New Delhi: The identification of the body of a self-exiled Pakistani journalist from Balochistan in Sweden, nearly a month after he was reported missing, has led to concerns that security agencies in Pakistan could be behind his death.
Sajid Hussain, who had been living in Sweden since 2017, had been reported missing by his family on March 2, when he was last seen getting on a train. His body had been recovered in Uppsala on April 23, but was identified only on May 1.
AFP reported that the head of the Swedish branch of Reporters without Borders (RSF), Erik Halkjaer has claimed that his death could be the handiwork of Pakistani security agencies. “As long as a crime cannot be excluded, there remains the risk that his death is linked to his work as a journalist,” Halkjaer said.
RSF also noted that Hussain’s profile meant it could not be ruled out that he had been abducted and killed “at the behest of a Pakistani intelligence agency”.
The local police spokesperson Jonas Eronen told AFP that “autopsy has dispelled some of the suspicion that he was the victim of a crime”. However, Eronen added that while a crime could not be completely ruled out, Hussain’s death could equally have been the result of an accident or a suicide.
While Hussain had gone missing in early March, the announcement about his disappearance was made only on March 28. According to Committee to Protect Journalists, his family had not gone public with news about his disappearance in order to prevent any interference in police investigation.
Both his wife, Shahnaz Baloch and his friend, Abdul Malik, with whom he had been staying in Stockholm said that Hussain had been in good spirits and was planning to move to a new apartment in Uppsala.
“We just want police to investigate the cause of death and give an answer to his family and friends…We want to know what happened,” Malik told The Guardian.
Besides working as a professor in a university, Hussain also ran an online news site, Balochistan Times, as editor-in-chief.
Having written extensively about disappearances in Balochistan, it was ultimately death threats that made him leave Pakistan in 2012. “His work often got him into trouble as the authorities did not like his reporting of Balochistan’s forbidden stories, the reason he had to leave and live in exile,” said the Balochistan Times report on Hussain’s death.
Following news of his death, his friend, Zia-ur-Rehman tweeted a series of his most important articles, which ranged from Iran’s missile attacks targeting Baloch militants and his exposé of a narcotics kingpin.
Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch’s executive director also highlighted Hussain’s death.
In a 2018 article in Diplomat about disappearances in Pakistan, Hussain eloquently explained to the author as to why he felt compelled to write about missing persons.
“The dead do not haunt me as much as the missing do…To tell the truth, I feel relieved when I hear about the discovery of a missing person’s body. But the stories of those languishing blindfolded in tiny, dark cells for years make me avoid dark, congested places.
My prose betrays me if I try to write about any subject other than the missing persons. I am forced to think I should be trying to help highlight another case of enforced disappearance. At the same time, I’m bored of writing the same damn story for over 10 years. ‘The story of this guy who was whisked away by uniformed men and is still missing.’ I want to write about happier things, about personal things. The problem is I can’t. Is that what you call PTSD?”
He leaves behind a wife and two children.