By Xinhua,
Islamabad : Pakistani security forces have shot dead a journalist “mistakenly” in the country’s restive Swat valley in curfew timings, officials said Sunday.
Muhammad Shoaib was going somewhere late Saturday night when the forces started firing on him at the Nishat square, in Mingora, a major city in Swat valley in northwestern Pakistan.
Shoaib, working for a local newspaper “Khabar Kaar”, died at the scene.
Officials claimed that the journalist was killed mistakenly as he was going in the city as curfew was imposed.
The authorities say that night curfew is imposed in the area due to worsening security situation. They say that movement of the people in the night is strictly monitored and risk of such incidents exists.
The local journalist community has strongly protested against the “murder” of their colleague and demanded inquiry as to why a journalist was killed by the security forces.
This is the first death of a journalist in the Swat valley since the security forces launched operation against the militants in the region last year.
Hundreds of people, including security personnel, have been killed in the military offensives.
Several journalists have been killed in the country’s troubled tribal regions over the past three years when the forces began offensives against the Taliban-linked militants.
Many journalists in the tribal regions have moved to other cities over security concerns.