KARACHI, June 9: Rehmat Shah Afridi, chief editor of a daily newspaper released on parole on April 24 reportedly on the intervention of PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari after nine years of incarceration, has called for reopening of his case and a judicial inquiry by a commission comprising judges from all the four high courts.

Speaking at the Karachi Press Club’s “Meet the Press” programme on Monday, he said his conviction in the case had ruined not only his own life but also of his children, besides devastating the newspaper organisation established by him in 1985.

He pointed out that around 900 people employed by him in the organisation were also rendered jobless.

Afridi was sentenced to death and Rs2 million fine by a special court on June 27, 2001 which found him guilty of possessing 20kg hashish reportedly recovered from his car. He was also found involved in a case pertaining to recovery of 650kg hashish recovered from a truck in Faisalabad in April 1999.

He challenged his conviction in the Lahore High Court which commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment on June 3, 2004.

He maintained that he was implicated in concocted cases because of his commitment and devotion to his profession, saying that freedom of the press was his mission for which he could offer any sacrifice.

“I am not ashamed of my conviction because the cases filed against him were false and concocted,” he said, adding that he was ready for accountability.

He said he had leant the meaning of press freedom from the veterans like Nisar Usmani, Minhaj Barna, Aziz Siddiqui, and I.A. Rehman whose struggle was behind the whatever freedom the press was enjoying today. Their struggle was stretched over 60 years of trial and tribulations suffered by the journalist community, he observed.

Afridi said he could not narrate his ordeal and the treatment meted out to him during his remand days because his children had already suffered a lot due to the injustice he had been subjected to in the in-camera trial. My family was scared… even my children and mother were not allowed to hear the proceedings,” he said.

Afridi said although it was a narcotics case instituted against him, it was tried in a manner as if it was a high treason case. “I was allowed to see my children only after two-and-a-half years when I was brought to the Services Hospital for treatment on the recommendation of a medical board,” he recalled, adding that he was sent to a death cell and kept in solitary confinement for four years.

He appealed to all politicians to shun their differences and join hands to eradicate injustice from the society and serve people without any discrimination. In reply to a question, he said he was not affiliated with any political party, and that he intended to resume his mission.