Ashrafuddin Pirzada
PESHAWAR: The leading Pakistani media group and Jang Geo Television reporter and a cameraman were injured in a shootout by unidentified men on Rawalpindi Road in Kohar on Saturday, sources said.
The sources said that Geo News reporter Syed Yasir Shah, who is a senior journalist, and his cameraman accompanying him were on their way back from Attock after covering the Makhad Sharif Urs when two masked motorcyclists shot at them on the way back to the office.
Yasar Shah said that they were injured as a result of falling off their motorcycle due to firing. The assailants also tried to chase them after the attack but fled later, he added. The attackers chased them but failed to shoot them dead, he said.
Both the injured were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital in Kohat.
Fortunately, both of them remained safe from gunshots.
Shah has been working since 2007 with Geo News television channel. He had been receiving threats for a long time.
This is the second time the Kohat correspondent has been attacked this year.
A group of unidentified assailants detonated explosives and shot at Shah’s residence in Kohat on March 21.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) released its White Paper on Global Journalism in 2020, ranking Pakistan as the fifth worst country for journalists, with at least 138 journalists murdered since 1990 and 42 killed in the last four years.
As per Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Pakistan is one of the world’s deadliest countries for journalists, with three to four murders each year that are often linked to cases of corruption or illegal trafficking and which go completely unpunished.
The organisation last year ranked Pakistan 150 out of 180 countries on its press freedom list.
It may be added here that journalists, social activists and human rights defenders are under serious threats in Pakistan especially in Erstwhile Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A number of journalists have been threatened l harassed and warned in Pakistan to keep them under pressure and not report facts and ground realities
