Agencies
NEW DELHI: The New York-based advocacy group Committee to Proect Journalists has urged Pakistan to arrest to the killers of Hindu journalist Ajay Lalwani who was shot dead in a barber shop in Sukkur in Sindh province on March 18.
Lalwani, who worked for the Urdu language Daily Puchano, had written against Muslim clerics and atrocities on his minority Hindu community.
Lalwani was sitting in a barber shop in the Salehpat area of Sukkur when two motorcycles and a car with four passengers opened fire on him, hitting him in the stomach, arm, and knee. He was taken to Civil Hospital in Sukkur where he succumbed to his injuries.
Demanding the arrest of the killers, Steven Butler of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said, “Police in Sindh province must waste no time investigating the killing of journalist Ajay Lalwani and apprehending those responsible.”
Ifran Ali Samo, Sukkur’s senior superintendent of police, said a team has been formed to investigate the killing.
According to Ashiq Jatoi, editor of the Daily Puchano, Lalwani faced threats in the past also and cast doubt on the impartiality of the investigative team, citing a history of tension between the local police and journalists.
