Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has deplored an attack on Pakistani journalist Naveed Kamal, of Metro One TV, who is in a coma after two motorcyclists shot him in the jaw as he was going home from work in Karachi on April 20.
The attack was a shock and had put all journalists under pressure, said Pervaiz Shaukat, secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, giving the authorities 48 hours to find the culprits before the union called a nationwide protest. Sindh province information minister Sharjeel Memon has apologised to the Karachi Union of Journalists for the recent wave of attacks on journalists.
Kamal is the third journalist this year to be physically attacked in Karachi. Zaman Ibrahim, organised-crime reporter for Extra News, was murdered on April 2 and Wali Khan Babar, of Geo TV, on January 13. Abdullah Bhittani, of the Afghan news agency Benawa and the Pakistani news agency Independent News Pakistan, was wounded by gunmen on April 12 in Rawalpindi.
