Bakhshish Elahi murder: Was slain journalist blackmailing PTI councillor?

Police official claims to have collected concrete evidence, bail hearing of suspects on July 31

HARIPUR: Police on Tuesday said that the suspects arrested in the murder of journalist Bakhshish Elahi have suggested that he was blackmailing them.

On June 11, senior journalist Elahi was assassinated near Lora Chowk in Haripur as he was heading to work. A little over a month later, police arrested two people, a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) local councillor on reserved seat Hina Akhtar and a local journalist Hanif Akhtar, for allegedly ordering the hit on Elahi.



Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, District Police Officer Shahzad Nadeem Bukhari said that they had arrested the two suspects on the basis of solid evidence.

Detailing the investigation process, DPO Bukhari said that they had spoken to 15 journalist friends and 10 Facebook friends of the slain journalist apart from interviewing 15 people after reviewing Elahi’s mobile phone data. Further, a number of notorious criminals and some prominent personalities were also questioned during the investigations.

He assured that they would soon arrest the target killers who had pulled the trigger on Elahi.

The police official said that during investigations, Hina had claimed that Elahi was blackmailing her, which is why she sought Hanif’s help to kill the journalist.



DPO Bukhari rejected as propaganda reports that some influential and political parties were pressuring the police over investigations.

Responding to a question, the police official said that they had arrested the suspects after conducting thorough investigations and in this regard had also questioned PTI’s District Nazim Adil Islam.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 26^th, 2017.