Mir Raza murder case: Victim's family moves SHC against judicial commission formation, seeks JIT for probe

KARACHI: The family of Mir Raza Ali — a 25-year-old Karachi-based businessman who was found dead with a gunshot wound last month — moved the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday against the provincial government’s decision to form a judicial commission for a review of the probe into his murder case.

The development took place as the Sindh government implemented its decision announced on Sunday, despite objections by Ali’s family and lawyer.

Judicial correspondence to this effect, dated August 24 and seen Dawn, said the SHC chief justice had appointed Justice Omar Sial to head the commission.

Meanwhile, Ali’s family filed a petition in the SHC through their lawyer, Jibran Nasir, requesting it to set aside the decision to form the commission and constitute a joint investigation team (JIT) instead.

The petition, a copy of which is available with Dawn, named 19 respondents, including the Sindh government, Sindh Home Department, the provincial inspector general of police, Karachi additional inspector general of police, the Federation of Pakistan and the defence ministry.

The petitioners requested the court to set aside the Sindh government’s decision to form a judicial commission, including “any subsequent proceedings arising from it”.

Instead, they sought the court’s directives for the formation of an “independent, impartial and multi-agency JIT, including members from Sindh police, Rangers, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and military intelligence, with a senior officer of unimpeachable integrity who has had no previous involvement” in the case appointed as its head.

The plea contended that the head must conduct a “fresh and comprehensive investigation into the abduction, torture and murder” of Ali.

It further sought the court’s directives for the yet-to-be-formed JIT to “independently investigate the possibility of extortion, ransom, organised criminal activity, business/financial dispute or any other motive, and shall determine on the basis of evidence whether the facts attract any provision of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, including the applicability of Section 19 thereof”,

The court may also direct the JIT to investigate the conduct of two police officials — East Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Farrukh Ali Lanjar and Sharea Faisal Deputy Superintendent of Police Arshad Afridi, both of whom have been named as respondents in the plea — as well as of “any other police officer involved in the investigation to determine if their conducts constitutes offence under Section 166(2), 201 and 218 PPC”, the petition said.

The petitioners further requested the court to instruct the Sindh government to initiate an independent departmental fact-finding inquiry against members of a previous investigation team in the case and “all other officers whose responsibility emerges, on the terms of reference (TORs) proposed by the petitioners and/or such modified TORs as this honourable court may deem appropriate”.

They asked the court to “direct that the departmental inquiry and criminal investigation into the conduct of the concerned police officials shall proceed independently and simultaneously in accordance with law”.

The petitioners also requested the immediate suspension of DIG Lanjar, Crime Investigation Agency Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Samiullah, East SSP Zubair Nazir Shaikh, East Superintendent of Police Usman Sadozai and Ferozabad and the Ferozabad SIO, as well as their removal from their postings pending the murder case probe.

They also sought a departmental inquiry into their conduct to “preserve the integrity of the investigation and inquiry”.

Moreover, the petitioners asked the court to restrain the Rapid Response Force and the Crime Investigation branch DIG from “submitting the final challan/chargesheet” in the case during the pendency of their plea.

They further requested the court to restrain the learned judicial magistrate XXI Karachi East from treating any report filed by the two as the final challan/ chargesheet under Section 173 CrPC during the pendency of this petition”.

The petitioners contended that the judicial commission was “neither empowered to conduct a criminal investigation nor submit a charge sheet” and could not be presented as an alternative to already available effective alternatives such as JIT.

The petition stated that the formation of a judicial commission without disclosing the TORs and the mandate seemed like an “attempt to scapegoat the honourable judiciary by burdening it with failures of the previous and instant investigation team while also forcing upon it the responsibility to solve the case”.

The petition stated that the circumstances surrounding the investigation had shown that an “ordinary investigative mechanism has failed to satisfactorily establish even the fundamental circumstances surrounding the abduction, torture and murder of Mir Raza Ali Khan, while serious allegations have simultaneously emerged concerning the manner in which the earlier investigation was conducted”.

It said that the previous investigation team had “prematurely adopted and propagated a theory of sucide, failed to record statements of the seven immediate family, failed to presever and properly handle material physical and digital evidence, failed to secure relevant CCTV footage, mishandled the deceased’s smart watch, and failed to appropriately respond to material medico-legal concerns which ultimately resulted in the final medical opinion expressly excluding suicide”.

The petitioners said the prevailing circumstances surrounding the case had brought into question the investigation process.

Petitioners sought the constitution of an independent JIT “comprising officers who have had no previous involvement in the case and possessing appropriate forensic, digital, financial, telecommunications and field-investigation expertise”.

The hearing

Later in the day, a two-judge bench, comprising Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon, heard the petition and issued notices to the respondents as well as Sindh advocate general for August 31.

During the hearing, the petitioner’s counsel contended that police investigation had not yet reached any conclusion.

“We learned from the media that the Sindh government was forming a judicial commission,” Nasir informed the court. He held that formation of a judicial commission at this stage of the investigation could adversely impact the case.

Speaking to the media after the hearing, Nasir said that the court had barred the police from submitting its final report until a decision is made on the plea.

He added that the court has also sought the terms and conditions of the judicial commission and a report from the police over the “negligence and carelessness” on the part of the police officials in the case.

The case

Ali, a 25-year-old businessman and a graduate of the Institute of Business Administration, was found dead with a gunshot wound on July 29 in bushes in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar a day after he was reported missing.

While his family was convinced that he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered, police were initially building the case around the possibility that he died by suicide.

A murder charge was eventually added to the first information report (FIR) after the exhumation and a second post-mortem of Ali’s body revealed that he had suffered multiple injuries and was shot in the back, ruling out the possibility of suicide.

The second autopsy was conducted after a controversy between the Karachi police surgeon and investigators over alleged loopholes in the medico-legal report regarding Ali’s first post-mortem examination.

On August 6, a judicial magistrate had allowed the exhumation of the body on an application filed by Ali’s father, directing the police surgeon and the Sindh health secretary to constitute a medical board for the exhumation.

The Sindh health department then constituted an eight-member board, with police surgeon Dr Sumaiyya Syed as the convener. However, in the early hours of August 7, 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.

But Ali’s family rejected the new board, which also resulted in the deferment of the planned exhumation on Friday. Meanwhile, the counsel for Ali’s family, Nasir accused the authorities of trying to bury the facts.

The Sindh government then restored the original medical board, following which Ali’s body was exhumed on August 8.

A day later, the Sindh inspector general of police’s (IG) office notified the reconstitution of the investigating team probing Ali’s death while Karachi Additional IG Azad Khan transferred the investigation into Ali’s murder to Zaman Town police station from Ferozabad Police Station, where the case was registered.

The same day, the Sindh government decided to seek a judicial commission for the case’s investigation, only to defer the plan a day later after Ali’s family said they had made no such demand and had faith in the new investigation team.

On Aug 19, Ali’s parents, Mir Hussain and Mariam Hussain, wrote to Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, seeking his “direct supervision of the murder investigation” into the slain business owner’s death.

They also urged the chief minister to order an investigation and departmental inquiry into the previous investigation team and immediately suspend the officers involved.

On Sunday, the provincial government acknowledged the letter and announced decision to form a judicial commission to determine whether the investigation in the case was being conducted impartially and in accordance with the law.

However, soon after the announcement, the counsel for Ali’s family raised objections and said they would approach the SHC in the matter.

The family’s counsel held that the family was not informed of the commission, its TORs were not disclosed and that the police were yet to submit an investigation report before the magistrate.

In a video message, Ali’s sister said the family came to know about the Sindh government’s decision through the media.

Raising similar objections and questions as those by Nasir, she said: “On August 24, the police are to submit their report. But if there is no report yet, on what basis are they making this decision?”

“We, as a family, are not standing for this decision. We have been saying this since the beginning that we do not trust how the proceedings are going on.”