The corpse of the man, who the army said was abducted on September 12, was found Sunday tied with electrical wire to a telegraph post in the district of Tatvan of Bitlis province in southeastern Turkey.

"He was killed by shots fired from different directions to the face and to the body," the army said in a statement.

Turkish media said the corpse had been spotted by local residents. Previous reports said the man had been found hanged.

The army blamed the "separatist terror organisation", its customary phrase to describe the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to which it never refers to by name.

The PKK has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's southeast which has claimed 40,000 lives since 1984.

Despite a ceasefire in place since March 2013, tensions have spiralled in recent weeks over the government's strategy against Islamic State jihadists.

The dead man -- named as Nihat Caprak -- worked as an armed village guard under a system created by the authorities in the 1980s to protect villages against attacks by the PKK. In the past, the village guards have often been targeted by the PKK.

His killing came after three Turkish soldiers were shot dead on a busy street in southeast Turkey on Saturday, in a killing the army also blamed on the PKK.