(RSF/IFEX) – In a 4 May 2000 letter to Home Affairs Minister Moin-ud-Din Haider, RSF expressed its indignation over the murder of Soofi Muhammad Khan, a journalist with the daily “Ummat”. RSF asked the minister to conduct “a serious and thorough investigation into the reasons for the murder and to punish with jail sentences the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 4 May 2000 letter to Home Affairs Minister Moin-ud-Din Haider, RSF expressed its indignation over the murder of Soofi Muhammad Khan, a journalist with the daily “Ummat”. RSF asked the minister to conduct “a serious and thorough investigation into the reasons for the murder and to punish with jail sentences the killers and their sleeping partners”. According to Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, the murder of the journalist, the day before World Press Freedom Day, came as a reminder of “the threats facing Pakistani journalists reporting on mafia activities.”
According to the information collected by RSF, Khan, a journalist with the Sindh-language daily “Ummat” (Nation), published in Badin district (Sindh province, south of the country), was shot dead on 2 May. Police officers claimed to have arrested the three murderers, including Ayyaz Khattak, a known drug dealer. The journalist, who was 38 years old, had been reporting on the illegal activities of a local mafia involved in heroin trafficking, and had recently been threatened by the gang. Rafiq Afghan, editor of the daily, remembered Khan as a “brave journalist” who “never compromised his principles to expose those associated with the deadly business of narcotics.”
