Hamid Mir: Pakistani TV anchor shot in Karachi gun attack

Hamid Mir, one of Pakistan’s best known television presenters, has been shot and wounded by gunmen in the city of Karachi.

Police said the attackers opened fire on Hamid Mir’s car near the airport.

The presenter for Geo TV received three bullets, but was in a stable condition, the officials added.

There have been previous attempts on the life of Hamid Mir, the first journalist to interview Osama bin Laden after 9/11.

Pakistan is one of the most dangerous countries for the media.

The attack has been strongly condemned by Pakistani politicians, including PM Nawaz Sharif.

Hamid Mir is one of Pakistan’s best known television presenters (photo Geo TV)

Last month, Nawaz Sharif pledged to do more to protect journalists in Pakistan.

Hamid Mir had just landed in Karachi and was on his way to the studios of Geo TV, a private Pakistani news channel, when unidentified gunmen in a car and on motorcycles reportedly tailed him before opening fire.

Police said he sustained three gunshot wounds, but that his life was not in danger.

Hamid Mir’s brother, a leading investigative journalist, has accused the country’s intelligence agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), of orchestrating the attack.

According to his brother, Hamid Mir had recently told family and colleagues that he had received threats from the ISI because of his political views.

In 2012, the Pakistani Taliban tried to kill Hamid Mir by planting 1lb of explosives under his car outside his home in the capital, Islamabad.

But the remote-controlled bomb failed to go off.

The Taliban had threatened Hamid Mir and other journalists for their coverage of the militants’ shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai.

Five journalists were killed in Pakistan in 2013 and more than 50 have died since the early 1990s. Most murders remain unresolved.

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