A Pakistani journalist living in exile in Sweden has been missing for nearly a month, stoking fears that his disappearance is tied to his reporting on Balochistan, a press rights group said on Tuesday.
Sajid Hussain went missing on March 2, police said.
Originally from Balochistan Province, he has been living and working as a part-time lecturer in the Swedish city of Uppsala.
However, he is also chief editor of online news outlet the Balochistan Times.
Hussain was last seen boarding a train from Stockholm to Uppsala “with the aim of collecting the keys to his new apartment and leaving some personal effects there,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.
He has not been in contact with anyone since.
“No one, including his family, has heard anything from him,” RSF Swedish branch president Erik Halkjaer told reporters.
As his articles crossed the line of what Pakistan’s military deems acceptable, it could not be ruled out that the Pakistani intelligence services was involved, RSF said.
The Balochistan Times has reported on human rights abuses, as well as some of the active rebel groups in Balochistan.
There have been previous cases where exiled Pakistani journalists residing in Europe have been harassed and threatened over their reporting.
In February, blogger Ahmad Waqass Goraya was attacked and threatened outside his home in Rotterdam, Netherlands, by two men speaking Urdu.
RSF said that based on confidential information it had obtained, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency keeps a list of exiled reporters.
Hussain is a well-known journalist in Balochistan and his work has largely focused on drug trafficking, forced disappearances and the Balochistan insurgency.
Hussain in 2017 left Pakistan for Oman and then moved to Sweden, where according to police he received asylum last year.
A police spokesman told reporters that they were actively investigating the disappearance based on several theories, but could not comment on details as the investigation was still ongoing.
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