Media watchdog says missing Pakistani journalist may have been kidnapped

PAKISTAN: A Pakistani journalist working for the British Broadcasting Corporation may have been abducted, a leading press rights group said, as the government Tuesday said it had no word on the reporter's whereabouts.

Dilawar Khan Wazir, who is in his 30s and works for the BBC's Urdu-language service, went missing Monday after leaving Islamabad for home in Dera Ismail Khan, in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, the BBC said on its Urdu-language news Web site.

The Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, said that it was "deeply concerned" about Wazir's disappearance and feared he may have been kidnapped. "The circumstances of his disappearance lead us to fear he was abducted. We fear he could be the latest victim of kidnappings of reporters" in Pakistan, the statement said.

The group did not say who may have abducted Wazir or why but it cited the case of Hayatullah Khan, another journalist, who was kidnapped in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region and murdered earlier this year. "The Pakistani authorities must do their utmost to shed light on the disappearance of Dilawar Khan," the group said in a statement late Monday.

Minister of State for Information Tariq Azeem Khan said Tuesday that there has been no new clues to what might have happened to Wazir. "We are trying our best to locate the journalist," Khan told The Associated Press.

Wazir had been based in the South Waziristan tribal region before he moved to Dera Ismail Khan following threats by suspected Islamic militants, angered by his reporting. In August, Wazir's 15-year-old brother was kidnapped and shot dead in the area.

In February 2005, Wazir survived a gun attack on a bus near Wana in which two other journalists died. No one claimed responsibility for either attack, but officials accused militants.

Islamabad, Tuesday, AP