The government reduced the size of a team established to look into the murder of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya from three to two on Wednesday by excluding an Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official, leaving only representatives from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) on the team.
To begin with, the interior minister on Tuesday assembled a trio of investigators to look into the slaying: Lt Col Saad Ahmed of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), FIA director Athar Wahid, and IB deputy director general Omar Shahid Hamid.
The IB and FIA officials were the only ones identified in the Ministry of Interior’s notification, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com. It made no mention of why the ISI official was left out. The announcement stated, “The team will immediately fly to Kenya,” and added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Pakistan’s High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya, will assist the committee members’ visit. It was said that the committee would give the interior division a copy of its report. An eight-person team of senior medical professionals performed Sharif’s postmortem, according to information provided to Dawn.com by Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Hospital Director Dr. Khalid Masud later in the day.
Masud, Professor SH Waqar, Professor Dr. Mumtaz Khan Niazi, Professor Dr. Farrukh Kamal, Professor Dr. Irshad Hussain, Professor Dr. Nasreen Butt, Professor Dr. Altaf Hussain, and Professor Dr. Mohammad Umar Farooq made up the team. According to the advice of the medical staff, he claimed that the journalist’s X-ray had been finished while the CT scan was running. Masud stated that Sharif would probably subsequently be moved to the mortuary at the Quaid-e-Azam International Hospital. Sharif’s wife Javeria Siddique claimed in a tweet to have been present during the proceedings and to have received assistance from the PIMS administration and police. She announced that Sharif’s funeral would take place at the Shah Faisal Mosque on Thursday at 2:00 p.m.
میں ارشد سے ملی ہوں انکا پوسٹ مارٹم ہورہا ہے پمز میں۔ انتطامیہ پمز پولیس بہت تعاون کررہی ہے۔انکا جنازہ کل شاہ فیصل مسجد 2 بجے ہوگا آپ سب سے گزارش ہے کہ اپنے ہیرو شہید کو عوامی اعزاز سے دفن کریں۔
— Javeria Siddique (@javerias) October 26, 2022
In the meantime, Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, charged Imran Khan, the leader of the PTI, with “playing a deadly game” about Sharif’s slaying. The prime minister tweeted that Imran should wait for the results of the judicial commission instead of making “baseless claims” since he was leveraging Arshad Sharif’s unfortunate death for petty politics and going so far as to cast doubt on state institutions.
Imran Niazi is playing a dangerous game. He is using tragic killing of Arshad Sharif for petty politics & going to the extent of casting aspersions on state institutions. He should be patient & wait for findings of Judicial Commission instead of resorting to baseless allegations.
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) October 26, 2022
Imran had asserted that Arshad Sharif had been the victim of a targeted homicide the day before. “Sharif understood that his life was in jeopardy. He was aware that he was getting warnings frequently. He didn’t step back. I commanded him to back off, but he remained unfazed, and finally, there was this targeted killing. Whatever others may argue, I can’t deny that this was a targeted killing.
Additionally, he claimed Sharif had received threats from “unknown numbers.” The dead journalist’s body landed in Islamabad earlier today. His wife Javeria Siddique posted on Twitter, “My Arshad has returned but in [a] coffin.” She added a video displaying the casket as well.
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