The Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) has strongly condemned premeditated serial killing of journalists in the country and demanded of the government to arrest the killers without getting itself involved into rhetoric.
In a joint statement issued on Thursday, CPNE President Fasih Iqbal and Secretary General Wamiq Zuberi said that the government has failed to protect its citizens exposed to acts of terrorism and lawlessness in the country claiming lives of the unprotected innocent civilians and members of such organisations that serve the media.
Taking serious notice of the recent killings in which Malik Mohammed Ismail Khan, PPI bureau chief, Islamabad, and Maqbool Hussain Sayal, correspondent, Online News Network in Dera Ismail Khan have lost their lives while performing their professional duties, they expressed their deepest condolences to the bereaved families.
They said the killing of journalists has a definite pattern and it creates doubts in the minds of the people that these killings are not just accidents but seem to be pre-planned, properly supported by the vested interest groups and adequately protected acts either to suit political parties or the religious hard-liners unhappy with the free press. Cases of harassment of journalists at the hands of these elements are in addition to these blind murders, they added.
The CPNE office holders said it is time to investigate these brutal acts of killing and harassment and bring to an end tactics to deal with the free press, and with people who have different opinions on political and religious issues than the vested interest groups wish them to follow.