ISLAMABAD: Deadbody of the missing journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, was found along with a car at Mandi Bahauddin city situated in upper Punjab, ARY NEWS reports. “Relatives visited the police station and now they have identified the dead body. They said it is the body of journalist Saleem Shahzad,” police official Zulfiqar Ali said. His office card and diary was also found near his body recovered from Haid Rasool area of the Mandi Bahauddin city, according to police. The car was found this afternoon at Sarai Alamghir near Jhelum city, 150 kilometres (93 miles) southeast of Islamabad. Police said his postmortem has been conducted at the city, which shows he was tortured. “Clear signs of torture were found under his chest and on the face,” an official said. Shahzad, the Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online, went missing days after authoring an article in which he contended that Al Qaeda attacked a naval airbase in Karachi after failed talks with the navy to release some arrested persons. He had left his house in Islamabad to participate in a television programme on Sunday but did not reach the TV station. Expressing their deep grief and sorrow over the tragic death, President Asif Ali Zardari and Gilani ordered immediate inquiry into the kidnapping and murder of the journalist. The naval base attack on May 22 took 17 hours to repel. Officials said six militants destroyed two US-made surveillance aircraft and killed 10 security personnel in the standoff. The country’s umbrella Taliban faction claimed responsibility, saying the attack was carried out to avenge the US killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, which reopened questions about complicity with Al-Qaeda within the military. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered an inquiry into the kidnapping and murder, pledging that the culprits would be “brought to book”. In 2006, he was kidnapped by the Taliban in Helmand in southern Afghanistan. Then, his kidnappers accused him of being a spy but set him free after seven days. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had earlier Monday expressed alarm about Shahzad’s disappearance and described as “exceedingly disturbing” reports that he might have been abducted by a state agency. Expressing their deep grief and sorrow over the tragic death, President Asif Ali Zardari and Gilani ordered immediate inquiry into the kidnapping and murder of the journalist.
By : Geo News
