Knife-wielding attackers injure Pakistani journalist

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - A Pakistani journalist who has been critical of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s trial in the Panama Papers case, was attacked and seriously injured by unknown men in the capital Islamabad on Friday, local media reported.

Ahmed Noorani, who is associated with local English daily The News was traveling in a car along with his driver, when he was intercepted by a group of knife-wielding assailants riding on motorbikes at a busy street Friday morning, local broadcaster Geo News reported.

The assailants beat up Noorani and his driver with iron rods and knives before leaving him covered in blood, Geo News reported, adding that the reporter was shifted to the hospital where his condition is serious but out of danger.

An image aired on local television channels and social media showed Noorani lying on a bed and being attended by the paramedics at the hospital. The attackers who were riding bikes without number plates sped away.

The News owned by the country’s largest media house, Jang Group -- is known for its slanted reporting in favor of Sharif.

Noorani contributed to a string of stories in recent months raising questions over Sharif’s trial in the whistleblower Panama Papers scandal. In July this year, he had to submit an 'unconditional apology' in the Supreme Court after his story suggested that an investigation team, tasked to probe the Panama Papers case by the top court, found Sharif not-guilty.

Noorani, who had an active social media presence, had deactivated his Twitter account last week without giving a reason.

In 2014, Hamid Mir, a journalist based with Jang Group’s Geo News survived an assassination attempt after armed men attacked his car in the commercial capital Karachi.

In 2011, a young Geo News reporter, Wali Khan Babar was gunned down in Karachi.

Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists with dozens killed since 2000, many of them in southwestern Baluchistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhawa provinces where separatist rebels and Taliban militants have complained about media coverage of the conflicts.