Professionals, artists and others associated with Radio Pakistan are thankful to you for paying a visit to Peshawar on 25 May after miscreants burnt the historic building of the state broadcaster to ashes along with invaluable archives. Your anguish over this irreparable loss and remarks, “Nations protect their identity with their lives so that the coming generations can benefit from it. But here the archives were burned down”, were widely appreciated. You announced two months’ salaries for Radio Pakistan employees when your attention was drawn to their financial miseries. Since no pensioner was present at the ceremony, your attention could not be drawn to their plight due to non-payment of pensions for the past two months and commutation for over past three years. When the elderly and ailing pensioners got news of the release of funds by the Ministry of Finance, scores of them reached PBC Headquarters and requested the management to pay their pension as well, because they were equally, rather more equally, deserve payment.
However, the PBC management told them that Prime Minister announced payment of only salaries, therefore, pensions cannot be paid. It is an irony that pensioners of Radio Pakistan have been discriminated against in payment of salaries and pensions (two sides of the same coin), perhaps for the first time in its 75-year history. The pensioners, many of them on wheelchairs, have been protesting in different cities ever since. The role of these senior citizens has been tremendous in making Radio Pakistan a prestigious organization, building the narrative of the state, forging harmony and unity at national level and countering hostile propaganda. These pensioners request you to intervene and order payment of pension and commutation to them as you did in the case of the payment of salaries.
—Pensioners of Radio Pakistan
