PESHAWAR: Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has asserted that he had asked slain journalist Arshad Sharif to leave the country after receiving information that the anchorperson would be killed.

Addressing a lawyers’ convention he Tuesday, the former premier called Arshad Sharif a ‘martyr’ and said the slain journalist was victim of ‘targeted killing’.

Sharif knew his life was in danger and was repeatedly getting threats. I told him to back down but he wasn’t scared and then lastly, this targeted killing. No matter what anyone says, I know that Arshad Sharif became a victim of target killing,” Imran Khan claimed.

Paying tribute to the slain journalist, the PTI Chairman said that Sharif exposed these ‘two families’ in every programme with proof but no one could scare or buy him.

“Later he (the journalist) started getting threats from unknown numbers to not speak the truth when he started exposing the incumbent regime,” Imran said, adding that he had information that they were about to kill him.

The PTI chief also spoke about the alleged torture that his party member Senator Azam Khan Swati was subjected to after he was arrested by the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) in a case related to his controversial tweets.

Speaking about his ‘long march’ to Islamabad, Imran said he was never as resolute on the matter as today since “I’ve decided the country is standing on a crossroad between two paths.”