Karachi: A senior Pakistani journalist on Wednesday was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside his house in Karachi, a day after an employee of a leading media house was killed in the city in the latest attack on media persons in the country.
42 year-old Aftab Alam, who had been associated with different channels including Geo News and Samaa TV, was reversing his car in the city’s North Sector C area after dropping his children at home when he was targeted by two gunmen on a motorbike.
Aftab who received multiple bullet wounds on his head, neck and chest, was rushed to Abbasi Shaheed hospital where doctors declared him dead.
“It appears to be a case of target killing,” a senior police official Munir Sheikh said.
It was the second incident in two days when the media persons were targeted by unidentified shooters on motorcycles.
On Tuesday night, a news van of Pakistan’s biggest media group, Geo Television Network came under fire by three unidentified gunmen in the Bahadurabad area in which a senior technical engineer was killed while the driver was injured.
The engineer, Arshad Ali Jaffri, died after being shot nine times in his upper body while driver Anis Chohan was injured and shifted to a private hospital.
The assailants fled the scene on motorcycles after opening fire.
Sindh Home Minister Sohail Anwar Khan Siyal has asked senior police officials to immediately arrest the suspects.
The two new incidents have revived bitter memories of last year’s incident in the North Nazimabad area when two employees of the Express media group were gunned down while they sitting inside their news van.
It wasn’t clear whether the two attacks were related or due to the fact those involved were journalists. However, Geo TV has previously been banned over a spat between it and the country’s powerful Inter-Service Intelligence spy agency.
One of Geo’s leading anchors Hamid Mir was also attacked last year in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi.