The mystery regarding missing journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad was resolved tragically on Tuesday when his body was found from a canal in Mandi Bahauddin. “Shahzad’s body was identified by his relatives and it had torture marks all over,” Margalla Police SHO Fiaz Tanoli said, adding that the police registered a case of Shahzad’s abduction on Sunday.
Earlier, the missing journalist’s car was recovered from Sarai Alamgir, 200kms from Islamabad, with an unidentified body dumped nearby. The SHO said Mandi Bahauddin police had registered an FIR of the case and recovered a diary from the deceased’s car. Shahzad was the Pakistan bureau chief of Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online.
He went missing from Islamabad’s Sector F-6 on Sunday after he left his house in Sector F-8/4 for recording a TV programme, police said. Shahzad used to write on security and terrorism issues for Asia Times Online and days before his death he wrote an article about arrest of some naval personnel linked to al Qaeda.
He had claimed that terrorists had threatened the Pakistan Navy with attacks if the officials were not set free.