The Mandi Bahauddin Press Club was demolished in the early hours of Sunday morning, \u201cwithout any prior notice or warning from the district administration\u201d, the press club president said.<\/p>\n
Mandi Bahauddin Press Club President, Zaheer Khan, said that the club received no demolition notice from the district administration, and the demolition itself took place at 4am on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe received no notice, and we were all asleep when this happened,\u201d he told Dawn.com over the phone. \u201cWe invested a lot of money into this building and our records are all destroyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did they demolish the building at night?\u201d Khan asked.<\/p>\n
Video footage recorded by a Dawn.com correspondent at the scene on Sunday showed the gutted interior and exterior of the building, as well as furniture and other items belonging to the club strewn on the ground outside.<\/p>\n
An interior view of the demolished Mandi Bahauddin Press Club on April 6. \u2014 Screenshot by author
\nKhan added that the district administration offered the press club a new location and that he spoke with the assistant deputy commissioner about the matter last night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spoke over the phone and he told me \u2018not to worry, we will make all the arrangements [for a new location]\u2019,\u201d Khan explained, adding that demolishing the existing building was not discussed.<\/p>\n
He added that the press club was set up in two shops on land rented from the government. \u201cThe shops around us were demolished and the owners were given no notice either,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n
When asked about potential legal action, Khan said, \u201cFor the time being, the club is not pursuing any. However, if the district administration does not give us a new location, we will stage protests and involve other press clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a drone strike on journalism,\u201d he lamented. \u201cThis building stood for over 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mandi Bahauddin Electronic Media President Hafiz Zahid Hameed called the incident \u201cvery concerning\u201d, reiterating Khan\u2019s claim that the press club received no prior notice of the demolition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe received no notice at all,\u201d he told Dawn.com over the phone. When asked about the shops mentioned by Khan, Hameed said that they had matters with the district administration which were \u201cin court\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mandi Bahauddin Press Club was demolished in the early hours of Sunday morning, \u201cwithout any prior notice or warning from the district administration\u201d, the press club president said. Mandi Bahauddin Press Club President, Zaheer Khan, said that the club received no demolition notice from the district administration, and the demolition itself took place at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7879,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7877\/revisions\/7879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}