Politically disturbed, financially ruined and socially disintegrated, Pakistan continues to witness the assassination of journalists with usual immunity from the government and concerned authorities. The south Asian nation lost one more journalist on 24 May as injured Sindhi journalist Nasrullah Gadani died in a Karachi-based hospital.
Nasrullah (40) was attacked by gunmen in the Mirpur Mathelo locality under the Ghotki district of Sindh province on 21 May and he was rushed to a nearby hospital. Later Nasrullah was shifted to a Karachi-based hospital but succumbed to injuries.
Associated with the Sindhi daily newspaper ‘Awami Aghaz’, brave journalist Nasrullah used to report on public interest issues and often criticized the political leaders for their collective failure in Sindh. Mirpur Mathelo Press Club led a protest program demanding justice for the victim. Rural Media Network Pakistan urged the Sindh government to investigate the murder and punish the criminals. Protest demonstrations were also seen in Hyderabad, Thatta, Sujawal, Sukkur, Larkana, etc.
On 21 May itself, unidentified gunmen hit Kamran Dawar, a digital journalist based in the Miramshah locality of North Waziristan under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Kamran (35) faced the bullets in his native Tappi village and the father of two minor daughters succumbed to injuries at a nearby hospital. Kamran was active on social media and regularly reported on pertinent social issues of his locality through his YouTube channel and Facebook news channel. Three months back, Kamran received threatening calls from unidentified personnel and he even shared it with journalist friends.
Prior to Nasrullah and Kamran, Pakistan lost Mehar Ashfaq Siyal, Maulana Mohammad Siddique Mengal, Jam Saghir Ahmed Lar, and Tahira Nosheen Rana to assailants this year. Expressing utter dismay over the relentless murder of journalists in Pakistan, the Geneva-based global media safety and rights body Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) urged the federal government in Islamabad to take serious note of the development and book all the culprits under the law. Blaise Lempen, president of PEC, demanded a fair probe into all these journo-killings and extended moral support to the local media bodies in their fight for justice to the victims.
PEC’s South and Southeast Asia representative Nava Thakuria revealed that since 1 January this year, Myanmar lost one scribe named Ko Myat Thu Tun to military atrocities. India witnessed the murder of television journalist Ashutosh Shrivastava, who worked for the nationalist channel Sudarshan News and was shot dead in the Jaunpur locality of Uttar Pradesh. Soon after the incident, the police arrested notorious cow smuggler Jamiruddin Qureshi from Mumbai in connection with the murder. Jamiruddin even escaped the police custody while he was taken to UP by a train. Later, however, the police re-arrested him from the Bhiwandi area of Maharashtra again.
