An international media-rights watchdog is calling for an independent investigation into the killing of a Pakistani amateur video reporter who drew attention to hunting trips for Arab dignitaries from the Persian Gulf, RFE/RL reported.
The body of Nazim Sajawal Jokhiyo was found near Karachi on November 3, hours after he said in a video posted online that he was being threatened over a previous video he shot that showed poachers organising a hunting party for “foreign guests”, the report said.
Police said they arrested two men suspected of beating Jokhiyo to death, but Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on November 5 that officials must go further and also go after those who gave the orders for the killing.
Pakistan is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
RSF said Jokhiyo went to Jangshahi to cover the arrival of several foreign hunters who had been invited by a member of the Sindh province Assembly to hunt the Asian houbara bustard, a threatened bird species, the report said.
Hunting this animal is banned in Pakistan, except for wealthy dignitaries from the Persian Gulf monarchies, according to the Paris-based group.
Jokhiyo’s video ends when a man is seen approaching the camera and threatening him as he grabs at the device, the report added.
Following several threats, the provincial lawmaker of the Pakistan People’s Party, Jam Owais Gohram Jokhiyo, invited the amateur video reporter to his country house to “patch up” the dispute, according to RSF, the report said.
It said the reporter went there on November 2, the last time witnesses saw him alive.
“The brutality with which Nazim Jokhiyo was eliminated is all the more shocking because his murder was premeditated by a parliamentarian who is well-known in the region,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk.
“We call on Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to order an independent investigation to identify the perpetrators and instigators of the murder of Nazim Jokhiyo, who paid with his life for trying to inform his fellow citizens about a local despot’s abuses,” Bastard added, as per the report.
(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)
Law & order is a dire problem in Pakistan. MPs & Ministers there wield enough power and dominance by virtue of which they frequently gag the freedom of press , violate human rights and flout the laid down laws of the country. The gory death of young free lancer, Nazim Sajawal Jokhiyo at the hands of provincial lawmaker of the Pakistan People’s Party, Jam Owais Gohram Jokhiyo bears a grim testimony to the darkness under the veil. Little wonder if this offending lawmaker gets scotfree!