By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: A judicial commission has found that the Karachi businessman Mir Raza Ali was murdered and that the police investigation into his death was an “epic failure”, in a report the Sindh government made public on Tuesday.
The 62-page report, submitted by Sindh High Court Justice Omar Sial, concludes that police breached “all required procedures, both knowingly and unknowingly” needed to withstand judicial scrutiny and secure a successful prosecution. It also says an active cover-up in the early days of the inquiry “cannot be conclusively ruled out”.
The commission recommends a joint investigation team (JIT) led by Deputy Inspector General Irfan Baloch. It would include senior representatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau, Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency. The Sindh cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, approved the report’s release on Tuesday and endorsed forming a JIT in line with its recommendations.
Ali, a 25-year-old graduate of the Institute of Business Administration, ran a waffle business called Wafflix. He left his home in the PECHS neighbourhood in the early hours of 28 July and was reported missing. His body, with gunshot wounds, was found the next day in bushes in Gulistan-e-Johar.
His family registered a kidnapping complaint at Ferozabad police station on the day he disappeared. A post-mortem was carried out at Jinnah hospital and he was buried the same day.
Police initially treated the death as suicide. They relied on the first autopsy, which recorded a bullet entry wound in the chest, and on evidence of business losses and money he had borrowed. The family disputed this, saying the body bore marks of torture.
The Karachi police surgeon, Dr Summaiya Syed, challenged the first autopsy findings in early August. The body was exhumed on 8 August. The second post-mortem concluded that the death was caused by a gunshot wound to the back, ruling out suicide. Murder and destruction-of-evidence charges were later added to the FIR.
The commission left no doubt about the cause of death. “The bullet trajectory, the unusual location of the wound if it had been a self-inflicted injury, the absence of blood, the state of the body, the principles of medical jurisprudence, acid burns and the anaesthesia detected in the blood all clearly excluded suicide,” the report said. “It was a murder.”
It found that police announced their findings before a proper investigation had been carried out, which it said “fell short of professional standards”. The suicide theory, it said, rested on a small number of unconfirmed text messages and selective video footage, and on a first post-mortem that did not itself conclude suicide.
The report said that even if Ali had killed himself, police should have established who drove him to that point, including whether coercion, blackmail or instigation was involved. “They made no such effort,” it said. The inquiry “failed in its most basic duty: to establish the truth”.
It described the handling of the case as “a rudderless ship, not aware of its destination”. It criticised a “lack of leadership, seriousness, and supervision” among senior officers and said “dozens of police officers – authorised and unauthorised” had collected evidence and questioned key figures, often without documenting any of it. As a result, it said, no officer was willing to accept responsibility for the lapses.
The commission said the police “went into a shell” under public criticism and took a position “based on ego rather than on cogent, solid reasons”. It added that officers ignored its recommendation to appoint a focal person to brief the public, which allowed speculation to embarrass both the force and the government.
Officers named
The commission found “criminal negligence” by Adeel Afzal, the station house officer at Ferozabad police station. It recommended that he be suspended, face a comprehensive inquiry that could lead to dismissal, and be questioned on whether he facilitated the destruction of key evidence.
It also found criminal negligence by Sub-inspector Shabbir Leghari, the first investigating officer, and called for disciplinary proceedings and suspension. It found the same of Inspector Ghaus but recommended no action. DIG Farukh Lanjar and Senior Superintendent of Police Samiullah Soomro were faulted for a lack of leadership and supervision.
The report was also critical of the medico-legal officer Dr Osama Sheikh, who carried out the first autopsy, citing “extreme immaturity” and “childish behaviour”. It said he should not be given medico-legal duties without at least two years of rigorous training, and that he was “possibly influenced”. It called for that angle to be “conclusively determined”.
Dr Sheikh attended an 9 August meeting at the chief minister’s residence, together with the Karachi police chief and other senior officials. The meeting drew considerable controversy. The commission said no ulterior motive could be inferred from it, though it noted that it would have been prudent to invite the police surgeon as well.
On the health department, the commission was blunt about the replacement of the medical board appointed for the exhumation. An eight-member board headed by Dr Syed was notified on 6 August. Overnight, the Sindh Health Directorate replaced it with a smaller board of five. The family rejected the new board at the graveyard, and the exhumation was postponed.
The original board was restored on 8 August after public pressure and a legal notice. The commission called the change “a highly irregular, inexplicable, legally flawed overreach” dictated by the health secretary and special secretary. It said the director general of health services, aware he lacked the legal competence to form such a board, “looked the other way”.
The report called a voice note given to police by Alishaz Mushtaq “one of the most suspicious parts of this case”. It said Mushtaq and Assistant Superintendent of Police Nida Junaid played an important part in supporting the police narrative of suicide. It added that the person Mushtaq named as his source did not corroborate what he had said.
WhatsApp messages in which Ali asked Sarim Bin Tahir for Rs30m were “full of uncharacteristic grammatical errors and truncated spellings and read as acute panic”, the commission said. It suggested he was being blackmailed or threatened.
CCTV footage showed Ali carrying a pistol on the night he died. The commission called this unusual. His friends and associates told it he did not own or use firearms and would probably not know how to handle one. The weapon has not been found. His known financial difficulties, the report said, were not of a kind that would drive someone to suicide.
Recommendations
The commission said the case had reached “a critical juncture”. It said the “profound trust deficit” between police and the public meant that even an accurate conclusion, or the arrest of the true culprit, was “unlikely to be accepted”. Because a significant portion of the physical evidence had been compromised, it said, the case could now be resolved only through a “rigorous, intelligence-based investigation”.
The JIT, it said, was the “most viable path” to limit reputational damage to the Sindh government. “This extreme step is necessary to restore public trust and end speculation,” the report said. It also called on police to “transparently acknowledge and apologise” for past lapses and to begin formal inquiries into those responsible.
The commission said it had no investigative powers and could not conclude that a cover-up had taken place, though “certain inexplicable actions are difficult to justify and raise the possibility that one may have occurred”. It proposed a high-level committee, preferably led by the Federal Investigation Agency, to examine whether officers involved in the first 10 days of the inquiry breached sections 201, 166(2) and 218 of the Pakistan Penal Code. These cover causing the disappearance of evidence, a public servant disobeying the law with intent to cause injury, and framing an incorrect record to shield a person from punishment. Any officer found culpable should face criminal action as well as disciplinary proceedings.
The report also proposed a committee of “seasoned professionals”, to report within three months, on first response, crime-scene handling, medico-legal practice and the recording of investigations. It suggested a larger investigation budget with monitoring of how the money is used, and better training for investigators and crime-scene units. The Sindh government will make the final decision on these.
Government response
The report was handed to the Sindh government in sealed form last week, after hearings in which the commission heard 49 witnesses. It was presented to the cabinet on Tuesday in seven sealed envelopes. The commission was formed in August and given 30 days to report, but its deadline was extended to 15 October.
The Home Department uploaded the report to its website, and a copy was to be given to the family. The chief minister set up a four-member sub-committee to oversee implementation, made up of Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar, Local Government Minister Nasir Hussain Shah, Labour Minister Saeed Ghani and the provincial advocate general.
Mir Raza’s father, Mir Hussain Ali, speaking outside court with the family’s lawyer, Jibran Nasir, said the police had been negligent and that the commission’s findings confirmed the family’s fears. He demanded strict action against those responsible. Nasir said the report supported concerns the relatives had raised. The family had written to the chief minister on 12 October asking for the report to be released and had received no reply.
It was not immediately clear when the JIT would be formally notified or whether any action had been taken against the officers named.
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