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ISLAMABAD: The body of Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif, who was shot and killed by police in Nairobi on Sunday, arrived in Islamabad shortly after midnight on Wednesday, as the Pakistani government sent a two-man team to Kenya to investigate the outspoken anchorman’s murder.
According to Kenyan police, Sharif was killed when the car he was in sped up and drove through a checkpoint outside the Kenyan capital, prompting police to open fire. Police in Nairobi say the shooting was being treated as a case of mistaken identity.
The circumstances surrounding Sharif’s death have sparked widespread outrage in Pakistan and demand an investigation.
Sharif, a hugely popular talk show host, has recently been a fierce critic of the current ruling coalition and the army, fleeing the country in August citing threats to his life. He was also widely considered to be a strong supporter of ex-prime minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf opposition party.
When he left Pakistan, he was facing a host of court cases related to charges of sedition and others. He was believed to have been in the United Arab Emirates since leaving Pakistan and had recently traveled to Kenya.
In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, Pakistan’s interior ministry, on instructions from the Prime Minister’s Office, said a two-member team had been set up to “verify the facts related to the killing of senior journalist Arshad Sharif from the Kenyan police and relevant authorities.”
The team includes Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Athar Waheed and Intelligence Agency Deputy Director General Omar Shahid Hamid.
“The team will travel to Kenya immediately,” the circular said, adding that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Pakistan High Commission in Nairobi would facilitate the visit. It did not specify a time frame for the team to complete the investigation.
Meanwhile, the body of the slain journalist was received at the Islamabad airport by his family, friends and a crowd of hundreds of well-wishers early on Wednesday morning before being shifted to the mortuary at a private hospital in Rawalpindi.
Sharif’s family said he would undergo an autopsy in Islamabad, and on Thursday be buried at the H-11 cemetery after funeral prayers at 2pm at Islamabad’s Shah Faisal Mosque.
Sharif left Pakistan in August after going into hiding in his own country in July to avoid arrest following a citizen’s complaint against him on charges of defaming the country’s national institutions, a reference to the military. His whereabouts were not publicly known.
A month later, Sharif’s employer, private ARY Television, fired him, saying he had violated the station’s social media policy. His talk show “Power Play”, which aired on Mondays and Thursdays, was cancelled.
The TV channel had earlier in the year been critical of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif after his predecessor, Imran Khan, was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April. Khan claimed he was ousted as part of a US plot, a charge both Washington and the Pakistani government deny. Journalist Sharif, who is not related to the prime minister, had been a prominent critic of Khan’s ouster.
Khan told a gathering of lawyers in the city of Peshawar on Tuesday that he had asked the slain journalist to leave the country because his life was in danger in Pakistan. He praised Sharif and said he was among those journalists who never bowed to pressure.