New York   - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent watchdog body, has called on Pakistani authorities to launch an immediate investigation into the murder of Pakistani journalist Malik Mumtaz, who was shot dead in Miranshah on Wednesday. “The death of a veteran journalist such as Malik Mumtaz must not go uninvestigated and unexplained,” Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator, said in a statement.
“CPJ joins with Pakistani journalists in calling for a full investigation into this murder as a first step in reversing the perfect impunity with which the deaths of journalists are treated in the country.”
CPJ noted that no convictions of killers of journalists in Pakistan have taken place in the last 10 years. With 19 unsolved cases, it said, Pakistan’s record of impunity has worsened considerably in recent years. The country ranks as the 10th worst on CPJ’s global Impunity Index.