Mir Raza inquiry calls police investigation an 'epic failure'

The judicial commission that examined the investigation into the death of Karachi businessman Mir Raza Ali has called the police probe an “epic failure”, finding lapses that ranged from negligence and poor supervision to a failure to preserve evidence, Geo News reported.

The report of the single-member commission, headed by Sindh High Court judge Justice Omar Sial, was made public by the Sindh government on Tuesday. It said police breached the procedures needed to withstand judicial scrutiny and support a successful prosecution.

“The handling of this case has been like a rudderless ship, not aware of its destination,” the report said. It described the investigation as ranging from “negligent to criminally negligent”, as well as inexplicable, casual and unprofessional.

A cover-up not ruled out

• Cover-up: an active cover-up in the early stages could not be conclusively ruled out, the commission said, though it lacked investigative powers to establish one
• Tunnel vision: senior officers, driven by ego and a wish to avoid admitting an error, doubled down on their initial suicide theory
• Lapses swept aside: senior officers swept clear failures “under the carpet”, and no officer would take responsibility
• Evidence: dozens of officers, authorised and unauthorised, collected evidence and questioned key people without documenting their actions; a significant portion of physical evidence has been compromised

The commission said the bullet trajectory, the wounds, the absence of blood, the condition of the body, acid burns and anaesthesia found in the blood all excluded suicide. “The police investigation failed in its most basic duty: to establish the truth,” it concluded.

What it recommends

• A JIT: a Joint Investigation Team, as the family demanded, headed by DIG Irfan Baloch and including senior officials of the ISI, the Intelligence Bureau, Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency
• Criminal action: a high-level committee, preferably led by the FIA, to check whether officers in the first 10 days broke Sections 201, 166(2) and 218 of the Pakistan Penal Code
• An apology: police should publicly acknowledge and apologise for their lapses and open inquiries against those responsible

“We have been demanding a Joint Investigation Team since day one,” said Mir Raza’s father, Mir Hussain. “We want our son’s killer. The report’s recommendations must be fully implemented.”

His final hours

A forensic timeline from Mir Raza’s phone, reported by The Express Tribune, shows a night of unexplained events before he vanished on July 28:

• 11:52pm, July 27: after a long call, he messaged his friend Sarim bin Tahir asking for Rs30 million, saying something was going to happen in the morning that he was not prepared for
• Around 3am: his social media accounts began to be deactivated; his fiancee, Salwa Khan, could not reach him
• 3:57am: a Bykea ride was booked from his number; by 4:09am his WhatsApp account had also been deleted
• 4:38am: he was last seen on CCTV outside a rent-a-car office on Hill View Road in Gulistan-e-Jauhar

His body, with gunshot wounds, was found the next day. A second post-mortem after exhumation found he died of a gunshot wound to the back.

Why it matters

The commission’s verdict is a damning account of how a murder was nearly written off as suicide. A JIT backed by the intelligence agencies now offers the family their best chance of finding the killer. Read our report on the Sindh cabinet’s decision to publish the report.

This article draws on reporting by Geo News and The Express Tribune.