Afghani radio reporter Aaqel Mohammed Waqar was gunned down in an attack that his editor believes was politically motivated and may have been carried out by the Taliban.
This statement was originally published on afjc.af on 17 January 2015.
The Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) condemns the killing of reporter Aaqel Mohammad Waqar, of the local private radio station Spinghar, in Eastern Nangarhar province on Friday 16 January 2015.
Spinghar Radio editor-in-chief Shir Bahadur Hemat told AFJC that Waqar was attending a wedding party in Hajian village of Batikot district, when unknown armed men stormed the event; he was shot to death and his cousin was wounded in the attack.
Spinghar Radio Station is located on the Jalalabad-Torkham highway in Rodat district.
“Waqar did not have personal enmity with anyone and I believe it is a politically motivated attack and the Taliban was likely behind it,” Hemmat added.
The 20-year-old reporter had worked as the presenter of People and the official, a political and social radio program from January 2013 to October 2014 and then as a reporter for more than three months.
AFJC asks the Afghan government to seriously pursue the case and bring his killers to justice.
Waqar becomes the first journalist killed in Afghanistan in 2015.
48 journalists have lost their lives over the last two decades in Afghanistan. Thirty of them, including Waqar, have been directly targeted and murdered mostly while performing their professional duties, whereas 18 others lost their lives in explosions or in armed conflicts.
