PESHAWAR: Gunmen shot dead a senior journalist, also chief editor of a daily newspaper, in district Kohat yesterday, the second such murder this month in the tribal areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The local journalist, Hafeezur Rehman, was 42-year-old. Hafeez, hailing from Ghari Mawaz locality of Kohat city, was on his way home early in the morning, when allegedly armed motorcyclists opened fire on him. According to police, the incident took place in Bandha Chowk of Kalu Khan area where militants opened fire on Hafeez. Hafeez died on the spot while the assailants managed to flee. Police said he was hit by three bullets.
“Attackers riding a motorcycle fired on Hafeez near his home on the outskirts of Kohat. He was hit by three bullets and died on the spot," said Fazal Naeem, a police spokesman in Kohat. Hafeez had been working as a journalist for 12 years. The deceased was chief editor of Daily Asia, was serving with a private TV channel as reporter and also owner of a local cable network in the name of New Star.
Journalists in Kohat have strongly condemned Hafeez’ murder and demanded of the authorities to bring the culprits to book. They warned if action was not taken against the murderers they would be forced to take to streets and police would be responsible for any disturbance in law and order situation. It merits mentioning here that killing of Hafeez came weeks after in a similar attack, in which Zaman Mehsud, a tribal journalist, was killed by gunmen in Tank district.
The motive behind the latest attack was unclear. Hafeez had not previously reported any threats against him. But journalists in the region are often targeted by militants, mainly the Taliban. The militants have lately expressed unhappiness at the lack of coverage given to them by the media, following a boycott order by the country's powerful military establishment. The killing was the fifth attack on members of the media in the past three months. A TV news technician and journalist were killed in separate incidents in Karachi in September, while a journalist was shot and injured in Peshawar. More than 70 Pakistani journalists and other media workers have lost their lives since 2001 while pursuing their duties, according to a UN report. The report criticised a widespread culture of impunity and ranked Pakistan as the world's fifth worst country in terms of the number of unresolved cases of violence against journalists.
