A man walks past the room formerly occupied by Kamran Faisal. PHOTO: AFP
Kamran Faisal’s body is going to be exhumed to check for torture marks as calls emerge to reinvestigate the forensic evidence from the alleged suicide of the anti-corruption official.
On Tuesday, the Islamabad administration gave the Punjab Forensic Science Agency the go-ahead to exhume the remains of the former National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officer. Eight armed policemen posted at the graveyard in Khanewal have stopped all visitors to the site. Civil Lines Inspector Ghulam Murtaza said the graveyard was sealed to prevent evidence tampering.
An exhumation will be key to a final forensic report. The forensic agency sent its request to the Islamabad police chief on Monday amid doubts about the veracity of the initial post-mortem report written by five doctors, who had declared Faisal’s death a suicide. The doctors said they did not find any torture marks on the body.
According to Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Amir Ali Ahmad, the Punjab government managed exhumation orders and thus it was now up to it to specify the procedure. However, a secretariat police investigation officer would be part of any team.
Faisal, an assistant director at NAB, died under mysterious circumstances while investigating alleged kickbacks in the Rental Power Plant scandal, which has engulfed the sitting prime minister and a host of other influential current and former government officials.
A police officer familiar with the development said that the forensic agency had also requested the police to hand over the clothes Faisal was wearing when he was found hanging from a ceiling fan in his hostel room on January 18. “They will conduct DNA tests on any traces of hair or foreign objects to ascertain the possibility of the presence of a second person with Faisal at the time of his death,” said the officer. Any findings would help investigators decide if it was a murder and if Faisal was first killed and then hanged to make it look like a murder. If so, any suspects would have left traces like hair, mucus or blood on Faisal’s clothes.
Police and doctors have said that it is difficult to tell if Faisal hanged himself or someone killed him before hanging him through a post mortem alone. But forensic tests coupled with the still awaited autopsy report would shed light on the presence of poison or other chemicals in the body.
The exhumation will be conducted by a surgeon, physician, forensic expert, investigating police officer, duty magistrate and medical officer, explained police surgeon of the Punjab, Dr Umar Farooq Baloch.
Meanwhile, the family has refused to accept condolence flowers from NAB Chairman Fasih Bokhari, saying that he had been rubbing salt into their wounds. Faisal’s father, Haji Abdul Hameed, told The Express Tribune, that the family would only accept the findings of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 30th, 2013.
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