Two-member probe team leaves for Kenya today to investigate Arshad Sharif's murder

An inquiry committee set up to investigate the murder of renowned journalist Arshad Sharif is all set to leave for Kenya today. 

The federal interior ministry formed the fact-finding body to ascertain the facts involving the killing of the investigative journalist. 

The committee had previously had three members -- one each from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB).

However, the number of team members has been reduced to two. The team now includes FIA Director Athar Waheed and IB’s Deputy Director General Omar Shahid Hamid.

The inquiry body will leave for Kenya this morning from Islamabad via Doha. The team will be staying in the country for 15 days.

The team has been provided with relevant documents, including Arshad Sharif's postmortem report.

According to the notification issued by the interior ministry, the investigation team will immediately leave for Kenya and submit its report to the ministry.

Apart from the two-member team, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has also announced that a judicial commission headed by a high court judge will conduct a probe into Sharif’s killing.

The Kenyan police, in its report, admitted that Sharif was shot in the head in a mistaken identity case.

Sharif's body was brought to Islamabad in the early hours of Wednesday [October 26]. Members of his family received his body at the Islamabad airport.

His funeral prayers were offered at the Shah Faisal Mosque Islamabad at 2pm on Thursday. Later, he was laid to rest at the H-11 cemetery in the federal capital.

Excessive blood loss led to his death, reveals postmortem report

Slain journalist Arshad Sharif died of blood loss thirty minutes after he was shot in the chest and head, the report of a preliminary post-mortem conducted in Pakistan revealed on Thursday.

An eight-member medical board comprising senior doctors from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science (PIMS) released the report after performing the autopsy on Sharif’s body. During the postmortem, the body was also X-rayed and CT-scanned.

According to the report, fragments of metal from bullets found in Sharif’s lungs, heart, stomach, kidney and other parts of the body have been dispatched to the forensic laboratory.

The final report would be prepared after receiving the forensic laboratory’s findings.

Arshad Sharif, a popular TV anchorperson as well as an investigative journalist, was killed by the Kenyan police in a "mistaken identity" shooting on Sunday night near the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

Kenyan police account of Arshad Sharif's death

Taking responsibility of Arshad Sharif's murder, the Kenyan police said he was gunned down when police, tracking down a jacked car, opened indiscriminate fire on his vehicle mistaking it for a stolen vehicle.

A Kenyan police report said that they suspected the car had a minor hostage as it sped through a manned barricade without stopping. However, the country's police later changed their stance  as they claimed they were first shot at from the car. 

No mistaken identity but killed with a plot: Faisal Vawda

However, PTI leader Faisal Vawda disputed the Kenyan police's account of Arshad Sharif's killing under a mistaken identity case. He said his murder was pre-meditated and the conspiracy was hatched in Pakistan.

The PTI leader said that Arshad's martyrdom was a pre-conspired murder, not a mere accident. Arshad Sharif was shot down at a close range, he pointed out.

He also said that "conspirators" blackmailed and threatened Arshad to leave Pakistan, so he went to Dubai.