Thunderclap: Pakistan Journalist attacks

Thunderclap: Pakistan Journalist attacks:

 On the afternoon of 28 March 2014, journalist and human rights defender Raza Rumi narrowly escaped death while returning from home from work in Lahore when his car was sprayed with bullets. “I instinctively ducked under the seat” he said. His driver Mohammad Mustafa was killed in the hail of the bullets. Rumi suffered only minor injuries but his security guard Anwar Hussain, hired as protection after Rumi’s name appeared on a Taliban hit list, received serious gunshot wounds and was paralyzed. No one has been arrested or charged for the attempt on Raza Rumi’s life or the killing of Mohammad Mustafa.

Rumi’s ordeal was far from unique. On 19 April, the well-known TV anchor Hamid Mir in Karachi narrowly escaped an assassination attempt that his relatives blame on the ISI, Pakistan’s spy agency. Mir was previously targeted in November 2012, when a bomb was found under his car. He escaped unharmed after the bomb failed to detonate. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility, saying that he had been targeted in response to his coverage of the group’s attack on education rights activist Malala Yousafzai.