LAHORE: Friends and family members of missing journalist\nSajid Hussain Baloch said on Friday that his body was found in a river near the\nSwedish city of Uppsala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French news agency AFP quoted police spokesman Jonas Eronen\nas saying that his body was found on April 23 in the Fyris river outside\nUppsala.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The journalist from Balochistan was working part-time as a\nteacher in Uppsala, situated about 60km north of Stockholm, when he went\nmissing on March 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taj Baloch, a close friend of the deceased, told Dawn from\nSweden that he was alerted by police, who had found a body in a river near\nUppsala city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the body was said to have been decomposed to such an\nextent that the person\u2019s face could not be recognised, and the police\nascertained his identity through fingerprints and a jacket he was wearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe police have said they will take some more days for\nother reports to come in, such as on toxicology and other aspects which may\ndetermine how Sajid may have fallen into the river,\u201d said Taj Baloch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, it should be noted that his body was found around\neight days ago, whereas our friend has been missing since March 2.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said it was strange that the journalist\u2019s body had been\nfound from a river when the rivers had previously been searched but nothing had\ncome up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A member of Sajid\u2019s extended family said they were in no\nposition to speak to the media at present as they were told only on Thursday\nnight about the body\u2019s discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taj said that because of the lockdown in Sweden none of\nSajid\u2019s family members could collect the body, but he would help in sending his\nbody and belongings back to his hometown in Balochistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AFP quoted police spokesman Eronen as saying that Sajid\nmight not have been a victim of any crime. \u201cThe autopsy has dispelled some of\nthe suspicion that he was the victim of a crime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police spokesman added that while a crime could not be\ncompletely ruled out, the death could equally have been the result of an\naccident or a suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs long as a crime cannot be excluded, there remains the\nrisk that his death is linked to his work as a journalist,\u201d Erik Halkjaer, head\nof the Swedish branch of Reporters without Borders (RSF), told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the RSF, Sajid was last seen getting onto a\ntrain for Uppsala in Stockholm. He went to Sweden in 2017 and secured political\nasylum in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ)\nissued a press statement urging the Pakistani government to direct its mission\nin Sweden and to press the Swedish government for an impartial inquiry into the\njournalist\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An investigation should immediately be initiated into the\ncase, said the statement issued by PFUJ president Shahzada Zulfiqar and\nsecretary general Nasir Zaidi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a failure on the Swedish government\u2019s part that they\ndid not protect Sajid, whose life was already under threat,\u201d said Nasir Zaidi.\n\u201cWe know that he was not safe while in Pakistan, and if this was a murder it is\nmost condemnable, and the murderers should be instantly arrested. It is also\nshocking that a journalist was found dead in a country which advocates freedom\nof speech and expression.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sajid Baloch had been under threat while working on missing\npersons in Balochistan, after which he fled the country in 2012. He worked in\nmany countries, including Oman, Dubai and Uganda, after which he settled in\nSweden where he lived as a refugee for two years and received a citizenship in\n2019. His family was in the process of joining him there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to stop speculations, the Balochistan Times\nwebsite, which was founded by Sajid, released a statement on Friday, which\nsaid: \u201cSajid, 39, was a prominent journalist and hailed from Balochistan… He\nwas compassionate and wrote extensively on the suffering of the Baloch people.\nHis work often got him into trouble as the authorities did not like his\nreporting of Balochistan\u2019s forbidden stories, the reason he had to leave and\nlive in exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs a man, Sajid was kind and sympathetic. His support was\nunconditional, his love undying… He leaves behind an extended family,\nincluding his two children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newspaper: Dawn<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related links: BBC<\/a>, Guardian<\/a>\n, The\nNews<\/a>, Business\nRecorder<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAHORE: Friends and family members of missing journalist Sajid Hussain Baloch said on Friday that his body was found in a river near the Swedish city of Uppsala. French news agency AFP quoted police spokesman Jonas Eronen as saying that his body was found on April 23 in the Fyris river outside Uppsala. The journalist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[4],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8965"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pakistanfoemonitor.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}