Cop on death row dies of cardiac arrest

A former police inspector who had been sentenced to death for a staged encounter died of a heart attack at the city’s central prison early on Wednesday morning.

The deceased, Malik Irshad Hussain, was among five officers of the Anti-Car Lifting Cell who were awarded capital punishment by an anti-terrorism court in February 2014 for killing four Baloch traders in a staged encounter on December 31, 2008, on Khalid Bin Waleed Road.

Hussain was the station house officer of the ACLC at the time. Talking to The News, Sindh IGP Prisons Nusrat Mangan said Hussain was taken to a hospital after he complained of chest pain in the wee hours of Wednesday. However, he breathed his last at the hospital. 

The doctors who conducted his postmortem in the presence of a magistrate ruled that Hussain had died of cardiac arrest, said Mangan. After completion of legal formalities, Hussain’s body was handed over to his brother.