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ShareISLAMABAD: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf personally apologised for a raid by riot police on a private television station on Friday, in a rare live telephone interview with the channel.
Footage showed police entering the office of Geo Television in Islamabad during violent protests over the sacking of the country's chief justice and breaking windows and smashing equipment.
"I would like to apologise, such an incident should not have happened. The culprits must be identified and punished today," Musharraf said.
Military ruler Musharrar said he would be "personally involved" in taking action following the incident, adding that he had already given orders for the station to be compensated.
"Safeguarding human rights is our mandate. I therefore strongly condemn this violation. This is such a big incident which should not have happened," he said.
Musharraf said it was possible the attack was part of a "conspiracy" against him, adding: "In my view this is a sabotage of the whole process. I would say it is a sabotage of whatever we stand for, whatever we are doing."
However, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao earlier blamed the incident on activists from an Islamic group, saying they grabbed a policeman and took him into the Geo building, leading police to give chase.
The incident came a day after Geo said Pakistani regulators had ordered it to stop airing its flagship daily news programme "Today with Kamran Khan" until further orders.
"The police damaged our infrastructure. This attack on the freedom of the press is unprecedented in the 60-year history of this country," Khan, who presents the programme, said after the police incident on Friday.
The offices of The News, an English language-daily, and the Urdu-language Jang, which are both part of the same media group as Geo, were also damaged, sources at the group said.
Another channel accused the government of fresh attempts to censor their coverage of the row over Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, whose sacking by Musharraf on March 16 sparked the protests.
"We have been told not to make Chaudhry a hero and to avoid undue coverage of lawyers' protests," said Talat Hussain, head of the news section of Aaj television said earlier on Friday.
The station had been threatened with removal from the airwaves or even losing its licence, he added.
Irfan Ahmed, a cable operator in the southern port city of Karachi, said he had been told to "cut off news channels which violate the instructions."
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders this week slammed Pakistan for allegedly suspending broadcasts by Geo and Aaj after they screened footage on Monday of clashes between police and lawyers.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists denounced the government's moves.
"We call on President Musharraf to live up to his stated commitment to freedom of the press and stop what appears to be retaliation against Geo TV for critical coverage," said Bob Dietz, the group's Asia programme coordinator.
