KOHAT: A journalist was shot and injured in an attack under mysterious circumstances near his house in Garhi Atta Khan area of Kohat city on Friday.

Aleem Haider Zaidi, a correspondent of a private TV channel, parked his motorcycle outside his house and fell down as he received a gunshot, according to a statement he recorded with the police in KDA Teaching Hospital.

A statement issued from the office of district police officer said that investigation had been launched after collecting evidence from the crime scene, but the motive behind the attack could not be ascertained.

Mr Zaidi told the police that the area people took him to the hospital about an hour after the attack.

Kohat Press Club president Hashim Zaman who was with the injured journalist told Dawn that Mr Zaidi was talking normally and recognising visitors in the hospital, but his right eye was swollen.

The two doctors who earlier examined him termed the wound a normal head injury in the light of CT scan report. Whereas neuro-physician Dr Sarfraz after seeing condition of Mr Zaidi’s eye concluded that it was a gun attack.

He said that a bullet had pierced through his head and exited through the eye miraculously saving the brain.

The police, which had earlier registered an FIR based on simple head injury, changed it into an initial report of a gun attack while Mr Zaidi was referred to the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.

SCHOOL UPGRADED: MPA Ziaullah Bangash has termed education a mega project of the provincial government and said the number of girl’s schools was doubled in last four years in the province.

Addressing a ceremony on the occasion of upgradation of government girls middle school, Malangabad, to high level on Friday, he said that the PTI-led government had spent Rs30 billion on the provision of basic facilities in schools.

The MPA said that the government had increased the education budget from Rs61 billion to Rs138 billion during the last four years.

He said that education of girls was necessary for bringing real change in the society.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2017