ISLAMABAD, Oct 31: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has expressed concern over the “closure” of the murder inquiry of senior journalist, Mohammad Ismail Malik, who was killed on Nov 1, 2006 by unidentified assailants, in Islamabad, and demanded the arrest of the killers.

Malik’s death anniversary is being observed on Thursday (today).

PFUJ, in a statement, paid tribute to Malik’s services in the field of journalism and said while the government made tall claims of resolving high-profile cases, but it appeared that the murders of journalists did not fall in that “category.” That was perhaps was why none of the 21 murder cases of journalists, killed from October 1999 till October 2007, had been solved, it added.

Malik was killed in a brutal manner and his body was found near his house a few hours after he went for a walk after dinner. “It may have been a close(d) case for the government, but for the journalist community it is still an open case,” the statement said.

PFUJ appealed to media organisations, for which Malik and other murdered journalists used to work, to investigate the cases of their murdered employees and expose the failure of the authorities in their newspapers and television channels.

It was ironic that in February 2007, the government had given its commitment before a high-profile media delegation of the International Media Watchdog, comprising president of the International Federation of Journalists, president of the National Union of Journalists, UK, convener of the Free Media Movement, Sri Lanka and representative of the Paris-based RSF (Reporters Sans Frontieres/ Reporters Without Borders), but there has been no breakthrough in even a single murder case of any journalist.—Online

demo today: The Rawalpindi-Islamabad Union of Journalists would stage a protest demonstration against the capital administration, for not being able to arrest the killers of a senior journalist, outside the Press Club camp office at Melody on Thursday.