KARACHI: The body of an activist of the Mutt­ahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, who went missing from his Malir home a couple of days ago, was found under myste­rious circumstanc­es, it emerged on Tuesday.

The MQM-P said in a statement that the body of Muhammad Azhar Huss­ain bore torture marks. It also demanded a high-level probe into his killing.

Police and rescue officials said that unknown person(s) dropped the body of Hussain at the Edhi morgue and disappeared.

An Edhi Foundation spokesperson said that a man arrived at their morgue at Sohrab Goth on Sunday with the body. He asked the staff to keep the body in the morgue; however, he neither identified him nor submitted a copy of his computerised national identity card to morgue volunteers, the spokesperson added.

The deceased was later identified as Muhammad Azhar Hussain, who was also employed as an assistant director in the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA).

The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospi­tal for medico-legal formalities on Monday night. A post-mortem exam­­i­­­nation was carried out on Tuesday morning.

Police Surgeon Summ­aiya Syed told Dawn that the body bore minor injuries all over.

While doctors reserved the cause of death till the arrival of reports of a chemical examiner, the police surgeon said some marks on the victim’s neck seemed to indicate he was strangled.

Quoting his family, she said that the victim had gone ‘missing’ on June 2 and his body was brought at the Edhi morgue on June 4.

Later in the evening, his funeral prayers were held in the Al-Falah area and he was laid to rest at the Model Colony graveyard.

According to an MQM-P statement, party convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddi­qui demanded Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Sindh chief minister and police chief to hold a high-level probe into Hussain’s murder.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2023