Arshad Sharif’s killing and Imran Khan’s long march

Known for his high principles and moral courage, Arshad Sharif had relentlessly exposed corruption within the Pakistani establishment. He was known to be a supporter of Imran Khan

By Akhil Bakshi

The recent killing of Arshad Sharif, a Pakistani TV anchor and investigative journalist, has outraged Pakistanis – but not shocked them. Over the years, the people of Pakistan have become accustomed to voices of truth and sanity being silenced.

Arshad Sharif, known for his high principles and moral courage, had relentlessly exposed corruption within the Pakistani establishment. A supporter of Imran Khan, his television show was banned for suggesting that the army was responsible for the former prime minister’s ouster in April 2022. Sedition charges were slapped on him. Imran Khan suggested to Arshad he leave the country – lest he be bumped off.

In August, Arshad left for Dubai. The Government of Pakistan moved the UAE to extradite Arshad who now sought protection of his friends in Kenya. On October 23, while travelling in a Land Cruiser on a dirt road 30km from Nairobi, he was shot and killed by the Kenyan police whose elite squads are known to carry out extrajudicial killings and whose officers accused of hiring their guns to criminals or hiring themselves as assassins. The police said it was a case of “mistaken identity’. Kenya’s newly elected president, William Ruto, has disbanded the Special Services Unit (SSU) of the police.

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However, Arshad Sharif’s killing is only the latest in a series of mysterious deaths of witnesses and investigators probing into corruption cases against Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his family.

Dr Muhammad Rizwan, the 47-year-old Lahore director of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and presiding over the corruption cases against the prime minister and his family, died of a sudden heart attack in May 2022. The FIA had issued a warrant against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s absconding son, Suleman, for laundering Rs16 billion in the sugar scam cases. The PM and his other son, Hamza Shehbaz, former chief minister of Punjab, also stand accused in these cases.

During the same month, Nadeem Akhtar, FIA Assistant Director investigating the same cases, also suffered a heart attack – but survived. So did Noman Asghar, another investigating officer.

In June 2022, Maqsood ‘Chaprasi’, 49, a peon at the Ramzan Sugar Mills belonging to the sons of Prime Minister Shehbaz, died of a heart attack in Dubai. Maqsood, whose last drawn salary was Rs 25,000 in 2017, had fled to the UAE in March 2018. The FIA found Rs 3 billion in his seven bank accounts. He was an important witness in the money laundering case.

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Gulzar Ahmed, another peon at Ramzan Sugar Mills, had deposited Rs1.28 billion in his account, though he drew only Rs12,800 as monthly salary. He also died “under mysterious circumstances” and the cause of his death could not be ascertained. His benami account was operated even after his death.

Another witness, Muzammil Raja, Sharif’s servant who withdrew money to hand over to Maqsood Chaprasi, died of a heart attack. Muzammil Raja’s brother, Ghulam Shabbir and a benami account holder of the Sharifs, also died of a heart attack.

In June 2022, Imran Raza Abbasi, Additional Commissioner (Revenue) and previously the Director of Anti-Corruption Cell in Bahawalpur and Faisalabad, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his Lahore flat. He had joined his new assignment in Lahore a day earlier. Imran Raza was investigating cases against the Minister for Interior Rana Sanaullah.

In a scathing attack on the Pakistani establishment, Lt. General (Retd.) Tariq Khan, a highly decorated officer, writing in The Friday Times, said that the murder of Arshad Sharif and the silencing of others “was at the behest of those patriots who would rather kill than be exposed… It is a testimony to what we have sitting in this artificial government today and the ones who could have benefitted from this heinous act. But then we live in a country which is now a pretense of a democratic order, of political dispensation and administrative propriety…  This is the land where Muslims live in multitudes but where there is no Islam, where God is sold and religion politicised, where mosques are filled but no child is safe on the streets, and where one cannot differentiate between a crime and a sin. Hypocrisy reigns in this society where there are only slogans without substance to placate the people.”

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General Tariq Khan, celebrated for leading the Frontier Corps to victory against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Battle of Bajaur in 2009, warns that in an environment where justice is only conspicuous by its absence, where everything is politicised and the government machinery biased and prejudiced, the masses will look for any form of deliverance and will even welcome extremist groups like the TTP if they can promise to right the wrongs people are subjected to every day.

In such a dismal scenario, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) ongoing Long March under the leadership of Imran Khan, goes beyond demanding early parliamentary elections. It has given the masses a platform, an opportunity to stand up and be counted and to express their cry for change. They have had enough of leaders and politicians who polarise society; a judicial system that is seriously flawed; and a government machinery manned by serial offenders.

Like any civilised society, the Pakistani masses want freedom from violence, bigotry and corruption and a nation governed by humanist values and rule of law. Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf, or movement for justice, offers them hope. Arshad Sharif’s death has given the movement a further boost. Hopefully, the PTI can deliver on its promises. Otherwise, Taliban beckons.

(The views are the author’s own and The News Porter bears no responsibility for the same/Main picture of Arshad Sharif courtesy Wikipedia))

Akhil Bakshi is the author of Between Heaven and Hell: Travels through South Asia