Height of dishonesty for Imran Khan to play victim card: Khawaja Asif

Chairman PTI Imran Khan and ARY's Salman Iqbal need to be part of the Arshad Sharif murder probe voluntarily, said Federal Defence Minister Khawaja Asif. 

The PML-N leader expressed the demand while speaking in the Geo News programme 'Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath' on Thursday. The federal minister called on the duo to share any piece of information they have in connection with the murder of the renowned journalist Arshad Sharif.

They [Imran Khan and Salman  Iqbal] should share evidence regarding the killing of the  journalist if they are sincere with him, said the PML-N leader. 

If the two do not appear before the commission, this leaves a lot to doubt, he said. The minister said it is the height of dishonesty that they are playing the victim card to keep their politics and media house intact.

Khawaja Asif said a couple of days after Imran Khan claimed that slain journalist Arshad Sharif was killed in a "targeted attack." “No matter what anyone says, I know that Arshad Sharif became a victim of target killing,” Khan claimed while addressing a lawyer’s convention in Peshawar on October 25.

Khawaja Asif said that if they opt not to appear before the competent authority probing the murder of Arshad Sharif, they are rightly being pinpointed.

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 in a mistaken identity case. He said his murder was premeditated 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 close range, he pointed out.

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