KARACHI: Police have arrested a suspect involved in the murder of journalist Athar Mateen, officials said Saturday, who was killed last week while preventing a mugging in the Pakistani port city of Karachi.
Mateen, a news producer at a local television channel, was on his way home after dropping off his children to school when he saw two men on a motorbike robbing a citizen at gunpoint.
He rammed his car into the motorcycle to stop the muggers, who shot at the journalist’s car before stealing a passerby’s motorcycle and speeding away. The news producer died on the spot in his car, just a few hundred meters away from a police station and about a kilometer away from a headquarter of the paramilitary Rangers.
A top cop and a provincial minister have now confirmed the arrest of one of his suspected killers.
"The suspect has been arrested from Sindh-Balochistan border area," Karachi Additional Inspector General (IG) Ghulam Nabi Memon told Arab News.
"We will share further details after interrogation is completed."
The police have arrested a man, Ashraf, involved in the killing of SAMAA TV's Athar Mateen, Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani said on Twitter.
"God willing, the killer will be punished according to the law."
Ghani said the way the Sindh police had worked on the case was "commendable" and it would help increase the trust of the masses in the department.
Memon, however, said that Ashraf's arrest was not linked to the reported arrests in Balochistan's Khuzdar district.
Balochistan Parliamentary Secretary for Information Bushra Rind earlier said the Sindh and Balochistan police had conducted a joint raid in Khuzdar and arrested a suspect, Abid Bangulzai, in connection with the journalist's killing.
Mateen was one among at least 15 people killed in street robberies gone wrong in Karachi since January 1 — part of a surge in crime that government officials, victims and experts blame on inaction by law enforcement agencies and low conviction rates by courts for repeat offenders.
Until 2013, Karachi, a city of at least 18 million people, had a reputation as one of the world’s most dangerous places. Then the Rangers moved in to make its mean streets safer in a crackdown that has come to be popularly called the “Karachi Operation” and which saw crime rates plunge and some of the country’s most-wanted men put behind bars.
In recent months, however, crime is back on the streets of Karachi, alarming authorities and citizens who fear for a city that is home to Pakistan’s main stock market, handles all of the cash-strapped country’s shipping and generates most of Pakistan’s tax revenue.
