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KARACHI, June 28: Acting upon Islamabad’s request, the government of Sindh has constituted a medical board to carry out a second post-mortem examination on the exhumed remains of Kafila Siddiqui.
A Canadian national of Pakistani origin, Ms Siddiqui was brought to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), Islamabad, on June 10 by the former minister of state for communications, Mohammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi. She was pronounced dead upon arrival.
A post-mortem examination was subsequently carried out at Pims but Siddiqui’s heirs alleged that the minister could have influenced the doctors. After receiving an application from Siddiqui’s spouse Salman Qaiser, the Islamabad commissioner requested the Sindh government to carry out a second examination.
Board members
The medical board constituted by the Sindh health department is headed by Dr Umar Memon, head of the forensics department at the Dow University of Medical Sciences, Dr Ghulam Ali, head of the forensic medicine department at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, police surgeon Dr Bashir Shaikh and two female medico-legal officers. A pathologist was also notified as a member of the board but he has expressed his inability to take up the position.
The Special Secretary of the Health department, Dr Captain (Retd) Abdul Majid, told Dawn that the home department had requested the health department to constitute the medical board and exhume Siddiqui’s remains. The time-frame, he said, was linked to the availability of a magistrate.
‘Within 24 hours!’
A member of the board who requested anonymity told Dawn that a meeting might be held on Monday to finalise arrangements and the exhumation might be carried out in the following week.
However, he expressed his dissatisfaction over the manner in which the board members had been instructed to submit a report within 24 hours. “I received a letter and some illegible photocopied papers,” he complained. “Copies of the first post-mortem report should have been attached . . . we simply do not have any background information on the case.”
According to media reports, an American forensic expert approached by Siddiqui’s heirs described the Pims autopsy report as “very superficial” and complied in a hasty and haphazard manner.
