Zakia Zaki, headmistress of a girls school in Parwan province and owner of a private radio station called Radio Sulh (Radio Peace), was fatally shot by three unknown gunmen who broke into her house on Tuesday night, Parwan provincial governor Abdul Jabar Takwa told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

‘A group of three unknown armed men entered her house in Jabalsaraj city and shot her seven times in her back, head, chest and feet,’ Takwa said, adding the gunmen escaped from the area before a police unit arrived at the scene.

Takwa said that an investigation was ongoing to find the culprits.

Rahimullah Samander, head of Afghanistan’s Independent Journalist Association, said that Zaki had reported to their association that she was threatened by local commanders to shut down the radio station or face the consequences.

In 2005 she told DPA that she had received several threats from local religious warlords in the area for airing songs that they deemed un-Islamic.

Her death came five days after two gunmen entered the house in Kabul of Shakiba Sanga Omaaj, another female newscaster and reporter for a private TV channel, Shamshad, and shot her dead.

Police said that Omaaj’s family stated that she had received several threats by unknown people through letters, thrown at their home, warning her to stop working for the Channel.

Alishah Paktiawal, head of the police investigation section of Kabul city, said that the police arrested a man who was suspected by her family to be behind her murder.

Recent violence against journalists has sparked fear that the media is still at great risk despite the freedom it has enjoyed since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.