Another journalist shot dead in Pakistan’s restive northwest within a month

PESHAWAR: Unidentified gunmen on Sunday shot dead a Pakistani journalist in the country’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, police said.
Hassan Zeb, who was affiliated with a local newspaper, was gunned down in Akbarpura Bazaar of KP’s Nowshera district, according to police.
This is the second such killing in the province, which borders Afghanistan and has been the scene of a number of militant attacks, in less than a month.
On June 19, unidentified assailants had shot dead Khalil Jibran, a former president of the Landi Kotal Press Club, in KP’s Khyber tribal district, according to police.
“Two unidentified bike riders opened fire on the journalist, leaving him dead on the spot,” Hameed khan, a police officer at the Akbarpura police station, told Arab News. “Initial investigation suggests that the slain journalist had no personal enmity.”
No group claimed responsibility for the killing.
In a statement, KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur extended his sympathies to Zeb’s family and directed police do the needful for the arrest of the perpetrators.
Pakistan witnessed a spike in militant violence in its two western provinces, KP and Balochistan, since the Pakistani Taliban called off their fragile truce with the government in November 2022. The group has intensified its attacks in recent months.
Earlier this week, an army captain and two militants were killed in separate gunfights in North and South Waziristan districts of the KP province, the Pakistani military said.
Islamabad has blamed the surge in violence on militants operating out of neighboring Afghanistan. Kabul denies the allegation and says rising violence in Pakistan is a domestic issue of Islamabad.