In solidarity: TV reporter in critical condition after shooting

Journalists give govt 48 hours to catch the attackers.

KARACHI:

Journalists all over the city came together to protest the attack on a TV news reporter and gave the government a two-day deadline to arrest the culprits.

Twenty-six-year-old Naveed Kamal was attacked by unidentified men on Tuesday night at Abul Hasan Isphahani road. He was shot in the neck and is in the Intensive Care Unit at the Aga Khan Hospital.

Kamal is a news reporter with Metro One TV channel.

According to journalist Abdul Hameed Chhapra, this is the third attack on journalists this year. “They are trying to deter us but no one can stop us from writing and speaking the truth,” he vowed. Chhapra demanded media organisation owners to provide journalists bulletproof jackets. The Karachi Union of Journalists also condemned the incident and called it “an attack on the journalist community”.

Karachi Union of Journalists Berna General Secretary Hassan Abbas said people would protest for a while and then go back home and forget all about the incident, which is what happened with reporter Wali Khan Babar’s murder. The TV journalist was killed in January but no progress has been made in the investigation, claimed Abbas. He added that the solution to their problems is unity.

Addressing the rally, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said he has talked to the police about the incident and that “we are sorry for this”. He said that a new trend has started in the city and journalists are attacked to shut them up.

Memon promised that the government would devise a strategy for the journalists’ security. “We will need your support and suggestions for this because although it is impossible to give individual security to every journalist, we can make a general framework.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2011.