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on a Saturday morning from his Lahore home on alleged charges of violating the cybercrime law.
“As I was getting ready to have breakfast, the doorbell rang. I went downstairs, and there were two men in white clothes. I shook hands with them and wanted to know who they were, but they quickly shoved me in a white van and took me away,” recalled Razi.
He was speaking on CanadaOne TV show BMC Live after his release on bail.
He said when the men in the van handcuffed him he realized he had been arrested. “They told me they were from FIA.”
Razi is popularly known as Razi Dada because of his Dada Pota FM radio show in which he appears as a granddad. He earned great fame through this program.
Talking about his photo in handcuffs released to the world, he said it established he was innocent, although many people saw it as an act of humiliation of an individual.
Much before his arrest, the FIA had summoned Razi over some of his hard-hitting tweets. He said he had apologized then, and told the officials he would avoid doing so.
He revealed on the show that a request to cancel his bail had been filed in the court. It points out that the judge who granted bail acted outside his powers, and could have only sent him to jail on remand.
Meanwhile, he also clarified that he was not anti-PTI. He pointed out that he was told by his employers to leave his position as editor of Nai Baat on the specific instructions of Nawaz Sharif for his critical writings.
Razi also said he had never met Maryam Nawaz, daughter of Nawaz Sharif, and laughed off a question that he was on her payroll.
He said that he cried when he was labeled anti-state by some people. “It is the third time, I have been called anti-state. When the ISPR chief flashed my ID along with those of several other journalists during a press conference stating they were promoting the enemy’s narrative, I was hurt and cried.”
Razi said that he was not practicing journalism on social media but only expressing his views. “When I am writing for a newspaper or any other publication, and any unguarded word goes in, I can be held responsible, and punished.”
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