ISLAMABAD: The wife of journalist Arshad Sharif, who was brutally murdered in Kenya last month, has written a letter to Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi, seeking a United Nations-led probe into his killing, it emerged Saturday.
Sharif, a popular talk show host at a local Pakistani news channel, was killed in Kenya on October 23 after he went on the run, leaving his home country in August over threats to his life.
Police in the Kenyan capital called the shooting death a case of “mistaken identity” during a search for a car involved in a child abduction case. The Pakistani government has since said it believes the journalist was murdered in a “targeted killing.”
Sharif’s body was brought back to Pakistan days after his murder and an autopsy was conducted at the PIMS hospital in Islamabad on October 27, which reportedly revealed that Sharif’s body bore signs of torture. Neither PIMS nor the Pakistani government have confirmed the reports.
In her letter to the president, Sharif’s wife said his cold-blooded murder and details of the gruesome torture that had come to light required an independent and transparent investigation, citing “discrepancies, anomalies and contradictions” in the initial investigation.
“I, therefore, request you to help us in ensuring a through probe into Shaheed Arshad’s brutal murder by no other than a high-powered international team of experts under direct supervision of United Nations, for dispensation of justice that my shaheed husband truly deserves,” Sharif’s wife, Javeria Siddique, wrote in her letter to President Alvi, dated November 17.
Sharif, a prominent Pakistani broadcaster, became a harsh critic of the incumbent government and the military toward the end of his life.
He went into hiding in his own country in July to avoid arrest after several cases related to charges of sedition and others were filed against him. He was believed to have been in the UAE since leaving Pakistan before he decided to travel to Kenya.
Sharif’s death unleashed outrage among the public and media in Pakistan, and calls for a transparent investigation into the murder.
Siddique said her husband was continuously being “harassed by the current political regime to intimidate and scare him by way of different methods, which inter alia, included the registration of fake first information reports (FIRs) against him under so-called ‘treason’ and ‘sedition’ charges in various part of the country, due to which he was compelled to leave Pakistan in August 2022.”
“We as a family of Shaheed Arshad Sharif were left completely devastated by his gruesome murder. Ever since that ignominious day, we have been desperately running from pillar to post to seek justice for him,” she said.
“Be it the small task of initiation of investigations, conduct and report of post mortem or the absolute shamelessness with which certain people have used his death for the furtherance of their own agendas and the settling of scores, we have not received any support from the state or the country.”
She also requested the president to help them approach the Supreme Court for the formation of a judicial commission for a transparent inquiry into the brutal murder of her husband.
