Pakistan PM, president condemn journalist’s murder ‘after terror threats’

Three days after Pakistani journalist Khalil Jibran was killed near his home in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Landi Kotal town, local journalists are reportedly set to organise another protest to seek action against his killers. 

Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari, prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, as well as opposition figures such as Bilawal Bhutto Zardari earlier condemned the incident. The president said every effort must be made to arrest the accused.

Jibran, the former president of the Landi Kotal Press Club and senior journalist with Pashto-language TV channel Khyber News, was shot dead by unidentified assailants on the night of June 18, when he was returning from an event. He was known for covering issues linked to the insurgency in the region and had received several threats from armed groups.

Meanwhile, Freedom Network, an Islamabad-based media watchdog, shared a letter on X to say the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had claimed responsibility for the murder and said eight more journalists were on its list of targets. It, however, added that the claim could not be independently verified.

Reports said the journalist was shot 19 times and died on the spot. His body was retrieved from the site after a couple of hours, and an FIR was lodged under the Anti-Terrorism Act at the Landi Kotal police station.   

Following the murder, journalists held massive protests in the region and blocked the Pak-Afghan highway. They also demanded that the area be cleared of armed groups.

Dawn reported that local journalists have announced another protest demonstration at Bab-i-Khyber in Jamrud on Friday afternoon.

Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists has reportedly condemned the murder and demanded protection for media persons. They said Jibran was facing threats from terrorists. “This shows that the government is not interested in providing protection to those who are on the hit list of terrorists,” Dawn quoted them as saying.

About a month ago, another Pakistan reporter, Kamran Dawar, was gunned down by unidentified persons outside his home in a village near the Afghan border. A week ago, the country’s prominent journalist Imran Riaz Khan, a vocal critic of the military, was arrested for alleged fraud for the second time this year.

Pakistan is ranked 159 out of 180 countries in the press freedom index.

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