ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral of Arshad Sharif, anchorperson and outspoken military critic who was killed under mysterious circumstances in Kenya, at the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad on Thursday.
Sharif was killed Sunday night when the car he was in sped up and drove through a checkpoint outside the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and police opened fire. Nairobi police expressed regret over the incident, claiming it was a case of “mistaken identity” during a search for a similar car involved in a child abduction case.
A plane carrying his body touched down at the airport in Islamabad just after midnight Wednesday. Early Wednesday, his family, friends and government officials received his body.
دیکھو آنکھیں کھول کر دیکھو ایک شہید ارشد شریف کے ساتھ کتنے ارشد شریف چل رہے ہیں pic.twitter.com/FZHEq7VAkJ
— Ambreen PTI (@AmbreenPTI1) October 27, 2022
The funeral drew up to 400,000 mourners, according to police at the scene, with people spilling into the gardens and surrounding streets.
TV footage showed massive crowds outside and inside the mosque. It was rare in the history of Pakistan for a journalist to have such a large funeral procession. Funeral prayers in absentia were also arranged in cities across the country.
فیصل مسجد میں مرحوم ارشد شریف کا جنازہ pic.twitter.com/utyPb5Hyss
— Saqib Bashir (@saqibbashir156) October 27, 2022
Many media figures attended, but supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party made up a large proportion of the crowd, waving flags and chanting “Arshad, your blood will bring revolution”.
“Arshad Sharif sacrificed his life to expose the faces of the corrupt and we should not let that sacrifice be for nothing,” said Muhammad Iqbal, a 35-year-old shopkeeper and PTI supporter who had travelled from Rawalpindi.
Another participant, Samina Qureshi, said PTI supporters came “to vent our anger against the military which has manipulated politics throughout”.
After prayers, coffin bearers struggled to push through the crowd to a waiting ambulance for onward passage to the H-11 cemetery in Islamabad.
The capacity of Faisal Masjid is 300,000 people. For Arshad Sharif sahabs funeral prayers, the Masjid was full and clogged to the point that the Worshippers lined up at Faisal Avenue and Margalla road to offers prayers. pic.twitter.com/mkOVAqlWVA
— Anas Mallick (@AnasMallick) October 27, 2022
A large contingent of police was deployed at the graveyard where journalists and members of the civil society reached in huge numbers. During the burial, slogans of “Allahu Akbar” and those in favour of former prime minister Imran Khan were chanted.
یہ نعروں کی گونج۔۔ pic.twitter.com/Nuag7cBrL6
— Salman Durrani (@DurraniViews) October 27, 2022
The 50-year-old journalist fled Pakistan in August amid threats to his life. He traveled abroad after going into hiding in his own country to avoid arrest following an anonymous complaint against him on allegations of maligning the military.
His whereabouts were not publicly known. Most of his relatives and friends knew only that he had spent time in Dubai and London.
A month later, Sharif’s employer — ARY News — fired him, claiming, without offering evidence, he had violated the TV station’s social media policy. His talk show POWERPLAY, which aired on Mondays and Thursdays, was discontinued.
— With AFP
