Nisar Lehri, senior journalist in Mastung locality of Pakistan’s Balochistan. File
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

GUWAHATI

A global media safety and rights body has mourned the killing of the tenth journalist in Pakistan in 2024.

Armed assailants gunned down the 50-year-old Nisar Lehri, a senior journalist in Mastung locality of Pakistan’s Balochistan and a member of the local press club, on September 4 for reasons not officially disclosed. Nine others were killed before him in the country this year.

“Pakistan has slowly turned into a graveyard of working journalists in South Asia,” the Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) said in a statement on Wednesday.

Expressing serious concern over the continued killing of media persons in Pakistan even though the country is not witnessing any war currently, PEC president Blaise Lempen demanded a fair probe into Lehri’s untimely death.

“For any reason, the perpetrators should not enjoy immunity and they must be booked under the law of the land,” he said.

The PEC’s Guwahati-based South Asia representative, Nava Thakuria said Lehri’s killing followed that of Muhammad Bachal Ghunio of Mirpur Mathelo locality in the Sindh province, on August 27.

The eight other Pakistani journalists killed since January 1 were Malik Hassan Zaib, Khalil Afridi Jibran, Nasrullah Gadani, Kamran Dawar, Mehar Ashfaq Siyal, Maulana Mohammad Siddique Mengal, Jam Saghir Ahmad Lar, and Tahira Nosheen Rana.

Mr. Thakuria said Bangladesh has followed Pakistan in the killing of journalists since the movement against reservation in government jobs led to the ouster of Sheikh Hasina as the Prime Minister. Five Bangladeshi journalists killed during and after the movement were Tahir Zaman Priyo, Hasan Mehedi, Shakil Hossain, Abu Taher Md Turab, and Pradip Kumar Bhowmik.