Peshawar: A senior Pakistani journalist has been killed by unidentified gunmen near his residence in the country's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said on Wednesday.
Khalil Jibran, associated with private news channel Khyber News, was targeted by the miscreants on a motorcycle when he was heading towards his residence with his friend in Landi Kotal town of Khyber district on Tuesday, a police official said.
The official said the journalist’s car developed a fault near his home when the gunmen surrounded him, dragged him out of his vehicle and opened fire at him.
Jibran, who was also former president of the Landi Kotal Press Club, died on the spot and his lawyer friend was injured in the attack, the official said.
The culprits fled from the scene.
The official said Jibran had also received threats from terrorists.
Meanwhile, the slain journalist was buried in his native village Sultan Khel after fellow journalists demonstrated a protest at the Khyber-Pak-Afghan highway where Jibran's body was also kept.
The protestors demanded the journalist's killer be arrested immediately.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has ordered authorities to immediately arrest the culprits behind the journalist’s killing.
The Association of Electronic Media Editors and News Directors (AEMEND) strongly condemned the murder and asked the government to bring Jibran's killers to justice.
In a statement, the association criticised the higher authorities' failures to stop such incidents as journalists were continuously facing torture, abductions and threats across the country.
Last month, another journalist from a Sindhi newspaper, Nasrullah Gadani, was targeted by unidentified motorcycle-riding assailants near Korai Goth, leaving him seriously injured. He later succumbed to his wounds.