Dahar, a reporter for Abb Takk
Television, was shot in the back while filming outside a pharmacy near the
Badah Press Club in Larkana, according to his sister and brother-in-law who
spoke to CPJ. He died shortly after at a local hospital.
Initial media
reports suggested that Dahar was hit
by a stray bullet as weapons were being fired into the air during New Year
celebrations, but in the days that followed, journalists and local media
support groups suggested this was an intentional killing.
Dahar’s sister and brother-in-law
told CPJ that they had seen the video that Dahar was recording at the time he
was killed. The video shows medication Dahar bought at a pharmacy that had a
“not for resale” stamp on it, they said. The journalist was killed a few
minutes after that.
Shortly before his death, Dahar
had broadcast a story on drug sales. At the time he was killed, he was working
on a report about the unauthorized sale of pharmaceutical drugs in the area,
according to Nasir Baig Chughtai, the director of news for Abb Takk. According
to Dahar’s family, medications allocated by a local NGO for the poor were being
resold illegally. Chughtai told CPJ that Dahar had
covered a range of stories on sensitive local issues, including politics and
poverty, and had been killed in retaliation for his work.
Dahar’s family as well as several local journalists expressed dismay at what they felt was
negligence on the part of the medical staff at the hospital that treated Dahar,
saying he would still be alive if he received timely and adequate medical care,
according to news reports.
Chughtai told CPJ that although
a suspect had been taken into custody, he believed the main culprits were still
at large. Local journalists have raised
concern about the way the investigation was carried out, according to news
reports. Despite a postmortem report being released, police have not
offered a conclusive motive in the journalist’s death.