The find follows an announcement yesterday by the Taliban that Indian national P.M. Kutty was shot dead on the orders of the Islamic movement.

Hashem Alekozai, district governor of Khashrod in Nimroz province speaking Wednesday to RFE/RL said: "In the area of Perozi Wa Raken, in the desert, the body has been found. Last night [the Taliban] carried him in a car from Bakwa towards Khashrod and killed him there. The [police] who were on patrol informed me that they found his body and that he was slaughtered."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned today the killing of the Indian citizen working in Afghanistan and said: "We, the people of Afghanistan, condemn this killing. We consider this killing, whether it is done by the Taliban, as was announced in the name of Taliban or those who speak in the name of the Taliban, to be an act of cowardice, in that this act of cowardice, or any other act of cowardice that will follow, will not stop Afghanistan from its effort to reconstruct and build the country."

Kutty was abducted on Saturday along with an Afghan driver and two Afghan police guards in southwestern Nimroz province.

The Interior Ministry says the driver has been released but the guards' fate remains unclear.

All four were working for a company refurbishing the main road from Kandahar to Herat.