Islamabad, June 1 (IANS) Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Wednesday that journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad may have been kidnapped and tortured to death because of personal enmity.
Malik visited the journalist's residence where he told journalists that arrangements had been made to take Shahzad's body to Karachi.
Shahzad, 40, went missing Sunday from outside his residence here. His battered body was found near a canal in Punjab province Tuesday.
The 40-year-old correspondent of Asia Times Online wrote extensively on Islamist groups.
According to friends, he had been threatened in the past by the ISI intelligence agency, which is widely believed to have abducted him Sunday.
He had authored an article for Asia Times that said that Al Qaeda's operational arm attacked Karachi's Mehran naval base after the navy didn't free sailors arrested for suspected Islamist links.