Khalil Jibran, a senior journalist of Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was killed by unidentified gunmen near his residence in Landi Kotal town, police said Wednesday.
Jibran, a journalist for the private news channel Khyber News, was attacked by unidentified men on a motorcycle while he was driving to his residence with his friend Sajjad Advocate.
The gunmen attacked Jibran when his car developed a fault near his home. They dragged him out of his vehicle, and shot him dead.
‘Former Landi Kotal Press Club president Jibran died in a shootout, while Sajjad was injured. The attackers fled, and Jibran’s body was taken to a Landi Kotal hospital for a postmortem,’ Pakistan media confirmed.
The incident took place in the Mazreena area in the vicinity of Landi Kotal Police Station, he added.
Abbas claimed that Jibran had received threats from terrorists.
KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur ordered authorities concerned to immediately arrest the culprits behind the journalist’s killing.
KP Governor Faisal Karim Kundi also condemned Jibran’s murder.
The Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors strongly condemned the murder of the Khyber News’ reporter and demanded the KP chief minister and federal interior minister bring Jibran’s killers to justice.
In a statement, the association criticised the higher authorities’ failure to stop such incidents as journalists were continuously facing torture, abductions, and threats across the country.
Last month, another journalist from a Sindhi newspaper, Nasrullah Gadani, was targeted by unidentified motorcycle-riding assailants near Korai Goth, leaving him seriously wounded. He succumbed to his injuries three days later.
