KHUZDAR: A journalist was gunned down in Kalat on Thursday.

Mohammad Jan Shahbaz Samalani was on his way to a bazaar from his house when he was targeted by armed motorcyclists.

“The attackers opened fired on Mr Samalani, leaving him seriously wounded,” Kalat District Police Officer Lal Jan Baloch said, adding that police shifted the wounded reporter to a hospital where he died.

Mr Samalani, who worked as a reporter for a Quetta-based daily newspaper, also taught at a government school in Kalat.

His body was handed over to the family after medico-legal formalities.

The cause of the killing has not yet been ascertained, but a probe is under way.

Balochistan Union of Journalists and Quetta Press Club office-bearers condemned the journalist’s killing and asked the government to arrest the culprits without any delay.

Over 40 journalists, including TV cameramen, have lost their lives in different areas of Balochistan in targeted killing and suicide bombings over the past 10 years.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2017