Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Major General Babar Iftikhar on Tuesday said the military has requested the government to conduct a \u201chigh-level investigation\u201d into the killing of journalist Arshad Sharif in Kenya.
\nSharif was shot dead in Kenya allegedly by the local police on Sunday night, with an official police statement later expressing \u201cregrets on the unfortunate incident\u201d and saying an investigation was underway.
\nInitially, Kenyan media quoted the local police as saying Sharif was shot dead by police in a case of \u201cmistaken identity\u201d.
\nThe DG ISPR, condoling the journalist\u2019s death, called for an inquiry into the killing in an interview on 24 News when he was asked to comment on the allegations being made against the institutions.
\n\u201cWe have requested the government to hold a high-level investigation so that all these speculations can be put to rest,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cIt is very unfortunate that people indulge in allegations [\u2026] and I think a thorough investigation needs to be conducted to tackle these things. I believe that the probe should not just be into these things but also on why Arshad Sharif had to leave Pakistan,\u201d the DG ISPR said.
\nGen Iftikhar stressed that it was important to find answers to questions regarding who forced Sharif to leave Pakistan, where did he live all this time, and what were the circumstances leading to this incident.
\n\u201cBecause in all these stages, unfortunately, allegations are leveled at the end of the day, and institutions are accused. So this speculation has to be put to rest and it has to come to an end.
\n\u201cAnd this is why we have requested the Government of Pakistan to take legal action against all these people who are leveling allegations without any evidence,\u201d he added.
\nRecalling Sharif\u2019s work over the years, the DG ISPR said that the journalist was a \u201cvery professional man\u201d and his programmes would be remembered as \u201ctextbook journalism\u201d.
\n\u201cThis is why it is most upsetting that his death is being used for baseless conversations and fingers are being raised on it. We just have to see who is using this unfortunate incident [\u2026] who is the beneficiary of this thing [\u2026] this needs to come to an end,\u201d Gen Iftikhar added.
\nHours before the DG ISPR\u2019s interview, in a speech at a lawyer convention in Peshawar, PTI chief Imran Khan claimed that the slain journalist was a victim of \u201ctarget killing\u201d.
\n\u201cHe [Sharif] 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 \u2026 then he started getting threats from unknown numbers to \u2018not say this or speak the truth\u2019 when he started exposing this regime.
\n\u201cThen 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\u2019t speak the truth,\u201d the former premier claimed, adding that he had then advised Sharif to leave the country.
\n\u201cHe refused [to leave]. Then, I told him that I have information, the same way I had information about a plot to kill me.\u201d
\nImran said Sharif left the country but was being called back when his visa in the UAE was about to expire. \u201cNot because he committed a crime but just so he doesn\u2019t speak the truth. And they wanted to do the same with him what they did with Azam Swati, Shahbaz Gill and Jameel Farooqui,\u201d Imran added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General (DG) Major General Babar Iftikhar on Tuesday said the military has requested the government to conduct a \u201chigh-level investigation\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2126,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}