01 June,2011 07:52 AM IST | | Agencies
A Pakistani journalist has been found dead near the capital Islamabad after writing about links between the Pakistani military and Al-Qaeda, officials said Tuesday.
Syed Saleem Shahzad (40) worked for an Italian news agency and an online news site. He went missing on Sunday after he left his home in the capital to take part in a television talk show, but never arrived.
Officials said his body was identified by relatives after being found near his car in Sarai Alamgir, 150 km southeast of Islamabad.
"Relatives visited the police station and now they have identified the dead body. They said it is the body of journalist Saleem Shahzad," said police official Zulfiqar Ali.
He disappeared two days after writing an investigative report in Asia Times Online that Al-Qaeda carried out last week's attack on a naval air base to avenge the arrest of naval officials arrested on suspicion of Al-Qaeda links.
Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Shahzad had complained about being threatened by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
"The other day he visited our office and informed us that ISI had threatened him.
He told us that if anything happened to him, we should inform the media about the situation and threats," said Hasan.
