An award winning Pakistani journalist, Arshad Sharif, has been shot dead while on exile in Kenya, his wife, Javeria Siddique, confirmed early Monday morning.
In a tweet announcing her husband’s death, Siddique said:
“I lost friend, husband and my favourite journalist [Arshad Sharif] today, as per police he was shot in Kenya,” she tweeted.
The Pakistan Foreign Office in the East African country which also confirmed the killing of the journalist, said the country’s high commissioner to Kenya, along with other officials, reached Chiromo Funeral House in Nairobi where she identified Sharif’s body.
“Further procedures including police report are awaited,” the statement said, while promising that the high commission would facilitate early return of Sharif’s body to Pakistan.
Though the circumstances leading to Sharif’s death is still unclear, Kenyan media quoted the local police as saying Sharif was shot dead by the police at a checkpoint in a case of “mistaken identity” on Sunday night along the Nairobi-Magadi highway.
Kenya’s Information Minister, Marriyum Aurangzeb, who spoke to journalists, said Sharif was shot at a police checkpoint at an hour’s distance from Nairobi.
“He was travelling with a man named Kurram Ahmed. The car was driven by a local. It is being said that they refused to stop at the police check post. We can’t say anything until and unless all these details are shared by the Kenyan government,” she was quoted as saying.
Sharif, according to his profile on Wikipedia, was a fierce critic of the incumbent Pakistani government and the country’s military establishment. He fled the country earlier this year after sedition cases were registered against him in different cities.
