Senior journalist Arshad Sharif died in Kenya’s Nairobi city after reportedly being shot, confirmed his wife Javeria Siddiqui early Monday.
Taking to her official Twitter handle, Siddiqui said “I lost friend, husband and my favorite journalist Arshad today, as per police he was shot in Kenya.”
According to ARY News, police in Kenya have opened an investigation into the gun attack that killed Sharif.
The 49-year-old had worked in various newsrooms in the country and was awarded the Pride of Performance by President Arif Alvi in March 2019.
He leaves behind a wife and five children.
Condolences pour in
Earlier this year, a spate of mysterious first information reports (FIRs) had emerged against journalists – Arshad Sharif, Sabir Shakir and Sami Ibrahim – over charges of sedition and peddling “anti-state” narrative.
The cases against the journalists were filed with police in several districts of Sindh and Balochistan with similar pattern and complaints.
The FIRs, filed by residents of the districts, had alleged that the journalists were stoking anti-national sentiments by maligning Pakistan Army and state institutions.
A case against then ARY News anchor Arshad Sharif was registered at a B-section police station in Hyderabad.
‘Striking the raw nerve’
The FIRs registered against the three journalists, all under similar charges and a similar pattern, had elicited alarms from the rights activists, journalists and politicians who had condemned the “attempt to muzzle press”.
Alarmed by what appeared like a “coordinated attempt” to quell dissent, the journalists and activists had noted that those who used to be in the good books of the powers that be have suddenly become the “enemies of the state” for striking their “raw nerve”.
