In what authorities have dubbed a “mistaken identification,” senior Pakistani journalist and TV host Arshad Sharif was fatally shot Sunday evening along the Nairobi-Magadi highway.
Sharif and his driver allegedly violated a roadblock that had been put up to check on vehicles along the route, according to accounts in the local media. As a result, Sharif was shot in the head and murdered by police.
The incident also resulted in injuries to his driver.
They were flagged down at a roadblock being held by a group of police officials while traveling from Magadi town to Nairobi, according to the police.
According to authorities, after a carjacking incident in the Pangani neighborhood of Nairobi where a child was taken hostage, the police were intended to stop a car similar to the one Sharif and his driver were driving at the roadblock.
Earlier, Sharif’s wife Javeria Siddique said on Twitter: “I lost 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 please don’t share our family pics, personal details, and his last pictures from the hospital. Remember us in your prayers,” she added.
“Arshad Sharif’s death is a great loss to journalism and Pakistan. May his soul rest in peace and may his family, which includes his followers, have the strength to bear this loss,” President Arif Alvi tweeted.
Sharif worked for the neighborhood English newspaper Dawn before spending several years hosting a well-liked political program at ARY News, a nearby broadcaster.
After his channel cut ties with him in August and the overthrow of former Prime Minister Imran Khan by a no-trust vote in April, Sharif had departed the country, first for Dubai and then for London.
In connection with a contentious interview with Shahbaz Gill, the head of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which aired on the station in August, Sharif and other ARY staff members were accused of sedition. Later, after being detained, Gill was freed on bond.
Arshad Sharif, a Pakistani journalist, was killed, according to the Independent Police Oversight Authority (Ipoa) of Kenya, which claims to have opened an investigation.
A rapid reaction team has been dispatched to investigate the journalist’s murder, according to the organization’s head, Ann Makori, who spoke to journalists in Nairobi, the country’s capital.
Sharif was a well-known Khan loyalist who openly condemned the suspected involvement of governmental institutions in the removal of Khan.
