KARACHI, Feb 11: A medico-legal officer told an inquiry tribunal investigating the Oct 18 Karsaz blasts on Monday that the doctors had conducted only external examination of 26 bodies which were brought to the hospital on the fateful day.

Senior MLO of Civil Hospital Karachi Dr Abdul Haq deposed before the tribunal headed by retired Justice Dr Ghous Mohammad that about 60 injured persons and 26 dead bodies were brought to the hospital after the midnight twin blasts on Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming procession.

“We examined the injured persons and prepared their medico-legal reports. We also conducted post-mortem examinations on 26 bodies,” he said.

However, answering a question, the MLO said the 26 bodies were subjected to external examination only.

“What was the cause of the deaths?” inquired the tribunal, to which the doctor replied that all the deaths were caused by explosive and ballistic materials.

He said most of the bodies were badly mutilated and some were burnt beyond recognition.

He replied in the negative when the tribunal asked if it was possible that the body of a person standing next to a suicide bomber be torn apart exactly the way the body of the suicide bomber was mutilated by the explosion.

On Feb 9, senior MLO of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Dr Kaleem Shaikh informed the tribunal that he had conducted post-mortems on five bodies. “I conducted post-mortems and not autopsies because the nature of injuries was common. Therefore, we conducted only post-mortems and gave the cause of death on an external examination basis,” he had deposed.

Meanwhile, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital MLO Dr Iftikhar Memon appeared before the tribunal on Monday and testified that he along with other MLOs examined 21 injured persons and the cause of their injuries was hard and blunt objects of explosive blasts.

Later, the tribunal adjourned its proceedings till Feb 23 for recording the statement of a forensic expert. Special prosecutor Arshad Lodhi and tribunal’s liaison officer SSP Niaz Khoso were also present.

More than 140 people were killed and about 500 wounded in the midnight blasts at Ms Bhutto’s homecoming procession near Karsaz on Oct 18.

On Oct 31, the Sindh government appointed a tribunal to investigate and ascertain the circumstances and causes leading to the twin blasts at the PPP rally.

The other terms of reference include: to examine the security arrangements made by the administration and organisers; to find out negligence and lapse on part of law-enforcement agencies as well as organisers of the rally; to fix the responsibility against the persons/groups involvement in the incident and to suggest effective measures to pre-empt the recurrence of such incidents in the future.