Khalil Afridi Jibran
Geneva/Landi Kotal: Pakistan lost its seventh scribe to assailants this year when fifty-five-year-old Khalil Afridi Jibran was gunned down by unidentified assailants in the night hours as he was returning home after daily work in Landi Kotal town on June 18, 2024.
Khalil, who died on the spot, was a television journalist for a privately owned Pashto-language news channel Khyber TV, which is considered quite influential in Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to local Pakistan media outlets, Khalil, a senior journalist, was a former president of Landi Kotal Press Club. He was also a popular civil society activist. Family friends claim that Khalil had been receiving threats from miscreants for some months.
While local journalists organised a protest demonstration before his burial, the Geneva-based global media safety and rights body, Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), today expressed shock over the relentless murder of journalists in Pakistan this year. Condemning the gunning down of Khalil (55), PEC demanded a high-level probe into his murder and the arrest of the culprits to punish them under the law.
“Khalil Afridi Jibran becomes the 55th journalist to be killed this year around the world. Unfortunately, Pakistan continues to lose journalists to perpetrators with impunity and thus emerges as among the most dangerous countries for media persons in the recent past. We extend moral support to the family members and colleagues in their fight for justice and urge Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur to do the needful,” Blaise Lempen, president of PEC, said in Geneva.
PEC’s South Asia representative Nava Thakuria mentioned that since January 1 this year, before Khalil, Pakistan witnessed the killing of journalists namely Nasrullah Gadani (from Sindh province), Kamran Dawar (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Mehar Ashfaq Siyal (Punjab), Maulana Mohammad Siddique Mengal (Balochistan), Jam Saghir Ahmad Lar (Punjab) and Tahira Nosheen Rana (Punjab).
– global bihari bureau
