In what the police described as a case of mistaken identity, a senior Pakistani journalist was shot to death Sunday night along the Nairobi-Magadi highway. Police fatally shot Arshad Sharif after he and his driver allegedly broke through a roadblock erected to check on vehicles traveling the route.
According to the police, they were stopped at a roadblock manned by a group of police officers as they were traveling from Magadi town to Nairobi.
According to police headquarters, the case will be handled by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority.
A senior police officer said that the shooting was true.
We had an incident of shooting which turned out to be a case of mistaken identity involving a journalist. We will release more information later
the officer said
Police say that at the roadblock, a call was made for them to stop a car that looked like the one they were driving after a carjacking in the Pangani area of Nairobi, where a child was taken hostage. When Sharif’s car arrived at the roadblock a few minutes later, they were stopped and asked to identify themselves. They allegedly drove past the roadblock without stopping.
Sharif was killed during a brief chase and shooting as a result of this. Their vehicle rolled, injuring his driver, who was taken to the hospital. He later told the police that he and his colleague, who had been killed, were developers who were on their way to a site in Magadi.
Here is the full statement:
The incident quickly spread throughout Pakistan, where the prominent journalist was based. Javeria Siddiqui, Sharif’s wife, confirmed the tragic news via Twitter, acknowledging that her husband had been killed in Kenya.
