Arshad Sharif’s widow demands UN-led probe find facts into assassination

LONDON: Slain journalist Arshad Sharif’s widow Javeria Siddique has called for a probe by the United Nations (UN) into her husband’s brutal murder to find facts behind her husband’s murder.

In a letter written to the President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi and shared by her with this correspondent, Javeria Siddique has called on Pakistan president to help the family in “ensuring a through probe into Shaheed Arshad’s brutal murder by no other than a high-powered international team of experts under direct supervision of United Nations” and “help us in approaching the Supreme Court of Pakistan to form a judicial commission for holding a transparent inquiry into brutal murder of my late Shaheed husband”.

Arshad Sharif was killed on the night of 23rd of October 2022 on Magadi Road by the Kenyan GSU officers as he was being driven to Nairobi by Khurram Ahmad.

She writes in her letter that considerable time has elapsed since the post-mortem report was carried out by both the Kenyan and the Pakistani authorities and “it is our fundamental right to know the truth behind the murder of Shaheed Arshad Sharif”.

The letter says: “There are many discrepancies, anomalies and contradictions in the initial investigations that have forced our family to categorically reject the commissions formed by the government of Pakistan to investigate the gruesome, cold-blooded murder of my Shaheed husband since it is the same government that filed no less than 16 unfounded FIR’s against him.”

She writes: “My Shaheed husband was continuously being harassed by the current political regime to intimidate and scare him by way of different methods, which inter alia, included the registration of fake first information reports (FIRs) against him under so-called “treason” and “sedition” charges in various part of the country, due to which he was compelled to leave Pakistan in August 2022.”

She writes that her slain husband was forced to resign from the private TV channel where he worked for many years and had to leave Pakistan.

Javeria Siddique writes: “Mr Shaheed Arshad Sharif had thereafter taken refuge in UAE but was compelled to leave the country when UAE authorities directed him to leave. He was granted a visa for Azerbaijan and again applied for a UAE visa, which was rejected by the relevant authorities” and then Arshad Sharif “travelled to Kenya from UAE, where he was ultimately brutally murdered”.

The letter says: “Shaheed Arshad Sharif was an upright, fearless, and professional journalist whose only crime was to speak and write the truth against the mighty and the powerful. And this was the reason he was silenced forever. As you can well imagine, we as a family of Shaheed Arshad Sharif were left completely devastated by his gruesome murder. Ever since that ignominious day, we have been desperately running from pillar to post to seek justice for him. Be it the small task of initiation of investigations, conduct and report of post mortem or the absolute shamelessness with which certain people have used his death for the furtherance of their own agendas and the settling of scores, we have not received any support from the state or the country. Pictures of the attack my Shaheed husband suffered have been unlawfully leaked and are being circulated on various forums.

“My Shaheed husband’s dignity is being violated even after his death while his family is being subjected to constant torment by seeing these pictures distributed on social media and elsewhere. We never consented to any of these pictures being displayed and despite pleading with the relevant authorities to tell us how these pictures were made public knowledge, we found no support from officials.”