Malik Zafar Iqbal Naich was delivering copies of the newspaper he works for last week when gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed the journalist.
Naich, a 45-year-old reporter and newsagent for the Daily Khabrain, became the 12th journalist killed in what has been a deadly year for Pakistan’s media industry.
Police are investigating the case in central-eastern Punjab province and have not yet identified a motive. However, the journalist’s employer suspected it could be related to his reporting.
“We demand that the Pakistani authorities ensure justice to the bereaved family,” Blaise Lempen, president of the Press Emblem Campaign, said in a statement.
The Geneva-based media safety and rights body says the killings in Pakistan come amid criticism over a lack of justice or impunity for journalists' murders.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, has also flagged a failure to ensure accountability. It said that Pakistani authorities should implement urgent measures to curb attacks on media.
“The surge in violence is closely linked to the political turmoil and security situation in the country, but more alarming is the Pakistan government turning a blind eye to the sharp rise in journalist killings,” Beh Lih Yi, the CPJ Asia program coordinator, told VOA.
“This failure to put an end to impunity is sending a chilling message to newsrooms across the country that such heinous acts are tolerated in Pakistan,” she said via email.
Alongside violence, journalists are at risk of arrest or threats for covering issues deemed critical or sensitive to authorities, including a crackdown on anti-government protesters.
Pakistan’s minister of information, Attaullah Tarar, told VOA he would respond to a request for comment but at the time of publication, no response had been received.
Tarar said in September that the government was working closely with provincial authorities to address challenges facing journalists.
‘Deep-rooted impunity’
The Islamabad-based Freedom Network, an advocate for press freedom, has determined that at least half of the journalists killed this year were targeted over their work.
“There is more than one factor contributing to the physical elimination of journalists,” said Iqbal Khattak, the executive director of the nonprofit network. He noted that no one has been held accountable for the killing of journalists to date.
“I think deep-rooted impunity for crimes against journalists and media organizations is encouraging press freedom predators to continue these attacks,” Khattak told VOA.
Amir Zia, a political talk show host, said that journalists face threats from multiple fronts, including state actors, political party supporters, religious and sectarian groups, and militants.
“In rural areas, particularly the southern province of Sindh, feudal lords — many affiliated with the provincial ruling party — remain responsible for the murder and torture of journalists,” Zia said.
The Sindh government denies the charges. Last month, it announced the establishment of a commission to protect journalists. The panel would provide legal assistance, arrange training and develop safety policies.
However, critics remain skeptical about the commission's effectiveness.
Most media freedom violations documented by the Freedom Network in 2024 were in Sindh, with Punjab and Islamabad the second- and third-most affected regions, respectively.
But Zia said that authorities alone are not responsible for the safety and security of the media.
“Pakistani media organizations hardly take the safety of journalists seriously. There is hardly any training, and an overwhelming number of media persons even lack proper safety gear for covering violence and terrorist incidents,” he said.
The CPJ has noted that various parties — from police to tribal chiefs — often pressure relatives, particularly those from rural areas, to abandon efforts to secure justice, with families in some cases paid in exchange for silence.
Legal threats
Watchdogs, too, have long criticized Pakistan for the poor media freedom environment, including laws that target media, arrests, accusations of torture and harassment.
Coverage of protests last month led to one journalist being detained briefly and another called in for questioning.
Harmeet Singh, a journalist from the country’s minority Sikh community, has been summoned to appear for questioning by the Federal Investigation Agency Cybercrime Center next week. The anchor for Such TV faces allegations of propagating a “misleading, concocted and baseless campaign against state institutions and security agencies of Pakistan.”
The case stems from Singh’s coverage of a Nov. 26 opposition protest march in Islamabad by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Pakistani security forces used tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition on protesters, according to local and foreign media.
The PTI reported the deaths of at least 12 people and said that many more are still unaccounted for. The government refuted any casualties resulting from gunfire, saying that security forces were not armed with “lethal” weapons.
“The targeting of Singh is part of a broader pattern of intimidation against journalists in Pakistan,” said CPJ’s Beh. She added that a second journalist — Matiullah Jan — was arrested on terrorism charges for his coverage of the same protest.
Hours before he was detained at a hospital last month, Jan had said on his TV show that security forces used firearms to disperse protesters. He cited data from hospital sources and accused the government of pressuring hospital staff not to reveal details to the media.
“Truth is always the first casualty of war,” Jan told VOA, saying he believes his arrest was meant to deter journalists from investigating the protest.
The reporter, who runs a YouTube channel with nearly 400,000 subscribers, added, “[Authorities] only care about some temporary arrangement to prevent journalists from completing their work, completing their job and bringing out facts, so that’s their ultimate success.”
The arrests and violence contribute to Pakistan’s low ranking for media freedom. The country ranks 152 out of 180 on the Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best media environment. And it has appeared every year on the CPJ Impunity Index that looks at countries where justice for killed journalists remains elusive.
In the latest index, published Oct. 30, Pakistan was ranked 12th for countries failing to hold killers in media cases to account.
