ISLAMABAD: The already insular interior ministry under Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has become an impenetrable fortress for media after the latest orders from the interior minister barred anyone in the ministry and its 15 departments from speaking to journalists.

The interior minister’s directive will affect many organisations that are afflicted by various controversies and are often in the news, including the FIA, Frontier Corps Balochistan, Nadra and Rangers Sindh.

According to a copy of the minister’s directives available with Dawn, he has sought to clamp down on unauthorised comments to media made without prior approval by any departmental head in his ministry.

“It is hereby notified that no officer of the ministry/attached departments will record press talk/briefing sound bytes and any other activity related to the press or electronic media without prior approval of the ministry’s spokesperson,” the order said.

The order said: “Prior permission for any activity related to press/electronic media (press talks/press briefings/sound bytes/interview etc) may be sought in writing from the spokesperson of the ministry.”

However, since the ministry no longer has an official spokesperson, getting permission is almost impossible. An additional secretary of the ministry, Omar Hamid Khan, who once held the role of official spokesperson of the interior ministry, told Dawn that he had been removed from office. “I am not in the interior ministry any more,” Khan said.

Unlike some other interior ministers in the recent past, including Rehman Malik, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao and Faisal Saleh Hayat, Chaudhry Nisar is known to be inaccessible not only to the media but also his own party leaders. Even in case of an emergency, the minister is difficult to reach.

Even officials of the interior ministry have little access to him. “Sometimes we get into a difficult situation when someone from the prime minister’s house conveys us PM’s orders, but we cannot deliver the same to the interior minister because of his inaccessibility,” an official of the ministry, who did not want to be named, told Dawn.

When the right to information of the media was referred to Information Minister Pervez Rashid with reference to the interior ministry clampdown, he told Dawn that he was not aware of any such directive. “I will get information about it from the interior ministry and then will be able to comment on it,” he said. Mr Rashid added that he had a hectic schedule in the days ahead and would not be able to comment in the week ahead.

The spokesman for ex-president Asif Ali Zardari, PPP’s Senator Farhatullah Babar, who recently moved a bill in the Senate seeking a stronger right to information law in the country, criticised the interior minister for the ban imposed on officials of the ministry and attached departments.

Mr Babar said the directives were unlawful. “Under article 19-A of the constitution, inserted under 18th constitution amendment, the access to any information is a fundamental right and nobody can deny it. Any step of any ministry which disturbs this right is unconstitutional and illegal,” he said.

Mr Babar said his party would raise the matter in parliament.