KARACHI: The Judicial Commission probing the high-profile Mir Raza case—headed by Justice Omar Sial—has uncovered severe mismanagement, procedural violations, and systemic manipulation by key health and police officials. During the latest proceedings, the Commission heavily criticized authorities for a botched investigation, dubious late-night medical board alterations, and coordinated attempts to steer the narrative toward suicide.
Health Secretary Tahir Hussain Sangi and Special Secretary Shahryar Memon faced intense grilling from the Commission over the sudden, late-night replacement of Karachi-based medical experts with doctors from Hyderabad. Justice Sial remarked that shifting the board overnight raised serious questions, noting that attempts were repeatedly made to wrongfully shift the legal responsibility of exhumation back onto the courts. Meanwhile, SSP SIU Samiullah Soomro faced strict scrutiny regarding the initial six days of the probe, which the Commission deemed severely mishandled due to a failure to effectively secure crucial evidence, including CCTV footage, mobile phones, smartwatches, and the crime scene itself.
The inquiry further revealed that police prematurely leaked a suicide and financial distress narrative to the media before formal statements from the victim’s family or key witnesses could be officially recorded, lacking proper documentation and chain-of-custody protocols for recovered items. This was compounded by gross negligence at the crime scene, such as the burning of nearby bushes by police personnel, which destroyed potential ballistic evidence like shell casings, alongside ignored or uncollected CCTV cameras surrounding the area that severely undermined the investigation’s integrity. As proceedings draw to a close, the Judicial Commission is expected to finalize its hearings and begin drafting the formal inquiry report.
