QUETTA: The Khuzdar Press Club has been closed after unidentified people issued threats to local reporters.

An official of the Khuzdar administration said on Monday that the club’s office-bearers had decided to close the facility after receiving threats over the past two weeks. He said journalists associated with different media groups had stopped working.

He said media personnel had started receiving threats after two members of the minority Hindu community disclosed at a press conference names of some people allegedly involved in kidnapping of the community members.

They were kidnapped in Khuzdar last month and released upon payment of ransom.

He said unidentified people called many reporters, some of them office-bearers of the press club, and warned them against publishing the names of those identified by the Hindu families.

The official said the press club would remain closed for 10 days.

This is the second time in the past two years that the Khuzdar Press Club has been closed because of threats to media personnel from unidentified groups.

A senior journalist told this correspondent from Khuzdar that the journalist community of the city was feeling insecure and that there was no other option but to close the press club.

At least 12 journalists, including a president and a general secretary of the Khuzdar Press Club, have been killed over the past six years.

Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation, two years ago declared Khuzdar as the most dangerous place on earth for journalists.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2014