JournalismPakistan.com
August 17, 2012

LAHORE: Police have booked the owner of a local newspaper on charges of victimizing a subordinate female journalist who committed suicide, jumping off the roof of a building near MAO College Wednesday.

According to a report in The Nation, 24-year-old Seemab Afzal, a reporter for the newspaper Anti-Crime, had not been paid her salary for the past four months.

Police have collected circumstantial evidence which strengthens the claim of the victim’s family that the journalist was stressed because of the owner’s dilly dallying.

“Seemab was not being paid her salary which prompted her to take this extreme step,” an on duty police officer said. Her cousin Nuzhat, also a reporter for the same daily, cited the same reason for the suicide.

The newspaper quoting Nuzhat said Seemab’s father had cancer and she also had to take care of the needs of her younger siblings.

Police said Seemab and Nuzhat lived in a hostel, arranged by their employer.

Seemab’s family alleges the newspaper’s owner employed the girls fraudulently and did not pay them their salaries.

A case has been registered against the owner but he was not arrested. Further investigations are under way.