Mexico City, Oct 19 (IANS/EFE) Mexican authorities are investigating the suspected kidnaping and murder of an organised crime watchdog activist who ran a Website that alerted inhabitants of the state of Tamaulipas of public safety risks.
"We're working on it," a source at the Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office told Efe, adding that a relative of the activist, Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio, reported that she had been abducted by armed assailants Wednesday.
Word spread Thursday on social networking sites and the Twitter account of ValorTamaulipas (CourageTamaulipas), which reports about public safety risks in that state, that Fuentes Rubio, a doctor by profession, had been kidnapped, tortured and killed.
The activist alerted citizens about organised crime-related public safety risks in Reynosa, a border city in Tamaulipas through her Twitter account, which was suspended Thursday after two photographs were distributed online apparently showing her dead body.
The Gulf and Los Zetas drug cartels have been fighting for control of Tamaulipas and smuggling routes into the US for years.
In May, Mexico's government launched a security strategy for Tamaulipas that consisted of deploying more federal forces and ordering a purge of law-enforcement agencies in an effort to stop the surge in drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and people smuggling in that northeastern state.
--IANS/EFE
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