Slain journalist Arshad Sharif’s mother passes away

Mother of late journalist Arshad Sharif, Riffat Ara Alvi has passed away, family sources confirmed on Sunday.

“Arshad Sharif’s mother, who was demanding justice for her son, has passed away,” wife of the slain journalist, Javeria Siddique wrote in a tweet.

Javeria said funeral prayer of Arshad’s mother will be held at H-11 graveyard in Islamabad at 9:00pm today. Sharing location of the place where her final rites would take place, Javeria confirmed that the deceased would be laid to rest in the same cemetery near Arshad’s grave.

Nature of the death was not shared by the widow till filing of this report.

Mother of Arshad had fought the case of the senior media person’s killing since his death in 2022.

Arshad was shot in the head when Kenyan police opened fire on his car in October 2022.

His widow Javeria and two journalist groups in Kenya filed a complaint in 2023 against top police and legal officials over the “arbitrary and unlawful killing” of the journalist and the respondents’ “consequent failure to investigate”.

During hearing of the case in July 2022, a Kenyan court found police acted unlawfully over the killing of the Pakistani journalist in 2022 following a complaint by his widow, her lawyer and local media had said.

The High Court in Kajiado, a town south of Nairobi, had rejected a police claim that the killing was a case of mistaken identity, and that officers’ believed they were firing on a stolen vehicle involved in an abduction.