SUKKUR: Armed men shot at and wounded a journalist and subjected his friend to severe beating in Rohri late on Wednesday night, police said.

Journalist Haider Mastoi, who works as a reporter for the Sindh News TV channel in Khairpur district, and his friend Khan Mohammad Pitafi, were passing through the Achhiyoon Qubbiyoon area on a motorcycle, when three armed motorcyclists forced them to stop and opened fire at the journalist.

Four bullets hit him in the right leg and arm, said the journalist’s friend who, with the help of area people, took the wounded first to the Sukkur Civil Hospital and then brought him to a private hospital.

The area police said that they cordoned off the area where the incident was reported to have taken place and went after the assailants. Rohri DSP Faraz Metlo visited the journalist in the hospital and recorded his statement.

Mastoi told his colleagues at the hospital that the attackers were not interested in robbing him or his friend. They just targeted him and fled away. They fired straight at him and hit his friend with the pistol’s butt before fleeing, he said.

On Thursday, the Sukkur Union of Journalists staged a protest against police’s failure to arrest assailants of journalist Mastoi and the killers of slain journalists Jan Mohammad Mahar and Nasrullah Gadani.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2024