'Dangerous game': PM Shahbaz berates Imran Khan for 'petty politics' over Arshad Sharif's killing

ISLAMABAD: Lambasting PTI chief Imran Khan for “playing a dangerous game”, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif Wednesday accused him of using the tragic killing of slain journalist Arshad Sharif for “petty politics.”

“Imran Niazi is playing a dangerous game. He is using the tragic killing of Arshad Sharif for petty politics [and] going to the extent of casting aspersions on state institutions,” the premier wrote on Twitter.

Advising the PTI chief to avoid resorting to baseless allegations, PM Shahbaz said he should be patient and wait for the findings of the Judicial Commission.

A day earlier, Khan used the term "target killing" to describe what had happened with the slain journalist, who was killed in a case of "mistaken identity" by the Kenyan police when he was travelling to Nairobi from Kenya’s Magadi town on October 23.

"No matter what anyone says, I know that Arshad Sharif became a victim of target killing,” Khan said, claiming he received information that Sharif would be killed to silence the truth.

Khan added that he had asked the journalist to leave the country, but he denied it. He shared that Sharif was receiving threats from unknown numbers.

On Tuesday, PM Shahbaz formed a judicial commission headed by a high court judge to investigate Sharif's killing, while the Pakistan Army also asked the government to conduct a high-level probe.

The Islamabad High Court Chief Justice Athar Minallah, however, deferred the formation of a judicial commission deeming it a premature step.

The journalist’s body was brought to Islamabad in the early hours of Wednesday and was received by members of his family at the capital's airport. The family has said that it will be conducting a post-mortem of the slain journalist in Pakistan as well.

On the other hand, the family has also announced that his funeral prayers will be offered at the Shah Faisal Mosque Islamabad at 2pm on Thursday. Later, he will be laid to rest at the H-11 cemetery in the federal capital.

Apart from the judicial commission, the government has also reconstituted a team formed to look “ascertain the facts” into the journalist's death.

The government had initially formed a three-member team with Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officers.

But now it has become a two-member team. The team includes FIA Director Athar Waheed and IB’s Deputy Director General Omar Shahid Hamid.