The attempted target killing of a DawnNewsTV journalist was foiled following the arrest of the suspects by the police, confirmed the investigating officer (IO) of the case on Thursday.

Sub Inspector Nabeel Haider said that three suspects had been hired to kill journalist Tahir Naseer, based in Rawalpindi, for Rs200,000.

“They (the suspects) surveilled Naseer’s house for three days,” the IO said, adding that they had also received Rs99,000 in their bank account and that one of the suspects procured weapons.“

“Police arrested the three suspects and seized their vehicle and weapons from near Naseer’s house,” the IO added. “They were produced before the district magistrate, who rejected the request for physical remand and sent the suspects to jail on judicial remand instead.”

In a first information (FIR) report filed on Wednesday under Section 120B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), Naseer said that around 4pm, he received a phone call from his cousin saying that suspicious people were asking about him at a local baker.

“When I arrived at the tandoor, I saw a white car with three young men,” Naseer stated in the FIR. “My cousin told me that they had been asking about me and showing my picture. While they were asking around, they said their names were Ahmed, Akash and Vishal.”

The journalist stated in the FIR that the apparent reason for the attempt on his life was a vlog he published earlier about a private company and later also reported on DawnNewsTV on the same subject.

“I filed a case against them (company owners) under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and the PPC,” he stated. “They then began threatening me over WhatsApp through international numbers,” added the journalist.

Journ­alists and media professionals have faced a tightening landscape in 2025 for free expression, according to a report by the Pakistan Press Foundation.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has ranked Pakistan as one of the world’s deadliest countries for journalists owing to its high rate of impunity for the killers of journalists.

According to a report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), 87 journalists were killed in Pakistan between 2006 and 2023, with only two of those cases “resolved”.