Amid the rising curbs on media freedom and attacks on journalists, the house of 24NewsHD TV channel correspondent was targeted in Nawabshah after he reported the excesses committed by the officials of a government agency.

24NewsHD reported that Haider Khanzada and his two brothers were injured when the armed men attacked the house.

Khanzada had shared a story last month about the torture at an Excise and Taxation Police check-post in Sakrand – a town located in Nawabshah district which was renamed as Shaheed Benazirabad by the PPP government during its 2008-13 tenure.

The 24NewsHD correspondent said the attack was carried out by a brother of one of the suspended officials.

Earlier, an oil tanker driver, who had tried to commit suicide by torching himself after he was subjected to inhuman torture and humiliation by excise police near Sakrand, had died at a hospital in Karachi on October 15.

Muti-ur-Rehman, the driver who hailed from Waziristan, was stopped by at a check-post on the National Highway near Sakrand. He told a police team at the hospital that he was robbed of cash, tortured and humiliated for hours after which he immolated himself.

Soon after the report appeared in media about the incident, the Excise Department had suspended eight personnel for their involvement in the incident.