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Islamabad court issues non-bailable arrest warrants for Arshad Sharif’s widow, show producer
Umer Burney Published September 9, 2023 Updated about 2 hours ago
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An Islamabad district and sessions court issued non-bailable arrest warrants for slain journalist Arshad Sharif’s widow, Summaiya Arshad, and the producer of his programme on ARY News, Ali Usman.
The warrants were issued over non-compliance with court summons and the witnesses’ repeated failure to appear before the court to record their testimonies in the murder case of Sharif, who was shot dead in Kenya in October last year.
However, Summaiyya — Arshad’s first wife — claimed while speaking to ARY News that the court had not issued a summon to her.
She further said she had no knowledge of the arrest warrant before the media reported the news.
“I am finding out from the media and no one told me that non-bailable arrest warrants were issued against me,” she said.
Summaiya added that the FIR of her husband’s murder was registered on the state’s complaint and not the one filed by his family.
“So I don’t know about this case or its details. I only [know] of the Supreme Court’s suo motu notice case on Arshad’s murder and I was present and available on all of its dates,” she said.
Sharif’s second wife, Javeria Siddique, also denied receiving any summons from the sessions court.
“This is victimisation as I never received any summons but I have seen on social media my house address is mentioned in it. This is harassment and another attempt to silence the family of slain journalist Arshad Sharif,” she posted on social media platform X.
ARY News director Ammad Yousaf also said the case was “based on an FIR (first information report) rejected by the family since day one”.
“The family has no idea about this trial happening. They never received any summons by the police or court nor do they want to appear to give credibility to this bogus trial,” he said.
The PTI also criticised the development.
Meanwhile, former Dawn editor Abbas Nasir described the development as “outrageous” .
The case
A fierce critic of the incumbent government and the country’s military establishment, Sharif had left Pakistan in August 2022 after multiple cases of sedition were registered against him in different cities. It was reported that he initially stayed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after leaving Pakistan and later went to Kenya, where he was murdered.Initial reports on his killing by the Kenyan media quoted local police as saying that Sharif was shot dead by police in a case of “mistaken identity”. But later reports from the Kenyan media reconstructed the events surrounding the killing, stating that an occupant in Sharif’s car at the time of his killing was believed to have shot at paramilitary General Service Unit officers.
The Pakistan government subsequently formed a team that travelled to Kenya to investigate the killing. A progress report of the murder probe was furnished before the Supreme Court — which has taken suo motu notice of the case — in March.
The matter was also addressed in an unprecedented conference in October last year, where the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmed Anjum had joined former Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) DG Lt Gen Babar Iftikhar to speak about the journalist’s killing.
The Islamabad police had registered the FIR against the murder on the orders of the Supreme Court in December 2022.
The complaint was lodged by the station house officer of the Ramna police station, Rasheed Ahmed, and nominated three persons — Waqar Ahmed, Khurram Ahmed, and Tariq Ahmed Wasi.
The FIR invoked Sections 302 (punishment for murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
It stated that the murder took place in Kenya on October 23. The complainant said that he reached the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences on the night of October 26 when Sharif’s body reached the hospital and a postmortem examination was carried out.
After that, he said the medico-legal officers handed over four parcels of evidence to the police.
The FIR added that according to the postmortem report, Sharif died due to the firing of ammunition.
Siddique had questioned then why the case was registered on the complaint of the police when the slain journalist’s family members were still alive. She had said that the FIR could only be lodged by her mother-in-law (Sharif’s mother).
