[This month, the chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed
Shaikh, was released on bail after he and more than a dozen others were
indicted on charges of selling fake degrees and other counts. Separately, in
August, Mr. Shaikh was indicted in a different case related to money
laundering.]
By
Salman Masood
 |
| Shoaib Shaikh, left, the chief executive of Axact, being led to court in Karachi, Pakistan, last year. Credit Fareed Khan/Associated Press |
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A high-profile
Pakistani news network, Bol TV, made its inaugural broadcast on Tuesday, more
than a year after its planned debut was derailed when its parent company was
embroiled in a scandal involving fake online degrees.
Bol TV Network’s parent company, the software
company Axact, was caught up in criminal investigations after The New York
Times unearthed employee accounts and documents showing that the company was
making tens of millions of dollars a year by selling fake degrees and diplomas
online and defrauding customers who were seeking education. Axact’s offices
were shuttered, and the company’s chief executive and other officials were
jailed during the investigation.
This month, the chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed
Shaikh, was released on bail after he and more than a dozen others were
indicted on charges of selling fake degrees and other counts. Separately, in
August, Mr. Shaikh was indicted in a different case related to money
laundering.
Despite his legal woes, Mr. Shaikh vowed to
proceed with plans for Bol to make its debut, and he has said he intends to
start a related newspaper early next year.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in the Axact case have
quit as the legal proceedings have dragged on, hinting that they were coming
under threat. The house of the former lead prosecutor, Zahid Jamil, was struck
by a grenade in September, months after he had left the case but was in talks
over whether to take it up again, according to Pakistani media reports. And a
top investigator for the Federal Investigation Agency complained of
intimidation and harassment related to the case, according to another media
report.
After a lull of 17 months, the once-deserted
headquarters of Bol TV Network, in Korangi, a suburb of the port city of
Karachi, is now abuzz with activity.
In the months before the Axact scandal left
hundreds of Bol’s employees out of work, the network made headlines by wooing
away top broadcasters and executives from rivals and offering pay far above the
usual industry rates. The network’s management said that Bol would
revolutionize the Pakistani local news media industry and offer an aggressively
patriotic point of view.
On Tuesday, Ali, a media worker associated
with Bol TV who asked to be identified by only his first name, said that
workers had started coming back over the past month and a half, and were again
being paid.
Members of the journalists’ trade union in
Karachi have maintained that the initial closing of Bol TV was a major setback
for media workers in Pakistan. For months, street demonstrations were organized
to protest the plight of Bol workers.
Shoaib Ahmed, who led a campaign against
broadcasting limits on Bol TV in the city, said, “From journalists to
cameramen, and technical and managerial staff, the announcement of Bol’s
shutdown was a thunder strike.”
Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting from
Karachi, Pakistan.
