Nadir Shah Sahibzada, a radio producer and presenter with Sada-e-Gardiz Radio Station in Gardiz, the capital city of southern Paktia province, Afghanistan, was killed by unknown men this weekend.

Sahibzada used to run social and cultural programmes on the station for the last three years.

According to NAI – a journalists rights organization, he disappeared on Friday evening and security forces found his body on Saturday in the outskirts of the city.

NAI also quoted Abdul Rashid Jalalzai, an official from the radio station, who said that marks on the body show Sahibzada was stabbed and tortured to death.

Provincial Police Spokesman Sardar Wali Tabassum said a probe has been launched into the incident, but so far no one has claimed responsibility for it.   

According to NAI, Sahibzada is the seventh journalist killed in Afghanistan so far this year. 

A report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released in April shows that for Afghanistan’s journalists, 2018 was the deadliest year since the fall of the Taliban regime.  A total of 15 journalists and media workers were killed in a series of bombings that began early in the year, nine of them in a single day.