Vocal for minorities’ rights, a journalist in Pakistan, Ajay Lalwani has been brutally murdered by armed assailants in Sindh. He was shot dead when he was at Saleh Putt in Sukkur in Sindh.
Ajay Lalwani, a local general news correspondent for the privately-owned Urdu language Daily Puchano, died yesterday after suffering three gunshot wounds on Wednesday evening in Sukkur, in northern Sindh Province, according to Imdad Soomro, a correspondent of national English daily The News, who saw Lalwani in the hospital before he died, and Ashiq Jatoi, editor of the Daily Puchano.
Ajay was one of the most vocal journalists in Pakistan as per the Pakistani website, The News and he used to raise issues in the interest of minorities, especially Hindus and their pathetic situation in Pakistan. He used to write against the Pakistani Government’s biased policies against minorities.
According to a report by CPJ( Committee to Protect Journalists), Jatoi said Lalwani was sitting in a barbershop in the Salehpat area of Sukkur when two motorcycles and a car with four passengers drove by and opened fire, striking Lalwani in the stomach, arm, and knee. He was taken to Civil Hospital in Sukkur where he later died due to blood loss, said Jatoi.
A police report posted on Twitter by Pakistan National Assembly member Lal Malhi said the journalist was fired upon by “unknown culprits” on a motorcycle; in the report, Ifran Ali Samo, Sukkur’s senior superintendent of police, announced the formation of a team to investigate the killing.
The local traders observed a shutter down strike against the murder of Lalvani, while journalists have held the Sukkur Police responsible for his killing. Dileep Kumar, the father of the slain journalist, said that they did not have any enmity, however, he said some unidentified motorcyclists had killed his son at a barbershop when he was getting his haircut done. He dismissed the police claim of the murder being the result of personal enmity according to the Pakistan website, The News
If we take a look at the journalists, then in the last 2 decades, more than 60 journalists have been brutally murdered in Pakistani. In 2020, it ranked ninth on CPJ’s annual Global Impunity Index, which assesses countries where journalists are murdered regularly and their killers go free, with 15 unsolved murders.