NEW YORK - The convener of a U.S.-based body of Pakistani journalists on Monday strongly condemned the "brutal" murder in Rawalpindi of Raja Assad Hameed, a reporter for The Nation newspaper and Waqt TV, who was the second journalist to be shot dead within a week. "Our hearts go out to the families of our colleagues -- Mr. Hameed and Tariq Malik Javed, a correspondent for Dawn News channel who was killed in Lahore during an alleged mobile phone robbery attempt," Masood Haider, the convernor of the Coalition of Pakistani Journalists in the United States, said in a statement issued here. "We deeply mourn their loss and pray for the departed souls," the statement said. "We call on President Aslif Ali Zardari-led government, which is embroiled in domestic crises of its own creation, to pay some attention to the alarming situation the journalist community in Pakistan is facing. On a priority basis, the government must ensure a thorough judicial probe into the two murders and bring the culprits to justice. "It a matter of shame that the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ), a New York-based watchdog body, has placed Pakistan at 10th position among 14 countries where journalists have been killed. That ranking is on CPJ's 2009 Global Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. "Doesn't this bother the government? We suppose not. For despite a complete breakdown of law and order in the country, no one has been held accountable for the abject failure to maintain peace. It is high time that the government gets their act together and take determined steps to restore normality in our homeland."