The investigation team probing the murder of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-S leader Maulana Samiul Haq has approached Additional District and Sessions Judge, Nowshera, with a request that they be allowed to exhume the deceased leader's remains and conduct a post-mortem, police officials said.

The request was filed in the court of ADSJ Hidayatullah Khan by Sub-Inspector Jameel of the homicide unit at Rawalpindi's airport police station.

The application asserts that a post-mortem examination is necessary to investigate the murder and to fulfil the requirements laid down by the law for a murder investigation.

An influential religious scholar and former senator, Maulana Samiul Haq was assassinated at his residence in Rawalpindi on November 2. He was buried in his hometown of Akora Khattak in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Samples have already been taken from his house by the police, including hair of three lengths, a bed sheet with blood on it, three glasses, fingerprints of three separate individuals and a bloodstained kurta. In all, more than 25 different samples collected from the scene of the murder have been sent to the laboratory.

Police experts from the IT department are working on retrieving the data of incoming and outgoing phone calls on the maulana's phone. Police have also been questioning people who had been in telephonic contact with Haq during the last month, or if they had been called by the JUI-S chief himself.

A sessions judge in Rawalpindi had allowed the police to hand over the body of Maulana Samiul Haq to his family, which contended that “Sharia does not allow the post-mortem of a Muslim’s body”.

Some senior police officers Dawn talked to said as per the law, an autopsy is carried out to know the cause of death in unnatural death (particularly murder) cases but its absence may weaken the case to give the benefit of doubt to the killer(s) in later stages.