Protests over reporter's killing in Balochistan

Abdul Haq Baluch was shot late Saturday while driving home in the town of Khuzdar.

QUETTA: Journalists across Pakistan staged protest rallies Tuesday to condemn the killing of a television reporter in Balochistan.

Police said Abdul Haq Baluch, 37, who worked for private TV channel ARY, was shot late Saturday while driving home in the town of Khuzdar.

Journalists said masked men opened fire on his car around 100 yards from the local press club. Police officer Abdul Qadir Kamrani confirmed the killing and told AFP that Baluch died of his injuries en route to hospital.

Police have registered a case against "unidentified gunmen".

Farooq Faisal, president of the national press club, said journalists were protesting against extremely difficult working conditions in Balochistan and northwest Pakistan.

"Armed groups are threatening journalists but the government is taking no step for their protection," Faisal told AFP.

Nadeem Gorgnari, president of the Khuzdar press club, told AFP that Baluch and the club had received threatening telephone calls.

According to press watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Pakistan was the deadliest country for the media in 2011 with at least eight journalists killed in connection with their work.

A driver also working for ARY television was shot dead last month when a mob protesting against a US-made film deemed insulting to Islam set alight and ransacked a cinema in the northwestern city of Peshawar.