The controversy surrounding the death of 25-year-old businessman and IBA graduate Mir Raza Ali should never have reached this point. Much of what has unfolded could have been avoided had the police conducted a thorough, transparent and credible investigation from the outset. Instead, a grieving family has been forced through one traumatic ordeal after another, while questions over the investigation have only multiplied. Ali went missing on July 28 and his body was found the following day in bushes in Gulistan-e-Jauhar with a gunshot wound. His family believes he was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. The police, meanwhile, have built their case around the possibility of suicide, citing financial difficulties and the circumstances in which Ali left home. We cannot determine which version is correct. That is precisely why a proper investigation was so important. What we do know is that the investigation process has been deeply flawed. The Karachi police surgeon herself raised questions about the original medico-legal report, pointing to apparent inconsistencies between the reported entry and exit wounds and the available photographs.
The logical response should have been simple: establish the facts through an independent and transparent forensic process. Instead, the family had to approach a court to secure an exhumation. Then, when a medico-legal board was constituted following the court’s order, its composition was abruptly changed, prompting the family to object and forcing a postponement. The original eight-member board has eventually been restored. This is not how a criminal investigation should work. The parents of a young man who died under disputed circumstances were effectively made to fight the state to have his death properly investigated. What kind of justice system puts grieving parents through this?
The larger issue is the chronic failure of Pakistan’s criminal justice system, particularly its capacity to investigate crime professionally and independently. A family should not have to know a lawyer, approach a court or generate public pressure simply to ensure that basic investigative procedures are followed. That it took protests by young people – ordinary middle-class boys and girls who knew Mir, studied with him or were simply moved by the questions surrounding his death – for the case to receive wider attention is deeply sad. It also speaks to how helpless many young people feel in the face of institutions meant to protect them. The implicit lesson is frightening: unless you are influential enough, connected enough or capable of generating enough public pressure, your grievances may simply disappear into the system. There are still questions that only a competent forensic investigation can answer: how exactly did Ali die? What happened between the time he left home and the discovery of his body? Why were relevant forensic tests not conducted initially? And why was there such confusion over the constitution of the medical board? The authorities must now do what should have been done from the beginning: conduct a meticulous, transparent and impartial investigation and follow the evidence wherever it leads. If Ali was murdered, those responsible must be held accountable. If the evidence establishes suicide, that too must be established conclusively. But the state owes the family something even before that conclusion is reached: an honest attempt to find out what happened.
