By IANS,
Islamabad : Journalists in Pakistan have been allowed to carry small arms for self-protection following the killing of Syed Saleem Shahzad, who was said to have been picked up by the ISI and tortured.
Geo News quoted Interior Minister Rehman Malik as saying that orders have been passed to allow journalists to carry small arms with them.
Malik visited Shahzad’s residence where he condemned his murder.
The body of Shahzad, 40-year-old correspondent of Asia Times Online who wrote on Islamist groups, was found in a canal in Punjab province.
The journalist had written an article that said the Al Qaeda’s operational arm, 313 Brigade, had carried out the May 22 attack on Karachi’s PNS Mehran naval base after the navy refused to free sailors who had been arrested for suspected Islamist links.
This article may have been linked to his kidnapping and eventual murder, some of his friends say.