ANKARA (AFP) - A Turkish shop owner has allegedly stabbed a journalist to death after a snowball hit his store window in Istanbul, local media reported on Wednesday.

Mr Nuh Koklu was tossing snowballs with a group of friends in the Kadikoy district on the Asian side of Istanbul on Tuesday night when one hit the window of a spice shop, the private Dogan news agency reported.

The seller later allegedly emerged with a knife and stabbed the journalist in the heart, according to Dogan. Mr Koklu died in an ambulance while travelling to a hospital. Police detained the shop owner, Dogan reported.

Relatives of the victim said they believed the stabbing may have had more to do with Mr Koklu's opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's policies than the snowball. The leftist freelance journalist had previously participated in a demonstration in the same neighbourhood against a government-driven Bill boosting police powers.