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Basharat Peer in New Delhi.
Naseer M Shadeed, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel's India correspondent, is a sad man today.
Forced to leave India after eight years, encompassing his student life and the stint with Al-Jazeera, he is visibly distraught.
"I am feeling sorry about leaving India. I will leave as soon as I get my tickets. I have already started packing my stuff," Shadeed said.
A Jordanian national of Palestinian descent, Shaheed was furnishing his recently acquired flat in south Delhi, expecting his wife and kid to join him, when he was asked to leave.
"It (the house) is a mess now. I will be leaving this place anytime now," Shaheed said.
Shadeed was India correspondent for Al-Jazeera for the last seven months, before being asked by the government to leave the country for his 'anti-national and biased' reporting on Gujarat and Kashmir.
Shadid had extensively covered the Gujarat carnage, the Indo-Pak tensions and the assassination of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Abdul Gani Lone.
"He is a dedicated reporter and would take any risk for getting the right (sound) byte for his story. And he was working hard on getting a proper perspective on Indian politics too. Having studied in India, he had picked up Hindi as well," one of his journalist friends said.
Shadeed had graduated from Bangalore and acquired his diploma in journalism from Delhi's Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
But Shadeed is tightlipped about the government order asking him to leave. Ministry of External Affairs sources said that Al-Jazeera, which has two correspondents in India, is interested in continuing its operations here and has asked Shadeed not to comment on his ouster.
"They have instructed Shadeed not to utter a word that angers the government and create problems for their other correspondent here. Al-Jazeera has recalled him and he has been asked to choose between headquarters and another outstation posting," a source said.
It is learnt that the MEA has not served any official notice to Shadeed, but is directly in touch with the management of the channel.
"It was around a month back when the indications of trouble for Shadeed came. The Indian embassies in the Arab world had written adverse reports to the Ministry of External Affairs about his Gujarat riots coverage. It is happening because they took exception to his Gujarat coverage, and not his Kashmir reportage," the source said.
Although Al-Jazeera has collaboration with an Indian TV agency, Shadeed was not provided an accreditation card for seven months.
In a similar incident the government had deported Shadeed's predecessor a year back, only after a week's stay in India.
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