ISLAMABAD: Riffat Ara Alvi, the late son of famous journalist and presenter Arshad Sharif, has filed a petition with the Islamabad High Court (IHC) for the results of her son’s post-mortem examination. Riffat Ara said in her appeal that the family’s main contact had requested the post-mortem report from the neighbourhood government on November 3.However, they were informed that the police, not the administration, were in possession of the report.
She added that when the family’s main contact went to the police, they turned them away as well and advised them to get in touch with the administration.The petition claims that despite the family’s repeated requests, neither the report nor a refusal to supply it has been made by the management of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS).
The appeal claimed that “the PIMS and local administration had humiliated Arshad Sharif’s family during this difficult time by keeping them in the dark about the post-mortem result.”According to the petitioner, they should be kept updated at all stages to maintain openness because she worries that the autopsy will be changed to falsify the truth.
Riffat Ara asked that the entire procedure be carried out without the involvement of any other parties and that the family’s focal point be there for the entire procedure.The petitioner demanded that the postmortem report be given to Arshad Sharif’s family and not made public without their consent.
Arshad’s mother had earlier written a letter to Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial pleading with him to convene a powerful judicial commission to look into her son’s passing.She had pleaded with CJ Bandial to “give justice to the family and preserve the matter from controversy and political hypocrisy.”
She claimed that before the investigative team’s departure, federal ministers had “made stories” that are already “on the record” in the media, and that Kenyan police had “three to four times” changed their position on the circumstances surrounding the journalist’s death.