Pakistan’s Interior Ministry has formed an investigation team to probe the killing of renowned journalist Arshad Sharif.
The ministry issued a notification saying that the investigation team include officers from Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
FIA Director Athar Waheed, Deputy Director-General IB Shahid Hamid and ISI Lt Col Saad Ahmed are part of the probe team.
According to the notification issued by the interior ministry, the investigation team was to immediately leave for Kenya and submit its report to the ministry.
The foreign ministry and the officials of the Pakistani High Commission in Kenya are to assist the team.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, while confirming the formation of the team, shared that the team will examine the complete reasons and motives behind Sharif’s departure from Pakistan to Dubai and from Dubai to Kenya.
“Investigative team will submit the final report to the Ministry of Interior,” said Sanaullah.
Sharif was shot and killed by the Kenyan police in a “mistaken identity” case on October 23, 2022, while he was travelling to Nairobi from Magadi town.
Sharif’s body was repatriated to Islamabad in the early hours of Wednesday, October 27, 2022. Members of his family received his body at the Islamabad airport.
Social media posts show dozens of motorists joining the hearse ferrying Sharif’s remains from the airport in Islamabad.
The family announced that his funeral prayers would be offered at the Shah Faisal Mosque Islamabad at 2 pm on Thursday. Later, he will be laid to rest at the H-11 cemetery in the federal capital.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan insists Sharif was targeted.
“No matter what anyone says, I know that Arshad Sharif became a victim of target killing. I had received information that Sharif would be killed so that truth could be silenced,” Imran Khan said while addressing a lawyer’s convention in Peshawar on Tuesday.
The former premier also claimed that Sharif was receiving threats from unknown numbers.
“I told him to leave the country, but he did not listen,” Khan shared, adding that he considered Sharif the most respected figure in journalism.
Sharif had left Pakistan after threats on his life for critically reporting on the current Prime Minister.
According to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Sharif left Pakistan after police issued an arrest warrant following his interview on ARY TV with Shahbaz Gill, a close aide to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who made comments considered offensive by the military.
However, the Pakistan Army on Tuesday asked the government to conduct a high-level probe into the tragic killing of the journalist.
“We have requested the government to hold a high-level investigation so that all these speculations can be put to rest. All the aspects of this terrible incident need to be looked into,” Director General (DG) Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Lt Gen Babar Iftikhar said.
To a question regarding the accusations being hurled at the institutions’ alleged involvement in Sharif’s killing in Kenya, the DG ISPR said: “It is very unfortunate that people engage in allegations without any evidence to back them up … and I think an exhaustive investigation should be carried out to deal with these things.”
…Additional reporting by Geo News
