TANK: Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have claimed responsibility of the killing of senior journalist Zaman Mehsud in Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
The tribal journalist and human rights activist Mohammad Zaman Mehsud was gunned down in an ambush in Tank on Tuesday.
Zaman, 38, was working for the Urdu newspaper Daily Umet and SANA news agency, and has also worked for the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
Taliban commander Qari Saif Ullah Saif told Reuters: “We killed him because he was writing against us, we have some other journalists on our hit list in the region, soon we will target them.”
The journalist's brother Muhammed Aslam wept as he collected the body. “He left five children and a widow,” Aslam said.
The shooting occurred near the northern town of Tank, said police officer Mir Salam. Zaman was killed with four bullets to the chest, doctors said.
“Our initial information is that Zaman was killed by a man who was riding on a bike near an army check post,” Salam said.
This brings to 71 the number of journalists and media workers killed in Pakistan since 2002.
At least 67 journalists and media workers were killed between January 2002 and 2014, according to press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.
Another four, including Zaman, have been killed this year. All but one were Pakistanis.
The killers have been convicted in only two cases — that of American Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and that of Geo reporter Wali Babar.
However, six witnesses, a lawyer and two policemen linked to Babar's case were murdered and three prosecutors had to flee the country.
Earlier, Police sources told DawnNews that Zaman was travelling from Gomal Bazar to Tank when his car came under attack on North Waziristan Road.
Read: ‘More journalists killed in Pakistan than any other democracy’
According to UN figures, over the past decade, 700 journalists have been killed the world over during the course of discharging their duties.
The 2014 report of the Committee to Protect journalists (CPJ) stated that 44 journalists were killed in Pakistan during the last one decade.
CPJ has also documented that an additional 12 journalists were killed in “unclear circumstances” during the same time. In terms of impunity the country ranks ninth in the 2014 impunity index issued by CPJ.