By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Sindh government has decided to seek a judicial commission to investigate the killing of 25-year-old businessman Mir Raza Ali, the province’s home minister said on Sunday, as authorities moved to overhaul the inquiry into a death that has gripped Karachi for more than a week.
Ziaul Hassan Lanjar, the Sindh home minister, said in a statement that a judicial inquiry would be conducted into the murder of Ali, whose body was discovered in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar area of the city last month, a day after he was reported missing.
The move follows growing pressure from Ali’s family and their lawyer, who have accused police of mishandling the investigation from the outset. It also comes after a second postmortem examination, carried out following the exhumation of Ali’s body, contradicted earlier findings and ruled out the possibility that he took his own life.
Ali, who owned the Karachi dessert brand Wafflix and graduated from the Institute of Business Administration, disappeared on 28 July. His body was found the following day in bushes near Shahi Qila Ground in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, with a gunshot wound. While his family maintained from the beginning that he had been abducted, tortured and killed, police had initially built their case around the theory that he had died by suicide, reportedly citing financial difficulties.
That theory has now been formally abandoned. Officers on Sunday added a murder charge to the first information report lodged on the complaint of Ali’s father, Mir Hussain Ali, after the second postmortem findings proved incompatible with an earlier report.
Commission to be led by high court judge
According to the statement from the home minister’s office, Lanjar said the judicial commission would be constituted under the leadership of a Sindh High Court judge, on the recommendation of the province’s chief minister, Murad Ali Shah.
Lanjar, together with Karachi mayor Murtaza Wahab, visited the family home to meet Ali’s parents on Sunday, where he briefed them on the progress of the case and the investigation, the statement said. The pair assured the family that they would be provided with “complete justice”.
“The investigation team will maintain full contact and cooperation with the deceased’s parents,” Lanjar was quoted as saying. “A transparent and impartial investigation into the case will be ensured.”
He said all requirements of justice would be met and that no leniency would be extended to anyone found responsible.
Wahab said separately that the chief minister had chaired a four-hour meeting at which “all aspects of the incident and the investigation were reviewed in detail”.
The decision to pursue a judicial commission followed a recommendation from Faryal Talpur, chairperson of the Sindh Assembly’s standing committee on home affairs, who had urged the chief minister to establish one to ensure a “transparent, impartial and comprehensive investigation”.
Talpur said the commission should examine every aspect of the case and bring the full facts to light, adding that legal and disciplinary action should follow “without discrimination” against anyone found responsible. She said justice for the family had to be ensured “at all costs” and that the public deserved to be kept informed.
“No negligence or bias will be tolerated in meeting the requirements of justice,” she said, describing the provision of justice to the bereaved family, and the maintenance of public confidence in the justice system, as fundamental responsibilities of the government and its institutions.
Investigation team reconstituted
Separately on Sunday, the office of the Sindh inspector general of police issued an order reconstituting the team investigating Ali’s death, in light of the findings of the second postmortem.
The new five-member team will be led by Sindh deputy inspector general for crime and investigation, Amir Farooqui, and will include Rapid Response Force Al-Falah senior superintendent Syed Muhammad Ali Raza, Korangi superintendent for investigation Qais Khan, Central superintendent for investigation Anam Tajjamul, and Zaman Town senior investigation officer Ghazanfar.
The order stated that the original first information report, which had been registered only under section 365 of the Pakistan Penal Code, covering kidnapping, would now also include sections 302 and 201. Section 302 relates to murder, while section 201 concerns the concealment of evidence or the provision of false information to shield an offender.
The order said the team would carry out a “comprehensive and impartial” investigation from all angles, and would identify, collect, preserve and examine any new or additional evidence, alongside a thorough analysis of physical, technical, circumstantial and forensic material already gathered. It added that the team would work to submit a report to the relevant court within a stipulated period, and that progress would be reported daily.
The reshuffle came a day after Jibran Nasir, the lawyer representing Ali’s family, called for the original investigation team to be scrapped entirely, arguing that officers had shown no willingness to pursue the case properly.
“This was murder following torture — the murder of a happy, ambitious and educated young man from Karachi,” Mr Nasir told reporters on Saturday. He accused senior police officials of seeking to “humiliate, harass and exhaust” the family rather than investigate the case, and said the family had “no faith” in the team as it stood.
Dispute over first postmortem
The case has been marked by a bitter and public dispute over the conduct of the original postmortem examination. Dr Summaiya Syed, the Karachi police surgeon, told a private news channel earlier last week that the findings from Ali’s first postmortem had raised significant questions, with some observations failing to match the available photographs of the body.
Dr Syed, whose initial assessment was based only on the postmortem report and photographs rather than a direct examination, said the recorded entry wound, bullet trajectory and exit wound did not correspond with one another. She noted that entry wounds are typically smaller than exit wounds in firearms cases, and pointed out that gunshot residue — commonly tested for on the hands in suspected suicides — had not been examined in this instance.
Her remarks prompted a formal response from the police, who described the observations as having the potential to damage the ongoing investigation, though they acknowledged that exhumation could proceed on the recommendation of a medical board, subject to court approval.
A judicial magistrate subsequently granted permission for the body to be exhumed, acting on an application from Ali’s father, and directed the police surgeon and the Sindh health secretary to form a medical board to oversee the process.
The Sindh health department initially constituted an eight-member board, convened by Dr Syed and including specialists from Dow University of Health Sciences, Jinnah Sindh Medical University, the Citizens Police Liaison Committee and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. However, in the early hours of the following morning, the board was reconstituted by order of the health department’s director general, reducing it to five members and bringing in doctors from outside Karachi, including from Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences and the Hyderabad police surgeon’s office.
The change prompted objections from Ali’s family, who were present at the Tariq Road graveyard when the exhumation had been due to take place. The process was deferred after the family raised concerns about the new board’s composition. Standing alongside Ali’s father at the graveyard, Mr Nasir accused the authorities of attempting to “bury the facts”, and held the police, the health department and the Sindh government responsible for the delay.
The Sindh government subsequently restored the original medical board, and Ali’s body was exhumed the following day.
Second postmortem findings
After conducting the second examination, Dr Syed told reporters that samples had been collected for identification, chemical analysis and gunshot residue testing, and that the formal cause of death remained reserved pending laboratory results.
She said the autopsy had found multiple injuries to the head and face, along with a fractured rib on the back consistent with the entry wound of a gunshot that had exited from the front of the body. She added that Ali’s body also bore injuries to the right flank and feet, as well as what she described as a congealed black substance in the mouth and throat.
The medical board is understood to have reserved its final opinion on the exact cause of death pending the outcome of chemical and toxicology analyses, which are expected to help determine whether the fatal wound was self-inflicted or the result of homicide.
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