SHC suspends magistrate’s order for exhumation of Aamir Liaquat’s body

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday suspended a judicial magistrate’s order with regard to exhumation of television personality and politician Aamir Liaquat Hussain’s body till further orders.

The interim order came on a petition filed by children of the late Hussain, who was elected an MNA from Karachi’s District East in the last general elections, against the judicial magistrate’s June 18 order for constituting a medical board for the exhumation of Hussain’s body. The petitioners, Ahmed Amir and Dua-e-Amir, children of Hussain, submitted in the plea that their father died on June 9 and his body was allowed to be buried after permission from a judicial magistrate as legal heirs did not want to conduct an autopsy of the deceased to ascertain the cause of his death.

They submitted that the judicial magistrate had conducted external examination of Hussain’s body and found that there was no mark of torture or violence on his body which transpired that no mishap had occurred with their father. They added that after completing all the codal formalities, the burial took place on June 10. They children submitted that the magistrate on application of a lawyer allowed exhumation of their father’s body and ordered constitution of a medical board without jurisdiction.

A counsel for the petitioners argued that the plea for exhumation of Hussain’s body was not maintainable as it was filed by a private person who was a stranger to the proceedings in hand, whereas, the petitioners had never requested for conducting an autopsy of the body at the time of burial.

He submitted that the impugned order did not fall within the ambit of the section 176(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and liable to be set aside. A division bench of the high court comprising Justice Mohammad Junaid Ghaffar and Justice Amjad Ali Sahito after preliminary hearing of the petition issued notices to the Sindh advocate general, health department and others and in the meantime, suspended the order of the magistrate till June 29.