The International Press Institute (IPI) calls for a transparent investigation into the 14 August murder of Aaj TV correspondent Sadiq Bacha Khan, who was gunned down in broad daylight on his way to work in Mardan, a town in the restive North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Khan was a former president of the Mardan Press Club.

A senior source at Aaj TV, who asked not to be named, told IPI that Khan had been assigned to cover the funeral of an army official who had been killed days earlier in another region, by drug smugglers. He arrived at the Aaj TV office at around 7.20 AM on Friday. His assailants, evidently aware of his movements, ambushed him outside the building, in the centre of town, and gunned him down. The journalist was shot at least 15 times, and succumbed to his injuries on the way to a hospital in Peshawar.

“We call upon the authorities in Pakistan to transparently investigate the murder of Bacha Khan,” said IPI Director David Dadge. “Journalists in the province are routinely exposed to violence and intimidation. The state has a responsibility to thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding this killing and to bring those responsible to justice.”

Khan had reportedly been involved in journalism in the Northwest Frontier Province since 1990, and had previously been elected president of the Mardan Press Club, which has strongly condemned the murder and called for a three-day period of mourning. Khan was also involved in relief efforts for internally displaced persons from the volatile Swat valley in Pakistan, which is only 20 miles from the town of Mardan.

The Aaj TV official said: “He was a bold reporter (…) very bold in his reporting. (…) After looking at this case, people will naturally be more cautious in their reporting and in their engagement against the terrorists.”

The North West Frontier Province has witnessed a long-running battle for control between the Pakistani military and tribal and Islamist political factions. The rising levels of violence have made the region one of the world’s most dangerous for journalists.

According to IPI’s Death Watch, in the last two years alone 11 journalists have been killed in Pakistan. Six of the deaths occurred in the Northwest Frontier Province. This year, on 4 January, Muhammad Imran, 20, a trainee cameraman with Express TV, and Saleem Tahir Awan, 45, a freelance reporter with the local dailies Eitedal and Apna Akhbar, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of The Government Polytechnic College in Dera Ismail Khan in the North West Frontier Province. And on 18 February, Musa Khankhel, a reporter for Geo TV and the English-language newspaper The News, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen while on assignment covering a peace march led by Muslim cleric Sufi Muhammad in the Swat valley.