ISLAMABAD: The Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Shah, has urged Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to order payment of compensation to families of journalists killed in incidents of targeted killing in Balochistan.

In a letter to the prime minister, Mr Shah said he recently visited Quetta and met a delegation of journalists who apprised him of the problems confronting media personnel in Balochistan.

He said journalists in the province were discharging their duties in a very risky environment.

“The families of the deceased journalists deserve to be helped out because they were working in a dangerous atmosphere and services rendered by them need to be acknowledged,” he said.

The opposition leader has attached to his letter a list of journalists killed in Balochistan in the recent past.

Talking to Dawn, a senior Quetta-based journalist, who led the delegation which met Mr Shah, said more than 40 journalists had lost their lives in different incidents of targeted killing and bomb blasts in Balochistan since 2009.

“But neither the killers have been arrested nor the families of the slain journalists been paid compensation,” he remarked.

In the latest incident of targeted killing, two senior journalists and their office assistant were shot dead by assailants in their office on Aug 28, he said.

“Since then journalists have been holding protests and rallies in Quetta but the federal and the provincial governments are not paying any attention to our problems.”

The federal government’s lack of concern about the targeted killings was in line with its policy on the province and its people who were being treated shabbily by the centre, he said.

He thanked Mr Shah for pleading the case of the journalists with the prime minister.

Earlier, some PPP legislators submitted a call attention notice to the National Assembly’s Secretariat about massive migration of people belonging to minority communities from Balochistan. According to the notice, more than 300,000 people, including members of the Hazara and Hindu communities and settlers from other provinces, have left the province.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2014