By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: Gunshot residue was found on both of Mir Raza Ali’s hands as well as his chest and back, according to forensic test results that have deepened the mystery surrounding the killing of the 25-year-old Karachi entrepreneur, whose death has become one of Pakistan’s most closely watched murder investigations.
The findings, which emerged on Monday, have led investigators to consider the possibility that Ali fired a weapon himself in the moments before he was killed, potentially in self-defence, according to sources close to the investigation.
Ali, the founder of the dessert brand Wafflix, disappeared on 28 July and was found dead the following day, his body dumped in bushes in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar area of the city. What followed was a case that gripped the country: a disputed initial autopsy, a court-ordered exhumation, a second post-mortem examination, and now forensic results that appear to corroborate his family’s insistence from the outset that he was murdered.
The results of two separate laboratory reports were made public on Monday. One, dated 17 August, confirmed the presence of gunshot residue on swabs taken from Ali’s chest and back wounds, as well as from the skin and swabs of both hands. The same report ruled out the presence of any sedative, psychotropic, narcotic or poisonous substance on a series of other samples, including the skin of his forehead and right foot, the cotton covering his face, soil taken from above and beneath his grave, and swabs from his nasopharynx and mouth. No foreign compounds were detected on any of the collected material.
A second report, dated 11 August, focused on the shirt Ali was wearing when he died. Examiners found a perforation on the back of the garment measuring approximately 6.99 millimetres in diameter, with a corresponding, far larger defect on the front measuring around 35.37 millimetres — consistent with a bullet entering from behind and exiting through the chest. Scanning electron microscopy paired with energy-dispersive spectroscopy detected lead and barium around both defects, elements the report described as commonly associated with the residue left by conventional firearms discharge. Crucially, the concentration of both elements was found to be significantly higher around the back wound than the front, further supporting the theory that Ali was shot from behind.
The same report identified traces of bupivacaine, an amide-type local anaesthetic, in Ali’s blood, along with traces of acid on his shirt. No sedative, psychotropic, narcotic or poisonous substances were found in his stomach contents or in tissue samples taken from his lungs, liver, kidney and spleen.
Sources with knowledge of the case told reporters that a chemical examiner at the University of Karachi had separately completed an analysis of samples collected during the exhumation, with results said to corroborate the gunshot residue findings on Ali’s hands, back and chest. Investigators believe the presence of residue on both his hands could indicate he discharged a firearm himself before he was shot — though officials have been careful to stress this alone does not resolve the question of who fired first, or why. Reports on the number of samples collected for testing have varied, with figures cited anywhere between 13 and 17; only four are understood to have produced usable results, with the remainder reportedly compromised by decomposition or damage.
Financial pressure, missed leads and a fractured timeline
Away from the laboratory findings, investigators are examining a web of financial dealings that may bear on Ali’s murder. According to sources, creditors had been pursuing Ali and his business partner, Muhammad Ahmed, for the repayment of loans — with demands said to range from 2.5 million to 5 million rupees. Ahmed was questioned by investigators for nearly three hours, during which he reportedly told them that three or four individuals had contacted Ali directly over the debts.
Separately, police have carried out geofencing around the crime scene and have identified a number of phone numbers considered suspicious. Surveillance of those numbers is under way, and investigators are working to obtain call data and detailed records for numbers deemed relevant to the case. Officers are also attempting to secure further CCTV footage tracing Ali’s route from his home to the location where his body was ultimately found, in the hope of identifying any unusual activity along the way. Separately, investigators are reviewing audio-enabled CCTV footage from the vicinity in an effort to establish whether a gunshot was captured on any recording.
But it is the timeline of the hours after Ali’s body was discovered that has drawn some of the sharpest scrutiny — and appears to point to serious failings in the police response.
CCTV footage reviewed by investigators shows that a gardener watering plants at the scene spotted the body at around 11:52am on 29 July and alerted police. Officers were not formally notified until 12:36pm. Two policemen arrived first, on a motorcycle, followed shortly afterwards by a police vehicle. An ambulance reached the scene at approximately 12:50pm and departed with the body at 1:46pm, arriving at Jinnah Hospital shortly before 2pm.
The Crime Scene Unit, however, did not arrive that day at all. According to investigative sources, the unit only learned of the discovery through social media, at around 3:11pm — more than three hours after the body was found — and did not visit the location until the following day. Early findings suggest the unit had in fact been instructed not to proceed to the scene. It has since visited the site five times as part of the ongoing investigation. A separate search device team, informed of the discovery roughly 15 minutes after the body was found, also failed to reach the location.
Investigators are separately examining why area police took so long to respond. According to initial findings, officers had received a report of a robbery in Gulistan-e-Jauhar’s Block 7 at roughly the same time Ali’s body was discovered, and were allegedly told to remain at the scene of that incident rather than proceed to the location where the body lay. Sources close to the investigation said the resulting delay may have led to the loss or disturbance of evidence at the crime scene — a lapse that has already been publicly acknowledged by Sindh’s police chief and has fuelled sustained criticism of how the case was handled in its early stages.
Footage reviewed by investigators also showed no body was present at the location the previous day, 28 July — the date Ali was reported missing — when the same member of staff had watered the area without noticing anything untoward.
The case has moved rapidly through Pakistan’s legal system since Ali’s disappearance. A murder charge was formally added to the file after the second post-mortem — commissioned following the exhumation of his body — uncovered multiple injuries and a congealed black substance in his mouth and throat, findings that lent considerable weight to his family’s long-standing insistence that their son had been murdered rather than having taken his own life, as had initially been suggested.
Police say the investigation remains active, with financial records, forensic evidence, CCTV material and phone data all continuing to be assessed as part of the wider effort to establish a motive and reconstruct the final hours of Ali’s life.
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