Fareshteh Aslam Questions Dawn’s Journalist on Twitter

Hasan Zaidi, Editor Magazines at Dawn, was cross-questioned by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of  Talking Point, Fareshteh Aslam on his tweet about an Airport Security Force (ASF) official who had accidentally fallen from one of the control towers at Gwadar Airport.  

At the inaugural match at the Gwadar Cricket Stadium, several personalities were invited including Anoushay Ashraf, Nadia Hussain, Zhalay Sarhadi, Faysal Quraishi, Ayesha Toor, Aijaz Aslam, Salman Saeed, Daniyal Arshad, Saleem Sheikh, Ali Zafar, Nauman Habib, Nadeem Jaffery, and etc.

The announcement of the match was made by popular television personality, Fakhr-e-Alam at the Gwadar Cricket Stadium which went viral on social media for its serene and majesty view last month.

With more than 70K followers on Twitter, Zaidi wrote about the accident with an ASF official at Gwadar Airport.

Just heard a shocking story about the celeb PR trip to Gwadar. Apparently, an ASF guy had accidentally fallen from one of the control towers at Gwadar airport and was badly injured. Authorities there had given him initial medical attention and then put him on the plane that…>

— Hasan Zaidi (@hyzaidi) February 23, 2021

The editor further added that PR team didn’t cooperate with the injured because it would compromise the privacy of celebrities.

…had flown the celebs in, so he could be rushed to a hospital in Karachi. But according to the story, the leader of the PR team threw a fit, saying the plane was a charter and and could not take the injured ASF guy, bec it would compromise the celebs’ privacy or something. …>

— Hasan Zaidi (@hyzaidi) February 23, 2021

Moreover, Zaidi said that none of the celebrities took charge of the injured, resulting in shifting the official to a police mobile which took 14 hours to reach Karachi.

…None of the ‘celebs’ stepped in to argue otherwise. After this the poor guy was offloaded from the plane, with difficulty. And the authorities then had a police mobile take him 14 hours via road to Karachi.

If this story is correct, this is the height of insensitivity.

— Hasan Zaidi (@hyzaidi) February 23, 2021

In response to Dawn’s editor, Fareshteh Aslam asked him to double-check the facts before writing on social media.

Hasan, can this be fact checked? Find it hard to believe anybody would do this to an injured person. What privacy? Every minute of every day is instagrammed!!!

— Fareshteh Aslam (@Fareshte) February 23, 2021

Zaidi seemed to be a little confused with Aslam’s question and quoted that the local authorities can be rechecked.

My source says it’s 100% true but perhaps the local authorities can be checked with.

— Hasan Zaidi (@hyzaidi) February 23, 2021

Would be interesting to read the airport log. Whose plane was it? Which celebs? Because it’s not fair to tar all celebs with the same brush. And is it really a 14 hour car drive?

— Fareshteh Aslam (@Fareshte) February 23, 2021

Well, it definitely happened. You can check with ASF. And I’m not tarring everyone – it’s possible there were people there who were not aware of what happened before the return flight. And no, the drive should be about 8 hours, my bad.

— Hasan Zaidi (@hyzaidi) February 23, 2021

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City FM89 RJ, Anoushay Ashraf, who was invited to the event, also contervened.

But I was there. This is so unfair. Who would believe that celebs with one year olds on board would want privacy when a man’s in such utter despair! Not cool.

— Anoushey Ashraf (@Anoushey_a) February 23, 2021

However, one of the Twitter followers corrected the journalist that the distance between Gwadar and Karachi is of eight hours of drive.

My bad. I relayed what I was told without questioning that part. Yes, it should be 8 hours.

— Hasan Zaidi (@hyzaidi) February 24, 2021

In addition to it, Journalist, Mahwash Ajaz also expressed her anger for such irresponsible journalism.

Twitter hai. Kis ne check karna hai. Urra do dangerous afwah and then wait for the outrage machines to work their magic.

— Mahwash Ajaz 🇵🇰 (@mahwashajaz_) February 23, 2021