ISLAMABAD, Nov 18: The Pakistan Ex-Servicemen’s Society has asked the media to stop bashing the generals “as a class and the armed forces as an institution”.

The society’s president, Lt-Gen (retd) Faiz Ali Chishti, said the generals, who were minister for railways and chairman and managing director of Pakistan Railways when PR land in Lahore was sold to a golf club, should not be treated as army officers because they were not working as generals at the time.

He said the media should, however, do its best to expose wrongdoings so that the nation could differentiate between the good and the bad.

He said the land was sold to Royal Palm Golf Club by then minister for railways Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi and chairman Lt-Gen (retd) Saeeduz Zafar and managing director Maj-Gen (retd) Hassan Butt of the PR. He said the then head of the government, who was required to supervise their work, should be charged for dereliction of duty.

A federal audit carried out in 2007 found that the government lost Rs10 billion because of leasing out of 103 acres of railway land at throwaway prices.