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

AI Summary

The family and lawyer of Mir Raza Ali, a 25-year-old businessman from Karachi, allege he was tortured and murdered, disputing claims of suicide. Evidence includes detailed injuries, foreign substances found in his body, and a forensic examination, while accusing senior police officials of harassment and obstruction.

Advocate Jibran Nasir, representing the family of slain businessman 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, his father’s lawyer said after the Sindh government restored the original medical board. Nasir told the media earlier today that the investigation officer and a judicial magistrate were present when the body was exhumed and the examination was carried out. Speaking to reporters in the evening, Nasir outlined that the medical report provided answers to “14 questions” and detailed some of the injuries suffered by Raza 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 noted 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 added. “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 noted 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,