Malik Hassan Zaib
Peshawar/Geneva: Pakistan, now facing a serious internal economic and socio-political crisis, lost one more scribe on Sunday, July 14, 2024, counting its journo-casualties this year to eight to date.
Local media reported that Malik Hassan Zaib, who was associated with the Peshawar-based Urdu daily newspaper Aaj, was shot dead in the Nowshera locality of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province by the miscreants, as he was moving in his car.
Hassan Zaib (40) was a member of the Peshawar Press Club and his fellow journalists organized a protest demonstration today, demanding justice for the victim. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur also condemned the assassination and directed the police forces to nab the culprits.
Rural Media Network Pakistan and Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists also condemned the killing and demanded the arrest of the killers. They urged the government to pay adequate compensation to the bereaved family.
Expressing dismay over the relentless killing of journalists in Pakistan, the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), a global media safety and rights organization, today urged the highest government authority in Islamabad to investigate all relevant cases to unearth the truth and punish the culprits involved with the murder of scribes in the south Asian nation.
“Malik Hassan Zaib becomes the 71st journalist to be murdered since 1 January across the globe. We extend our moral support to the agitating Pakistani media bodies for justice for the victim. Both the federal and provincial governments must take serious notes of the murder and book the perpetrators to punish under the law,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC, adding that the culture of immunity to the murders must be demolished in Pakistan as early as possible.
PEC’s South and Southeast Asia representative Nava Thakuria revealed that before Hassan Zaib, seven journalists namely Khalil Afridi Jibran, Nasrullah Gadani, Kamran Dawar, Mehar Ashfaq Siyal, Maulana Mohammad Siddique Mengal, Jam Saghir Ahmad Lar and Tahira Nosheen Rana to assailants this year. While India witnessed the killing of television journalist Ashutosh Shrivastava in Uttar Pradesh on May 13, 2024, Myanmar lost one scribe (Ko Myat Thu Tun) to military atrocities during this period.
– global bihari bureau
