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Fears for BBC Pakistan reporter | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
Dilawar Wazir Khan, a BBC Urdu service reporter in Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan, has gone missing. | |
Mr Khan has not been heard of since leaving Islamabad on Monday morning for home in North-West Frontier Province. | |
Fears were raised when his mobile phone was answered by someone saying he was seriously hurt in hospital. There was no sign of him when the BBC checked. | |
Pakistan's record on press safety is poor and Mr Khan has received threats. In August his young brother was killed. | |
The Pakistani authorities must do their utmost to shed light on the disappearance of Dilawar Khan Reporters without Borders BBC reporter's brother killed | |
It is not clear if that attack was linked to Mr Khan's work as a journalist. | |
He is one of the few local journalists reporting on the Pakistani army's fight with pro-Taleban militants in the troubled Waziristan region on the Afghan border. | |
A number of journalists have gone missing, and some have been killed, after covering stories considered sensitive by the military or the militants. | |
'Seriously injured' | 'Seriously injured' |
Mr Khan had met another brother, Zulfiqar Ali, at the Islamic University in the capital on Sunday. | |
He was due to travel back to the town of Dera Ismail Khan where he lives on Monday but never arrived. | |
His family say a number of unidentified men came to the university hostel looking for his brother to tell him that Dilawar had been injured. He refused to accompany them. | |
When Mr Ali rang his brother's mobile phone, a man who gave his name as Dr Jamshed said Mr Khan had been seriously injured in a road accident and was in the Pakistani Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad. | |
A BBC reporter who went to the PIMS could find no trace of either Mr Khan or a Dr Jamshed. | A BBC reporter who went to the PIMS could find no trace of either Mr Khan or a Dr Jamshed. |
Army spokesman Shaukat Sultan told the BBC to contact the Interior Ministry for information, as did the Information Ministry. The Interior Ministry would not comment. | |
BBC Urdu service head Mohammad Hanif said he was very worried for Mr Khan's safety. | |
"Considering the fact that we have been regularly reporting stories about journalists being picked up by security agencies in Pakistan, we are really concerned," he said. | |
"Some of these journalists remained missing for months and after their release told us that they were held by intelligence agencies in illegal custody and tortured." | |
Brother killed | Brother killed |
Mr Khan and his family have been targeted on a number of occasions in recent years - it is not clear by whom. | |
Officials still do not know who abducted his 15-year-old brother, Taimur, in August. He was found with severe head wounds in the town of Wana in South Waziristan and later died of his injuries. | |
Last year, bombers targeted the Khans' house in Wana and a school run by his family. No one was hurt but the explosion damaged part of their house wall. | |
Mr Khan has said his family have no personal or tribal enemies. | |
In February 2005 two journalists in the same car as him were killed when shots were fired at their vehicle in Wana. He was unhurt. | |
They had been reporting on the signing of a peace agreement between the authorities and tribal fighters. | |
Mr Khan left his home in Wana last year and moved to Dera Ismail Khan after receiving threats from the militants. |