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Alert

Newspaper correspondent's home destroyed by blast in Swat Valley

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders calls on the federal and provincial authorities to provide emergency aid to Hameedullah Khan, a correspondent of the "Dawn" newspaper and Dawn TV in the Swat Valley (in North-West Frontier Province), whose home in the village of Shakar Darra has been destroyed by an explosion.

Khan and his family discovered the house had been blown up when they returned to the village on 5 January 2009. They and other residents were forced to evacuate the area on 28 December 2008 when the army launched an offensive against the Taliban. A police station and the home of a local Awami National Party leader were also destroyed.

"I don't have a dispute with anyone, I don't understand who could have done this," Khan told Reporters Without Borders. Khan's colleagues said his reporting had earned him enemies in both camps.

Gunmen torched a shop owned by Khan on 5 July 2008. "No investigation was carried out and I was not given any compensation," he said. "I was stripped of my source of income and now I am without anywhere to live," he added.