ISLAMABAD, 22 November 2006 — A Pakistani reporter working for the BBC was kidnapped and beaten before being released yesterday after 24 hours in captivity, he told reporters.
Dilawar Khan Wazir said he was stopped while traveling in a taxi from Islamabad to Dera Ismail Khan, near the tribal territory of Waziristan on Monday by unidentified men.
“I was on my way home from Islamabad when unidentified people stopped my taxi, dragged me out, blindfolded and took me to an unknown place.
“I was severely beaten up by abductors who kept asking questions about my work with the BBC,” he told AFP, speaking from the BBC office in Islamabad.
Wazir who also works for a local newspaper, had been reporting on the tense situation in the tribal territory near the Afghan border where Pakistani troops are deployed to hunt down Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants.
A native of North Waziristan, Wazir recently lost his younger brother, Taimur, who was killed by unknown people in August in the tribal territory.
Wazir’s disappearance on Monday sparked concern among domestic and international press, which urged the Pakistan government to trace him.
He said he did not know who kidnapped and tortured him and that he was dropped by the kidnappers in a forest near Islamabad.
BBC Islamabad correspondent Aamir Ahmed Khan told AFP Wazir had “returned and he is fine.” Wazir had arrived in Islamabad on Sunday to meet another brother, Zulfiqar.
Zulfigar said about “a dozen suspicious men” arrived at his hostel on Monday, although he refused to meet them.
The men told the security guard at the hostel of the International Islamic University that Wazir had been injured in an accident and was in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in the capital, Zulfiqar said.
Wazir, like several other journalists, had moved to neighboring Dera Ismail Khan district after a bomb exploded near his home earlier this year.
Earlier yesterday, the NWFP assembly adopted a resolution calling on the government to make efforts for the early recovery of Wazir. The resolution was tabled in the provincial assembly by Awami National Party member Bashir Ahmad Bilor. It urged the government to provide security to journalists.
The press is generally free in Pakistan but several reporters covering the conflict in the tribal areas have been abducted and some have been killed in recent years.
Last year, a prominent journalist in the region, Hayatullah Khan, was abducted after reporting that an Al-Qaeda leader had been killed by a US missile. That contradicted the government, which said the militant had been killed when explosives stored at his hide-out exploded.
In June, Khan’s body was found dumped. He appeared to have been kept in captivity and killed shortly before he was found. Reporters’ groups said it looked as if he had been held by security agents.
