Court moved for exhumation, autopsy of Aamir Liaquat’s body

The controversy surrounding the post-mortem examination of television personality and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf lawmaker Dr Aamir Liaquat Hussain refuses to die down even after his burial, as a citizen approached a sessions court on Wednesday seeking the exhumation and autopsy of his body to ascertain the “actual cause of his mysterious death”.

Abdul Ahad moved an application, citing the senior superintendent of police (SSP) of the East Zone and the station house officer (SHO) of the Brigade police station as official respondents. East District Judicial Magistrate Wazeer Hussain Memon is expected to take up the case on Thursday (today).

Hussain was laid to rest on the premises of the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Clifton last week. His last rites had been delayed by the controversy over the post-mortem examination. The police had refused to hand over his body to the family and insisted on carrying out his autopsy to ascertain the cause of his sudden death. However, Hussain’s children did not allow a post-mortem examination.

The applicant said that the mysterious and sudden death of the TV host and politician at his residence in Karachi on June 9 had raised “reasonable suspicion among the citizens of Karachi that he had been murdered over some property disputes”.

“In the presence of grave suspicions and doubts, this court has an absolute jurisdiction to order the respondents to hold disinterment, exhumation and post-mortem of the deceased to discover, unearth and ascertain the actual cause of death of Aamir Liaquat Hussain under Sections 174 and 176 of the Criminal Procedure Code [CrPC],” he contended.

The applicant argued that the superior courts had passed several judgements in similar cases in which “reasonable suspicion” had been deemed sufficient for the autopsy, saying that the mere fact that the family or legal heirs of the deceased were refusing consent was not valid grounds in terms of Section 173 of the CrPC.

He said that the court is empowered to order the Sindh health director general to constitute a special medical board to exhume the body for an autopsy. The court was pleaded to order the exhumation and post-mortem examination of Hussain’s body, and direct the health DG to form a medical board for the purpose.