Shan Dahar

Incident Description: Shot Dead

On January 1, 2014, Abb Takk Television Bureau Chief for Larkana, Shan Dahar was shot in the back while he was filming outside a pharmacy close to the Badah Press Club in Badah town in the city Larkana located in Sindh province. Dahar died at a hospital. According to IFEX, Dahar had remained unattended at Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH) and he succumbed to the injuries, nine hours later.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), initial media reports had suggested that the reporter had been struck by a stray bullet because of aerial firing during New Years Eve celebrations. CPJ, however, added that following this, journalists and local media support groups had “suggested this was an intentional killing”. Following his death, protests were staged in various cities in Sindh.

On January 1, Dahar’s brother-in-law Riaz Khushk registered a First Information Report (FIR) [criminal complaint] of the murder. Police investigators, however, ignored the FIR and concluded that Dahar was killed accidentally by aerial firing on New Year’s Eve. Dahar’s sister, Fauzia Dahar, and other family members rejected the police investigation report and continued to maintain that Dahar was murdered for his reporting.

On January 14, then Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah informed the media that an investigation of the murder of Dahar was underway and the perpetrators would be brought to justice. The chief minister had also announced a grant of Rs500,000 for the family of the slain journalist. Speaking to Dahar’s sister and brother-in-law, CPJ said that they saw a video Dahar was recording at the time he was killed.

The video had shown that the medicine he bought at the pharmacy had a not for sale stamp on it. The report stated that a few minutes after, he was killed. Director of News Abb Takk, Nasir Baig Chughtai, told CPJ said that prior to his death Dahar had broadcast a story on drug sales and at the time of his death, he was working on a report about the unauthorized sale of pharmaceutical drugs in the area.

“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.”

In 2016, Sindh police reopened investigations into the murder. In 2019, Khushk told PPF that the case is pending because the court has ordered police to trace and arrest the main absconder involved in Dahar's murder, but police is not investigating the case and has not arrested anyone. He added that they had informed the IG and DIG about the main accused, a local doctor Abdul Ghaffar Kandhro, but claimed that no one was interested in pursuing the case.