Reporter Sadaf Naeem, who was tragically crushed to death while covering Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan’s long march, was allegedly shoved by Imran Khan’s bodyguard, causing her to fall to her death.
According to senior reporter Afzal Sial, around three reporters were running close to the gate of Imran Khan’s container with their cameramen in Punjab’s Sadhoke to get the PTI chief’s SOT during the party’s ongoing long march.
These included Akhlaq Bajwa from Dunya News and his cameramen Asif Pervez, Kashif Salman of Neo TV and his cameraman, and the third reporter being Sadaf Naeem, according to senior reporter Afzal Sial.
Bajwa stopped running after covering some two kilometers but Sadaf didn’t give up despite being told by the former to do so, he added. “Now, Sadaf was at the front, followed by Pervez, Salman and his cameraman,” Sial maintained.
The late journalist tried to get a hold of the container’s gate when one of Imran Khan’s security guards shoved her, Sial claimed.
“Sadaf fell and the container crushed her head, killing her on the spot. Asif Pervez was to the first to see it all and he started to make noise about it,” he recalled.
According to him, it was when Khan’s guards began to throw water bottles at the cameraman filming the incident, and some of them went down the stairs and started to beat those making the videos.
“They continuously told those present at the scene to stop filming it and snatched one of the mobile phones,” he said. When the PTI chairman was coming down the stairs, his guards were still busy in manhandling the cameramen.
Sial held Khan’s guards entirely responsible for Sadaf’s death. “The incident was narrated by the eyewitnesses, all of whom are journalists.”
Sadaf, he highlighted, was associated with the Khabrain group for the past 20 years and was extremely hardworking. She leaves behind a son and a daughter.
