Peshawar journalist forced to earn seven hundred rupees per day

We used to sit facing each other at the same desk. Whenever I did not understand the term of any court news, I would refer to him. He was associated with the field of journalism for almost three decades but was suddenly fired without any reason two and a half years ago. Now the condition of his house is that it has reached the extremes. In order to feed the family of eight people, they are forced to do hard labor for seven hundred rupees per day.

This is the story of Shakirullah, a local journalist and court reporter from Peshawar, who adopted journalism as a profession in the 90s.

47-year-old Shakirullah was fond of journalism since childhood. He joined the profession of journalism at a time when print media was far away in Pakistan and in those days only a few local newspapers were published from Peshawar.

He started his career with an Urdu magazine and then worked as a reporter in various national and local newspapers.

Shakirullah was also associated with Peshawar’s largest and most famous newspaper Daily Mashreq as a court reporter for many years.

However, when his job was terminated, he was working with another local daily, Akhbar Khyber, of Peshawar.

Shakirullah told Independent Urdu that his wife’s condition was bad and he had taken her to the hospital when he was informed of the dismissal over the phone from the office.

‘I got a call from the office that I was fired from the institution, I said that I am in the hospital, my wife is sick, I got the answer that whatever, but now you are no longer employed.’

He said that for a year, he was constantly going around different offices to find a job, but there was no opportunity, so he started working.

“Earlier I used to work in straightening seria used in the construction of houses, because it was a good daily wage, I used to earn 1,200 rupees per day, but that work was very hard and the intense heat of Peshawar from above, because I was sick. So I had to leave that job.’

Shakirullah has been suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure for some time due to which he was under treatment in the hospital.

He said that due to his illness, he works as a day laborer three or four days a week, and friends sometimes help him to make ends meet.

He says that it is difficult to find daily work during the rainy season, while people have stopped construction due to Corona, which is another problem.

Shakirullah has seven children including six daughters and the youngest is a son.

His three elder daughters were studying in seventh and sixth standard but due to father’s lack of permanent employment, he was facing difficulties in paying the school fees, so all three have dropped out of school now.

According to Shakirullah, he has been in this field for the past 30 years and during that time he was unemployed many times, but after three or four days he used to get a job in another newspaper, but he never imagined such harsh conditions as today. Tomorrow the media and journalists are facing.

‘Sometimes I miss the office atmosphere when we used to sit and make news, even now I sit at home at night and write applications, sometimes write my memoirs, this is how I fulfill my passion for writing.’