KABUL: Nemat Rawan, a former Afghan television journalist, was shot dead in Kandahar city on Thursday, a day after Taliban warned against biased reporting.
According to details, Nemat Rawan is the fifth journalist to have been killed this year. He was “assassinated by unknown gunmen”, Kandahar city police spokesman Jamal Nasir Barekzai told an international news agency.
“Heartbreaking to hear that a friend and former colleague Nemat Rawan was shot dead in Kandahar city today,” Lotfullah Najafizada, head of Tolo News, posted on Twitter.
Heartbreaking to hear that a friend and former colleague Nemat Rawan was shot dead in Kandahar city today. He left TOLOnews just last month to join the Ministry of Finance as a communications specialist. Was a very polite, humble and descent young man. RIP. https://t.co/I9nsMgl5Vx
— Lotfullah Najafizada (@LNajafizada) May 6, 2021
Earlier on Wednesday, however, a Taliban spokesman warned that media workers who carry out “biased reporting” would be “held responsible”.
President Ashraf Ghani said Rawan’s murder was a “terrorist attack” by the Taliban. “The terrorists will not be able to silence freedom of expression and weaken our countrymen’s belief in a bright future,” he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Taliban has denied they were behind his murder. “The assassination of Nemat Rawan is not linked to the Islamic Emirate,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said on Twitter.
Nemat Rawan hosted a popular talk show on the country’s leading broadcaster, Tolo News, before joining the ministry of finance as a communications specialist last month.
