Asif Hassan—AFP
Police say unidentified gunmen targeted a Geo TV media van, killing one and injuring another.
Gunmen opened fire on a television news van on Tuesday in Karachi, killing one employee, police said, in the latest attack on media workers in the country.
The media van from the country’s largest private broadcaster Geo TV was attacked in the Bahadurabad neighborhood, where it was on assignment. “The technician has died and the driver is injured in the attack,” said police officer Irfan Asif.
An official from Geo TV confirmed the death of the technician, named as Arshad Ali Jaffery.
Senior police officer Javed Jiskani said the police were gathering evidence from the area where the attack took place and had launched investigation.
Journalist unions reacted immediately to the attack on the Geo TV staff, calling for greater security for media personnel and the speedy arrest of the attackers.
Geo TV, one of the largest media houses in Pakistan, is owned by the Jang Group, the country’s oldest media company. Last year, one of Geo’s leading anchors Hamid Mir was attacked in Karachi, surviving with multiple gunshot wounds, in an incident his family blamed on the military’s shadowy intelligence arm, the Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI).
In 2011, gunmen shot dead Karachi-based Geo news reporter Wali Khan Babar after he filed a report on criminal gangs warfare in the city.
Reporters without Borders, a media rights watchdog, says there has been a marked increase since 2014 in media freedom violations by government officials and various political factions in Pakistan.