Journalist gunned down near DI Khan

Amanullah Gharoka was chairman of Paroa Press Club

DI KHAN: A journalist was shot dead in Paroa, a small town near Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday.

Police said unidentified assailants opened fire on Amanullah Gharoka, a journalist associated with a local news agency, when he was travelling to Lunda, a village of Paroa tehsil.

While he died on the spot, the attackers fled the scene unchallenged.

The body of the deceased journalist, who was chairman of the Paroa Press Club, was handed over to the family after autopsy at tehsil headquarter hospital.

As per doctors, Gharoka sustained four bullets in the face and shoulder.

In the FIR lodged with police's counter-terrorism department, his father stated that the family did not have enmity with anyone.

The DI Khan Press Club, meanwhile, condemned the killing, and deplored the failure of law enforcement agencies in combating the increase in target killings across the district.

The local journalist fraternity called for the provincial government to take notice of the lawlessness in the area, and arrest of the culprits at the earliest.

The area has witnessed a rise in target killings and attacks on LEAs in the recent past.