No group has so far claimed responsibility for an attack on a journalist in Kalat city, Afghanistan. However, local journalists had received warnings from Taliban militants.
This statement was originally published on afjc.af on 12 November 2016.
A journalist was critically wounded after he was brutally attacked by unknown assailants in Kalat city, capital of southern Zabul province.
Ahmad Wali Sarhadi, provincial representative of the Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC), said the incident took place late on Friday afternoon, 11 November 2016, in the Sink area of Kalat city.
According to Sarhadi, journalist Sebghatullah Ghayel was on his way home from his office when he was stabbed in the back and the right hand by unknown men, suffering serious injuries.
Sarhadi further added that Ghayel had been admitted to hospital for treatment.
Ghayel is a reporter for the local Shaikh Mati radio station and the ZabulTimes news website.
Homayoun Gulzar, police chief for the first district of Kalat city, said that one of the perpetrators was arrested by police but the other two managed to escape.
But he provided assurances that the police is investigating the incident and will bring the other perpetrators to justice as soon as possible.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. However, local journalists had previously received warnings from Taliban militants.
The Afghanistan Journalists Center condemns this attack in the strongest terms and calls on the local government officials to take immediate actions to identify and detain all those involved in the incident.
Last month, a young journalist working for the state-run Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) was murdered by unidentified men in the same city.
Earlier this month, a journalist working for the private television station Ariana News was killed by a roadside bomb in the capital of the southern province of Helmand.
65 journalists and media workers have been killed in Afghanistan since the falling of the Taliban regime in 2001. Twelve have been killed so far in 2016, making this year the deadliest one for the media community in Afghanistan.
