A correspondent of an English-language newspaper was one of the at least 40 people who were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral of a slain police officer on February 29 in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The journalist was identified as Siraj Uddin.
No organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack on the funeral, which was being attended by about 800 people, in Mingora, a city in North-West Frontier Province’s troubled Swat valley that has been under a curfew since the start of the year. Some 80 people were wounded by the blast, including Hazrat Bilal, a journalist working for the local press who suffered multiple injuries. He is now in hospital, where his condition is stable.
“We condemn these acts of devastating and indiscriminate violence to which the civilian population is exposed,” RSF said. “Uddin is the second journalist to be killed in Pakistan since the start of January, after a particularly grim year in which six journalists were killed. Other thoughts are with his family and colleagues and with Bilal, and we hope Bilal makes a complete recovery.”
Pakistan was ranked 152nd out of 169 countries in the 2007 RSF world press freedom index.
