From war frontlines to high-flown, intricate legal wrangling in court houses and extreme human tragedies, Sadaqat Jan as a professional journalist has been trying to tell the story of life _ a story that will keep on unfolding as long as we live. Journalism, put simply, is telling that story. For Jan being a journalist has been at times a depressing disappointment but at other moments it has been an elevating passion, a force that drives one on.

After earning a Masters degree in English literature with distinction from Gomal University in Dera Ismail Khan, Jan has been working with various national and international news organizations in Pakistan before he joined VOA's Deewa Radio as a broadcaster in August 2008. He has covered a wide range of key issues _ a military coup, militancy, terrorism, Pakistan's murky politics, Kashmir and the Supreme Court.In the early 1990s, he first covered the Supreme Court for Pakistan's The Nation newspaper. Then more recently as correspondent for The Associated Press, America's leading news agency, to cover the legal battles after the then President Pervez Musharraf fired Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry as the Chief Justice _ an event that heralded the end of Musharraf's era..

Of the tragedies he has covered, the aftermath of the earthquake in October of 2005 in Pakistan was by far the most moving. And then came the assassination of former Prme Minister Benazir Bhutto. Jan was at the rally in Rawalpindi's Liaqatbagh Park when the bombing and gunfire at Bhuttos' rally struck..

While most people ran for cover, Jan made the first call to his office that an explosion has gone off, as AP alerted the world of the unfolding tragedy. Jan was part of the AP team that won the Sigma, Delta, Chi Award for deadline reporting by America's Society of Professional Journalists organization. Now in Washington, Jan finds his radio job as exciting as writing news stories. But he still has fond memories of his mountain village where Pashto's great poet and his ancestor, Khushal Khan Khattak, lies in his eternal abode. In his free time Jan loves to read, travel and cook. He is a big fan of BBQ. If you get a chance, do try his quintessentially Pashtun mutton karay (fried lamb) and saltish mutton joints.