KARACHI: A district and sessions court on Friday dismissed an application seeking permission to exhume the body of Dr Maha Shah, who allegedly shot herself in the upscale Defence Housing Authority, for the “second” post-mortem to find out “actual cause of death”.

The judge observed that the body had been buried in Mirpurkhas, therefore, it was beyond jurisdiction of the court to pass any order with regard to exhuming the body.

Initially, the police said that the young woman doctor practicing at a private hospital in Clifton had allegedly committed suicide by shooting herself at her home in Defence on Aug 18.

Later, they booked her friends — including Junaid Khan, Waqas Hasan, Dr Irfan Qureshi along with two others — under relevant sections of the law pertaining to alleged poisoning of the victim to death.

On Friday, the investigating officer (IO) of the case moved an application before the district and sessions judge (South) seeking permission to exhume the body of the victim for a ‘second’ post-mortem examination.

In the plea, IO Sub-inspector Sharafat mentioned that the opinion of the doctors in the first post-mortem report showed conflicts.

It was also mentioned that according to the post-mortem report, the bullet allegedly entered the victim’s head from left side and went out from the right side.

However, the IO maintained that had the victim shot herself with her right hand, the bullet would have entered her skull from the right side and gone out from the left side of her head.

He also mentioned that there was a conflict in the opinion of the doctor, who conducted the first post-mortem. Therefore, the IO asked the court to grant permission to exhume the victim’s body for conducting the second post-mortem to find out the actual cause of death, as apparently someone else had shot Dr Maha Shah in the head.

The judge dismissed the application, observing that the IO was at liberty to move such an application before the relevant court for the purpose of exhuming the victim’s body for a fresh post-mortem examination, if he desired so.

On Tuesday, the judicial magistrate concerned had discharged the detained suspect Dr Irfan Qureshi from the case till filing of a final investigation report by the IO in the matter and ordered his release against a surety of Rs500,000.

According to the police, other suspects — Waqas Hasan and Junaid Khan — are still absconding and efforts are under way to arrest them.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2020