Sajid Hussain, Baloch journalist who fled from Pakistan, found dead in Sweden

A Pakistan journalist living in exile in Sweden who had been missing since March has been found dead, police said Friday.

Stockholm: A Pakistan journalist who had been living in exile in Sweden and was missing since March has been found dead, police said Friday. Sajid Hussain had fled Pakistan in 2012 after getting death threats and was granted political asylum in Sweden.

"His body was found on April 23 in the Fyris river outside Uppsala," police spokesman Jonas Eronen told news agency AFP. He had gone missing on March 2.

"The autopsy has dispelled some of the suspicion that he was the victim of a crime," Eronen said.

The police spokesman added Hussain's death could have been the result of an accident or a suicide though homicide has not be completely ruled out. 

Sajid Hussain belonged from the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan, he was the chief editor of the Baluchistan Times, an online magazine he had set up. He wrote about drug trafficking, forced disappearances, organised crime racket and long-running insurgency in the region.

In Sweden, he worked as a part-time professor in Uppsala, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Stockholm. Hussain came to Sweden in 2017 and was given political asylum in the year 2019.

"As long as a crime cannot be excluded, there remains the risk that his death is linked to his work as a journalist," Erik Halkjaer, head of the Swedish branch of Reporters without Borders (RSF).

According to the RSF, Hussain was last seen getting onto a train for Uppsala in Stockholm.

Meanwhile, Hussain`s wife, Shehnaz said that her husband had sensed he was being followed before he fled to Sweden, she told Pakistan newspaper Dawn. 

(With inputs from agencies)