Gunmen kill Pakistani journalist in northwestern district of Tank
Gunmen have shot dead a Pakistani journalist in the country’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, security sources say.
Rasool Shah, a senior local police official, said the attackers opened fire on Zaman Mehsud, 40, in the remote Tank district of the volatile region on Tuesday.
The official added that Mehsud was rushed to a nearby hospital with fatal injuries following the assault. However, he was pronounced dead upon arrival.
“Zaman Mehsud was riding his motorcycle when gunmen waiting along the road opened fire,” media outlets quoted Shah as saying.
The assailants managed to flee the scene before security forces arrived.
Zafrul Islam, another senior government official, said the journalist was hit by five bullets including one in the head.
Mehsud had been working for three Urdu-language newspapers covering the northwestern South Waziristan tribal region and the surrounding areas.
No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the latest killing, but pro-Taliban militant groups have been blamed for such attacks in the past.
In September, two Pakistani journalists, and Aftab Alam and Arshad Ali Jaffery, were killed by gunmen in the southern port city of Karachi. Another journalist was also shot and injured in the northwestern city of Peshawar in the same month.
Last year, one of Geo TV’s senior anchors, Hamid Mir, was shot and injured in Karachi. The attack sparked anger and protest in the violence-hit country. Mir’s family accused Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter–Services Intelligence (ISI), of being behind the attack.
In 2011, tortured corpse of Saleem Shahzad, a prominent Pakistani journalist who investigated links between the ISI and militant groups, was discovered near the capital, Islamabad.
According to a recent report by the United Nations, over 70 Pakistani media workers and journalists have lost their lives since 2001 while pursuing their duties.
The report ranked Pakistan as the world's fifth worst country in terms of the number of unresolved cases of violence against journalists.
Pakistani journalists have called for a tight insurance policy for journalists and compensation for those who die or are injured in line of duty.
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