HARIPUR: A journalist was shot dead in a commercial area of Haripur on Sunday morning. Sources said that Bakhsheesh Elahi, the bureau chief of Urdu-language daily K-2, was going to his office from his house on Lora Road when men on a motorcycle opened fire on him and sped away.

They said Mr Elahi received bullets in his head, neck and chest.

Members of the journalist community in Haripur district blocked roads in protest. Later they gathered at the press club where they condemned the murder. They called upon the local administration to arrest the killers of Mr Elahi and register a case under Section 78 of the Anti-Terrorism Act against the killers.

Police have registered an FIR on the complaint of Mr Zulfiqar, Mr Elahi’s brother, against unidentified attackers.

Mr Elahi, a father of four, had joined daily K-2 a month ago. Earlier, he had worked for daily Aaj’s Haripur bureau as a reporter for seven years.

Haripur Press Club president Zakir Tanoli told Dawn that Mr Elahi had no enmity with anyone. “His brutal killing is the result of his objective reporting of happenings in the district,” he added.

Journalists all over the Hazara division and the rest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa condemned the murder and urged the provincial government to arrest elements behind it.

Afzal Butt and Ayub Jan, the president and the secretary general of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), condemned the murder of Mr Elahi and called upon the KP government to arrest his killers. They said the PFUJ would send its own fact-finding team to Haripur.

Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2017