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Sea of people attend funeral prayers, burial of Journalist Arshad Sharif

ISLAMABAD, Oct 27 (SABAH): Senior journalist and television anchorperson Arshad Sharif was laid to rest in Islamabad’s H-11 cemetery on Thursday. 

Sharif’s funeral prayers were held at the Faisal Mosque amid tight security. 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 last. Early Wednesday, his family, friends and government officials received his body.

The funeral drew up to 40,000 mourners, according to police at the scene. 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. 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”.

After prayers, coffin bearers struggled to push through the crowd to a waiting ambulance for onward passage to the H-11 cemetery in Islamabad.

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” were chanted.

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 fired him, claiming, without offering evidence, he had violated policy. His talk show Powerplay, which aired on Mondays and Thursdays, was discontinued.