KABUL, June 6: A leading female Afghan journalist was shot dead overnight, the interior ministry said on Wednesday, in the second such killing in a week — crimes that have raised alarm among media rights groups.

Zakia Zaki, owner and manager of private Peace Radio in a town 60km north of Kabul, was killed in her home on Tuesday night, the ministry said.

The attackers had not yet been identified, ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.

“Her family has not blamed anybody for the death of Zaki and police have started an intense investigation of the case,” he said.

Zakia Zaki, 35, was also a school headmistress and attended the 2003 meeting which drew up Afghanistan’s post-Taliban constitution.

She was critical of warlords, Afghan Independent Journalists Association president Rahimullah Samander told AFP.

London-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which expressed ‘deep shock’, said she had received several death threats after openly criticising warlords and the Taliban.

The killing came amid mounting anger over the murder in Kabul on May 31 of popular 22-year-old television news presenter Shakiba Sanga Amaj, who was also shot dead in her home.

Police have arrested a suspect for the killing of Amaj but the motive is still unclear. Some reports said her murder may have been related to her refusal to marry someone.

The murder of Amaj has drawn parallels with the unsolved killing in May 2005 of 24-year-old television presenter Shaima Rezayee, also shot dead in her home.-—AFP