Khyber Super Market blasts: Journalist dies of burn wounds

Shafiullah was the second journalist killed in the attack.

PESHAWAR:

A young journalist who was injured in the deadly Khyber Super Market blasts succumbed to his injures at the Wah Cantt hospital burn unit on Friday.

Shafiullah was in the area when two powerful blasts ripped through the marketplace in Peshawar just before midnight on June 11. He had received third degree burns and was referred to the Khyber Teaching Hospital’s (KTH) burn unit. He was then shifted to Wah’s burn unit, as there is no full-fledged burn hospital in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Shafiullah was the second journalist killed in the deadly twin blasts, while around eight other journalists had sustained injuries. Journalist Asfandyar Khan was also killed in the blast the day it occurred.

Aged 28, Shafiullah was a resident of Palangzai village near Miranshah in North Waziristan. He had recently graduated from the Gomal University in Dera Ismail Khan with an MA in Journalism.

The young journalist started his career as a trainee reporter at The News International only a week before the deadly attack. Shafiullah rushed to the spot from his office, which was located nearby, and got caught in the blast along with other journalists.The Khyber Super Market blasts killed 40 people and injured 100 others.

The number of journalists killed in Khyber Super Market has risen to three in the past one and a half months. Earlier in May, a Khyber Agency reporter Nasrullah Afridi was also killed in a car bomb attack at the same site, where the June 11 blast took place.

The area where the blast took place is popular with young and single journalists as well as students.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2011.