Mir Raza Ali's body exhumed following restoration of original medical board

The body of Institute of Business Administration (IBA) graduate and businessman Mir Raza Ali was exhumed on Saturday, his father’s lawyer said after the Sindh government restored the original medical board. The exhumation had been scheduled for Friday morning but was postponed after Raza’s family objected to the abrupt reconstitution of a medical board and inclusion of members from outside Karachi division. “The investigation officer was present when the body was exhumed and the examination was carried out. All eight people of the medical team were present; the parents were also nearby. And most importantly, a judicial magistrate … was present,” Advocate Jibran Nasir told the media in Karachi on Saturday.

The lawyer contended that “incomplete CCTV footage and out-of-context messages” have been used to ignite rumours and reach hasty conclusions since Raza’s death. 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. 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. “We hope we will have the answers to all these questions by 6pm today; whether it is self-inflicted or a murder,” he reiterated. 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”. 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.