Mir Raza Ali case: Family, lawyer allege 25-year-old was murdered after torture

Advocate Jibran Nasir, representing the family of slain business owner Mir Raza Ali, alleged on Saturday evening that Raza had been tortured and murdered, and demanded that the entire investigation team be replaced. Raza, owner of eatery Wafflix, had gone missing on July 28. The 25-year-old’s body was found a day later with a gunshot wound in bushes near Shahi Qila Ground in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. His body was exhumed earlier today for a second post-mortem, the family’s lawyer confirmed, after the Sindh government restored the original medical board. Speaking to the media in the evening, Nasir said the medical report answered “14 questions” and detailed some of the injuries Raza had sustained before his death. “This was murder following torture — the murder of a happy, ambitious and educated young man from Karachi,” he alleged. “He had an injury on his chin,” the advocate said, adding that Raza’s eye sockets were compressed and that traces of a foreign substance were found. “Samples were taken and sent to a lab to see if there are any chemical traces,” he told reporters. The advocate also said that Raza had wounds to his forehead and a fractured nose, as well as swelling and congealed blood around his lower jaw, consistent with having been punched. “There is a fracture to his temple above his ear, indicating he was struck,” he alleged. “In the tongue area, a congealed black substance was discovered, which is not naturally found in the body. This substance has been taken and sent to a lab to see what he was forced to ingest.” Continuing the description, he also claimed that internal muscles in Raza’s throat were covered in the same black substance, and that a broken hyoid bone and muscle damage suggested that he also was strangled. “Now we come to the firearm injury, where it was earlier said that he was shot in the chest and the bullet exited through his back,” Nasir said. “We have now proven 110 per cent that the bullet entered his back and exited after breaking and fracturing his ribs.” The family’s lawyer also criticised senior police officials, alleging that they “do not want to investigate, but rather humiliate, harass and exhaust the family”. “They are finding months-old recordings and frustrating, emotionally exhausting and humiliating Mir Hussain and Maryam Hussain. Are you investigating or harassing them? They sat them in their offices and told them repeatedly, ‘It’s a suicide, accept it’. Our city’s AIG was saying this,” the advocate claimed further. Nasir added that he and the family had “no faith” in the AIG or the SSP’s investigation team and that they wanted the entire team changed, including senior officers. “If they appoint the same kind of officers, such as those doctors from Jamshoro and Hyderabad, then we will approach the court,” he added. “But have no doubts about it: senior officers spent 10 days with the parents and misguided them into believing it was a suicide,” Nasir alleged. Raza’s father, Mir Hussain, told reporters that he had maintained since July 30 that his son’s death was a brutal murder. “We saw the body and told them [that it was murder], but they kept saying, ‘Suicide, suicide, suicide,’” he said. “Sometimes the SSP would talk to us; the IG would say that the matter had been resolved but there was a problem in the report. “If your entire police station investigates based on post-mortem reports, then how can someone in such a position of responsibility say something like this?” Mir Hussain said it “brought us peace” to learn that their claims that Raza had been attacked before his death were true. “We have said it was murder from the start,” he added. “Why are they hiding the killers?” Speaking to the media earlier today, Nasir said the investigation officer was present when the body was exhumed and examined, while all eight members of the medical team were also present. The deceased’s parents were nearby and, “most importantly”, a judicial magistrate was present as well. The lawyer also contended that “incomplete CCTV footage and out-of-context messages” had been used to fuel rumours and draw hasty conclusions since Raza’s death.

While his family is convinced that he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered, investigators probing the incident continue to build their case around the possibility that he died by suicide. Commenting on the medical board controversy, Nasir expressed concern that the government did not provide any reason for changing the medical board overnight on Friday. The lawyer said the victim’s family did not need “character certificates” for the doctors on the medical board. He expressed hope that the medical board’s report would be received by Saturday evening, which would help clarify the circumstances of the young businessman’s death. The report would clearly indicate if the incident was a murder or suicide, Nasir said, adding that the “police will be under even more pressure” once that question was cleared up. He reiterated that the report would answer the question of whether it was “self-inflicted or a murder”. Nasir further said he was surprised to know that the police had shared audio evidence with the media before revealing it to the parents of the victim, who found out about it from TV reports. Nasir expressed gratitude to the judiciary for intervening in the case, adding that “the work that police could not do in eight to nine days was done in two days after judicial intervention”. Separately, a PPP delegation comprising MPAs Asif Moosa and Saima Agha visited Raza’s family to convey their condolences. Moosa assured the bereaved family that Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar and Sindh Inspector General Javed Alam Odho were monitoring the case. He affirmed that efforts were being made for a transparent inquiry so that justice can be served. Saima said the probe will be taken forward once the post-mortem report is compiled, asserting that the culprits will be punished. She further said the PPP stood with the victim’s family.

Medical board controversy The exhumation, which was scheduled for Friday morning, was postponed after the deceased’s family objected to the abrupt reconstitution of the medical board and inclusion of members from outside Karachi division. On Thursday, a judicial magistrate had allowed the exhumation of the body on an application filed by Raza’s father, Mir Hussain Ali, directing the police surgeon and the Sindh health secretary to constitute a medical board for the exhumation. The court ruling came after a controversy emerged between the Karachi police surgeon and investigators over alleged loopholes in the medico-legal report regarding the post-mortem examination. Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed, whose assessment was based only on the post-mortem report and photographs as she had not examined the body herself, said some observations in the report did not appear to match the available photographs. The Sindh health department then constituted an eight-member board, with Dr Syed as the convener. Prof Dr Naseem Ahmed of Dow University of Health Sciences, Dr Farah Waseem of Jinnah Sindh Medical University, Amir Hassan Khan of Citizens Police Liaison Committee, Additional Police Surgeon Dr Sirichand, Dr Kamran Khan and Dr Daniyal Mirza of Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, and Dr Mohammed Yaseen, the admin in-charge of the police surgeon office, were the other members of the board. However, in the early hours of Friday, the board was reconstituted through an order issued by the director general of the Sindh health department. While Dr Syed remained the convener of the new five-member board, its members were changed to Prof Dr Zakiuddin from DUHS, Prof Dr Kazi Akbar and Prof Dr Abid Hussain Chang from Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, and Hyderabad Police Surgeon Dr Waseem Khan. On Friday morning, Raza’s family was present at the Tariq Road graveyard for the exhumation, which was then deferred. Standing alongside Raza’s father, Nasir had accused the authorities of trying to bury the facts and held the police, health department and the Sindh government responsible for the delay.