Mother of slain Pakistani journalist approaches local court against son’s delayed autopsy report

ISLAMABAD: Mother of slain Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif approached the Islamabad High Court on Friday to file a petition against her son’s delayed postmortem report, said the local media, while requesting that the document should not be made public without her family’s permission. 
Sharif, who did a talk show with a local news channel, was killed in Kenya on October 23 when his car sped up and drove through a checkpoint outside Nairobi, prompting the police to open fire. The law enforcement officials in the Kenyan capital expressed regret over the incident, calling it was a case of “mistaken identity” during a search for a car involved in a child abduction case. 
A harsh critic of the incumbent government and the military, the deceased journalist underwent an autopsy in Pakistan after his body was brought back from the African state. He was laid to rest in Islamabad on October 27 amid calls for a transparent investigation into his killing. 
According to The Express Tribune, Sharif’s mother, Riffat Ara Alvi, moved a petition in which she said that her family had contacted the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) where the management had neither provided the report nor denied it to them. 
“The PIMS and local administration have kept Arshad Sharif’s family in the dark about the post-mortem report and humiliated them during this difficult time,” her application said. 
Alvi expressed fear the autopsy report could be altered while requesting that her family should be kept informed about it to ensure transparency. 
She also requested the court to provide Sharif’s postmortem report to his family, asking it “should not be made public without the family’s permission.” 
The slain journalist’s mother also wrote a letter to the country’s chief justice earlier this month, requesting him to form a judicial commission to look into her son’s killing. 
She also criticized the federal administration for first promising a high-powered judicial commission and then forming a team with a retired judge and two federal government officials to probe the case.