Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan attacked the Pakistani government while calling the death of Pakistan journalist Arshad Sharif a ‘targeted killing’.
While addressing the public at a lawyers’ convention in Peshawar, the Former Pakistan Prime Minister called Sharif a martyr, Dawn reported on Tuesday.
The PTI Chairman Imran Khan on Tuesday claimed that slain journalist Arshad Sharif was a victim of a targeted killing.
Imran paid tribute to Sharif, calling him “a brave patriot who never compromised his conscience”. He also spoke about his immense respect and admiration for the journalist.
Imran said Sharif stood for “justice, truth and Pakistan’s interests”, adding that he himself had received criticism from the journalist on numerous occasions.
He attacked the Sharif and Zardari families, the two coalition parties in the current Pakistan government by saying that he exposed these two families.
“He never spared any mafia. He exposed these two families (Sharif and Zardari families) in every programme with proof but no one could scare or buy him … then he started getting threats from unknown numbers to ‘not say this or speak the truth’ when he started exposing this regime,” Dawn quoted Imran as saying.
He alleged that Sharif was being given death threats earlier and Khan knew about it. He also gave reference to the alleged plot to “kill” Khan.
“Then I received information that they were about to kill him. They invaded his home and scared him in front of his family just so that he doesn’t speak the truth.
He said that he advised him to leave the country, but he refused.
“I told him I have information, the same way I had information about a plot to kill me,” Khan said.
They wanted to do the same with him what they did with Azam Swati, Shahbaz Gill and Jameel Farooqui,” Imran added as per Dawn.
Earlier on Monday, Arshad Sharif’s wife Javeria Siddique informed that his husband died in Kenya after being shot.
“I lost a friend, husband and my favourite journalist @arsched today, as per police he was shot in Kenya. Respect our privacy and in the name of breaking pls don’t share our family pics, personal details and his last pictures from the hospital. Remember us in ur prayers,” Sharif’s wife Javeria Siddique said in a Twitter post.
Pakistan is one of the world’s deadliest countries for journalists, with three to four murders each year that are often linked to corruption or illegal trafficking and go completely unpunished, according to a Paris-based media watchdog.
“Any journalist who crosses the red lines dictated by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) – an intelligence agency offshoot – is liable to be the target of in-depth surveillance that could lead to abduction and detention for varying lengths of time in the state’s prisons or less official jails,” said Reporters Without Borders.
Furthermore, the watchdog said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s leading military intelligence agency, is prepared to silence any criticism.