KARACHI: The medico-legal officer who conducted the first post-mortem examination of slain Karachi businessman Mir Raza Ali has accused Karachi Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya Syed of trying to implicate him in the case, deepening a dispute between the two doctors whose findings sit at the heart of a judicial inquiry into the young man’s death.
In an exclusive conversation with ARY News on Tuesday, MLO Dr Osama Sheikh made the allegations while swearing by God as his witness.
Dr Osama claimed that Dr Summaiya had framed him, and alleged that she herself had told him that since she had implicated him, she would now be the one to save him.
He said that because he personally carried out the first post-mortem, he is a primary witness in the case. The facts must come before the public, he said, adding that he hoped the judge would give him an opportunity to record his statement at the next hearing.
Addressing the forensic questions raised about his report, Dr Osama said he had fired the same weapon from different distances and that an entry wound does not always turn out small or large as might be expected. No one is perfect, he said, and mistakes do not necessarily ruin everything.
He said he had brought a written apology to a hearing but was not given the chance to submit it. On an earlier occasion he had not been prepared, he said, but this time he had come fully prepared. He added that he would try to prove what he has written, and that if his timeline of events were heard, many unclear aspects of the case would become fully clear.
A demonstration video recorded by Dr Osama in connection with the case has also surfaced, ARY News reported.
Mir Raza Ali, 25, was found with a gunshot wound in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar a day after he went missing. His family has maintained that he was tortured and murdered, and has accused police of trying to bury the facts after investigators initially built the case around the possibility of suicide.
In early August, Dr Summaiya pointed out inconsistencies between Dr Osama’s medico-legal report and the available photographs. The body was exhumed at the family’s request, and a second post-mortem was carried out by a medical board headed by the police surgeon. That board concluded the evidence was inconsistent with suicide, documented a head injury and skull fracture, and found traces of bupivacaine, a local anaesthetic.
Investigators had earlier taken Dr Osama’s mobile phone into custody for forensic analysis.
A one-member commission headed by Sindh High Court Justice Omar Sial is examining the circumstances of the death and possible negligence in the investigation. The commission summoned Dr Osama under Section 4 of the Sindh Tribunals of Inquiry Ordinance, 1969, directing him to appear in person on September 15 to record his statement, face cross-examination on oath and produce relevant records.
On Monday, Dr Summaiya told the commission that she had faced threats after disputing the first post-mortem’s findings. She also claimed before the commission that Dr Osama had misled it about the time of death and the duration of the anaesthetic’s effect.
Dr Summaiya’s response to the specific allegations made in Tuesday’s interview was not part of the ARY News report.
The dispute has turned a murder investigation into a wider test of Karachi’s medico-legal system, where the reliability of a single autopsy report can shape the direction of a police case. The commission’s findings are expected to address not only how Mir Raza died but also whether the initial examination and investigation met required standards.
Further investigations into the roles of other parties connected to the case, and fresh developments, are continuing.
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