Police have formed a special investigation team to probe the death of actor Humaira Asghar Ali, whose body was found in a Karachi apartment earlier this week, it emerged on Sunday.

Humaira was laid to rest in the Model Town Q Block graveyard in Lahore on Friday following a sparsely-attended funeral, days after her body was discovered at her apartment in Karachi.

An autopsy report by police surgeon Summaiya Syed, seen by Dawn.com, confirmed that the body was in an “advanced stage of decomposition” and at least eight months old.

According to the notification dated July 11th, available with Dawn.com issued by South Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Mahzoor Ali, “A special team comprising of the following officers/officials is hereby constituted under the supervision of Deputy Superintendent of Police Imran Ali Jagrani (Clifton Division Acting Superintendent of Police)”, to investigate Humaira’s death.

The team will be headed by Defence Sub-Divisional Police Officer Aurangzaib Khattak with South Assistant Superintendent of Police Nida Junaid, Gizri Station House Officer (SHO) Muhammad Farooq, Sub-Inspector Muhammad Amjad and IT Branch Police Constable Muhammad Adeel as its members.

The notification directed the team to inquire into the facts and thoroughly investigate the death of Humaira to ascertain the cause of death, whether natural, accidental, suicidal or murder, by utilising all available resources and submit a progress report to the SSP’s office on a daily basis.

The autopsy report was released to the police, but the coroner could not determine the actor’s cause of death due to the level of decomposition.

Police had earlier said that when approached, her family in Lahore — particularly her father — refused to take the body for burial, triggering shock across the entertainment industry.

On Thursday, however, her brother Naveed Asghar arrived in Karachi to take the body to Lahore for burial, calling out media outlets for portraying his family in bad light. Police had stated that the actor’s body would be handed over to her brother after DNA matching.

Speaking to journalists, Naveed said, “The body was in police custody. The police had kept the body for investigation before calling us (the family) to claim it.”

He said that for the last three days, the family was in contact with Chhipa and the police.

“According to the guidelines, we were [eventually] going to receive the body and perform the rites,” he said.

Besides being a theatre, film and TV artist, Humera was also a visual artist who studied at Punjab University’s Fine Arts Department and completed a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in painting. During her university days, she had interaction with theatre groups such as Natak, led by Dr Ahmed Bilal, which was a university-based theatre group consisting of students.

She had interactions with Amjad Islam Amjad, Qavi Khan and other senior actors who used to visit the university for lectures. In her early years of performing art, she did about four or five Pakistan television plays. She also extensively did socially relevant and objective theatre those days.