Seven of family shot

LUCKNOW: Seven members of a family, including three children, were shot dead while they were asleep in an Uttar Pradesh village on Tuesday, police said. The brutal killings took place at around 2 am in Bararai village in Bulandshahr district. Police said personal enmity seemed to be the motive. “The family head, Sukhveer Singh, was a well-to do farmer and it appears that the entire family was shot while they were sleeping,” inspector Balvir Singh of Aurangabad police station told IANS over telephone. The victims include Sukhveer, his wife Suryabala, and his sons Surya Pratap and Abhishek. — IANS

Three officials killed

PESHAWAR: Pakistani Taliban militants shot dead three intelligence officials in the northwestern Swat Valley, undermining a peace treaty in the troubled former tourist region, officials said on Tuesday. The incident happened on Monday night near Mingora, the main town in Swat, where the Pakistan army launched a major offensive in October to clear the area of militants loyal to Maulana Fazlullah, a radical pro-Taliban cleric. A spokesman for the militants in Swat, Haji Muslim Khan, said that the officials were shot dead after they refused to go with the Taliban. — AFP

Journalist detained

KABUL: Afghanistan’s intelligence agency has detained a journalist after President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet ordered him to be “legally pursued” for alleged criticism of top officials, his employer said on Tuesday. Nasir Fayaz, who hosts a TV programme called “Haqiqat” or “The Truth” on private Ariana TV, was detained on Monday. — AFP