LAHORE, Oct 23: The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) has strongly condemned the murder of Shahid Soomro, a correspondent of Sindhi daily Kawish, at Kandhkot on Monday and harassment of newsmen in other parts of the country.

In a statement on Wednesday, PFUJ president I.H. Raashed said that the 26-year-old journalist was shot dead while resisting an attempt to kidnap him by five men in front of his house.

He said that a number of working journalists had been killed in interior Sindh by hired assassins during the past two years for exposing political leaders and anti-social elements.

The government had failed to take any action despite the fact that the people and the journalists organizations had been identifying the killers. “The police are reluctant to arrest the accused who are the men of the powerful people whom the deceased journalists had exposed.”

He said that unless the journalists had the protection of the police they were not in a position to perform their duties freely. Not only in interior parts of the country the journalists do not feel themselves safe in main cities and towns where they had been attacked by hired goondas of the anti-social elements.

Besides, the government’s intelligence agencies were also after the blood of journalists. He referred to a case where the agencies were harassing the relatives of senior journalist Shaheen Sehbai who had left the country to save his life.

“What is his crime and why the agencies are harassing his relatives,” he said.

He urged the government to stop the harassment and killing of journalists.