Online News Network, Sabzbaat TV
August 14, 2011, in Khuzdar, Pakistan

Shakir, who wrote for the Online News Network and was a correspondent for the Baluch television station Sabzbaat, was shot repeatedly by two men on a motorcycle shortly after midday as he headed home from the press club in Khuzdar, the district capital in the center of Baluchistan, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. He died at Khuzdar's District Headquarters Hospital.

Shakir's colleagues in the Baluchistan Union of Journalists said the 30-year-old reporter had been working on and off as a journalist for about eight years, and they did not know of any threats directed at him. But representatives of the Pakistan Press Foundation, a media support group, told CPJ that Shakir had also been an activist with Baluch separatist organizations and said that was the probable reason he was targeted. Pakistani military and intelligence operations frequently target activists, and many Baluch journalists straddle the line between political activism and journalism.

Motive Unconfirmed: CPJ is investigating to determine whether the death was work-related.

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