Janullah Hashimzada

Incident Description: Shot Dead

On August 24, 2009, the Bureau Chief based in Peshawar for Afghanistan’s Shamshad Television, Janullah Hashimzada, was shot to death while travelling back from Afghanistan on a minibus near Jamrud in the northwestern Khyber district of Pakistan. Operating in plain view, three masked men opened fire with pistols on the minibus, killing Hashimzada instantly and wounding his colleague, Ali Khan. According to Dawn, then Assistant Political Agent Jamrud Rehan Khattak said Hashimzada was going to Peshawar from Torkham via a coach and “four masked men in a car” had forced the coach to stop.

The report added that Hashimzada was “shot at from a close range”. Khan was injured. Peshawar Press Club President Shamin Shahid said that this was “purely a targeted killing”. He added that Hashimzada was “very critical of the Taliban, and some of his reporting was unacceptable both to the Pakistan and Afghan government and intelligence agencies. He had too much information regarding the militants, the Taliban and the intelligence agencies”.

Hashimzada worked for several Afghan and Pakistani news media, including the Afghan independent news agency Pajhwok and the Pashtun newspapers Vahdat and Sahar. Friends had said he covered sensitive issues and had been subjected to threats and pressure during the three weeks, prior to his death, to abandon his journalistic work and leave Peshawar.