ISLAMABAD (IANS) – A Pakistani journalist and TV anchor escaped an attempt on his life Monday when explosives were found attached to his car’s under?carriage here in the Pakistani capital, media reports said.
Hamid Mir, a senior anchor in Geo TV, was returning home from a market in Islamabad when his neighbour’s driver spotted a suspicious object attached to the under?carriage of Mir’s car.
The bomb was apparently planted when he stopped at a market. The explosive device was found stuck right under the front passenger seat of the car, police said.
A bomb disposal squad was immediately called and it successfully defused the bomb containing around half a kg of explosive material, Geo News reported. The material included a battery, a detonator and ball bearings.
Mir was criticised by the Pakistani Taliban last month in the wake of the shooting of teenaged rights activist Malala Yousafzai.
Intelligence officials earlier said that an intercepted Taliban message suggested suicide bombers have been assigned to attack journalists, with Geo TV at the top of the list of targets because of its coverage of the Malala attack.
“It’s a message to me as well as Geo and the journalist community in Pakistan. They want to stop us from speaking the truth but I want to tell them that we will not be deterred,” Mir was later quoted as saying.
According to the international organisation Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), as many as 64 journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 1992.
Follow this link to join our WhatsApp group: Join Now
Be Part of Quality Journalism |
Quality journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce and despite all the hardships we still do it. Our reporters and editors are working overtime in Kashmir and beyond to cover what you care about, break big stories, and expose injustices that can change lives. Today more people are reading Kashmir Observer than ever, but only a handful are paying while advertising revenues are falling fast. |
| ACT NOW |
| MONTHLY | Rs 100 |  |
| YEARLY | Rs 1000 | |
| LIFETIME | Rs 10000 | |
