ISLAMABAD - President Asif Ali Zardari Friday directed the government to hold judicial inquiry into the killing of two journalists in Lahore and Rawalpindi. Dawn TV reporter Tariq Malik was murdered in Lahore on March 22, while senior reporter of daily TheNation Raja Assad Hameed was shot dead in Rawalpindi on Thursday, March 26. President Zardari has strongly condemned the murder of Tariq Malik and Raja Assad Hameed and asked the authorities to take all necessary measures for the prompt arrest of assailants. Meanwhile, the slain journalist and senior reporter of daily TheNation and Waqt TV Raja Assad Hameed was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard on Friday amid touching scenes and tight security. His funeral prayer was offered at 02:30pm near his home at Dhok Kala Khan, Rawalpindi. People from all walks of life participated in the funeral prayer and paid tributes to Raja Assad. Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan, Chairman Baitul Maal Zamurad Khan, President PPP Rawalpindi Aamir Fida Pracha, PML-N MNAs Hanif Abbasi and Haji Pervaiz Khan, PML-N MPAs Raja Hanif Advocate, Malik Yasir Raza, Zia Ullah Shah and Sheheryar Riaz, District Nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas, District Naib Nazim Afzal Khokhar, PTI leader Zahid Kazmi, Tabarak Hussain Bari, Pirzada Rahat Masood Quddusi, journalists Mehmood Ahmed Hamdani, Umer Aziz, Nawaz Raza, Ansar Abbasi, Shakeel Turabi, lawyers' representatives Justice (Retd) Tariq Mehmood, President Rawalpindi District Bar Association Tofeeq Asif, President Lahore High Court Bar Association Shehzad Gheba, and thousands of others attended the funeral prayer. Late Raja Assad Hameed was a law graduate and he joined the field of journalism in June 1999 as a reporter in a news agency, Online. Later he moved to Din News for a short period of time, while he also worked with Frontier Post as a reporter. He joined daily TheNation in 2001 and his allegiance with the newspaper remained till his assassination, though he was offered the job of Bureau Chief in Doha Bureau by the Aljazeera International, he rejected the offer. Assad started his carrier as a crime reporter from the Rawalpindi bureau of daily TheNation but later he moved to the Islamabad and nowadays he was performing his duties as Supreme Court reporter. Scores of investigative stories were on his account including Shah Najaf case, and when every TV channel was airing that Benazir Bhutto escaped from the suicide attack in Liaquat Bagh, he first broke the news on Waqt TV that she was seriously injured. Meanwhile, CPO Rawalpindi Inayatullah Farooq has constituted two special teams under the supervision of SSP Investigation and SSP Operation, while First Information Report against unknown assailants have also been registered with the Sadiqabad Police Station. Assad has left behind a widow and a one-year-old daughter. He was married two and a half years ago.