An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Hyderabad on Tuesday sent the prime suspect in Sindhi poet Akash Ansari’s murder case on a four-day physical remand in police custody.

According to initial reports, Dr Akash was killed in a fire that had broken out on Saturday morning in his locked room while he was asleep inside his Citizens Colony residence in Hyderabad on Saturday morning.

Due to circumstantial evidence, police and the affected family earlier believed that it was an accidental fire. However, when the autopsy exposed marks of injuries, the police began investigating the incident as a suspected murder case.

Hyderabad Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dr Farrukh Ali said a day ago that the poet’s adopted son had confessed to the murder and the police had recovered the weapon used in the offence.

The suspect was produced in the court of ATC Judge Ubaidullah Khan today where the Bhitai Nagar police requested a four-day physical remand that was granted by the judge.

Bhitai Nagar police had registered the case under Sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act against the adopted son for the poet’s murder.

Ibrahim Jan Ansari, a relative of the deceased, had lodged the case.