BBC journalist reported missing in Pakistan
A BBC journalist went missing today after visiting the Pakistani capital Islamabad, the BBC said, and his brother feared intelligence agents may have kidnapped him.
Dilawar Khan Wazir, a reporter aged in his 30s for the BBC's Urdu-language service, went missing after leaving Islamabad for Dera Ismail Khan, the city where he lived in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, the BBC said on its Urdu-language news web site.
It was not immediately clear what may have happened to Wazir, whose 15-year-old brother was kidnapped and shot dead in August in north-western Pakistan's tribal areas.
Numerous Pakistan journalists have also vanished and been killed after apparently covering topics sensitive to the government and pro-Taliban militants.
Another of Wazir's brothers, Zulfikar Ali, said the journalist had been with him at his university hostel in Islamabad on Monday before leaving to Dera Ismail Khan.
Sometime later, a man identifying himself as a doctor from the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences telephoned Ali claiming Wazir had been injured in an accident and asked him to go to the hospital, BBC reported.
Men in two jeeps later arrived at the hostel asking for Ali to come to the hospital, he told The Associated Press. Wary of the men, the brother sent a friend to talk with them, who claimed they appeared to be undercover agents.
A BBC correspondent visited the hospital but Wazir was not there, said Mohammed Hanif, London-based head of the broadcaster's Urdu section.
"At this moment we don't know what has happened and obviously we are really worried because in the past we have been reporting on the disappearance of journalists," Hanif said.
Ali suspected Pakistani intelligence agents may have detained his brother, but said he was unclear why they would have done this.
An Information Ministry official said he has contacted the Interior Ministry seeking information on Wazir. Interior Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.
Wazir began working for the BBC in 2004 and was based in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, before threats by militants, angered by his reporting, forced him to move to nearby Dera Ismail Khan.
In February 2005, Wazir survived a gun attack on his near Wana in which two other journalists died. They had left a ceremony in which militants signed a peace agreement with authorities.
No one claimed responsibility for either attack but officials accused militants.
Among several journalists abducted and killed was Hayatullah Khan, who reported on a US air strike that killed an al Qaida operative in north-western Pakistan. Khan's bullet-riddled body was found in June in North Waziristan six months after his kidnapping.
Suspicion has fallen on Pakistani authorities, but the government blamed militants.
