Police are to exhume the body of a man who fell to his death from a rooftop to investigate whether he was pushed and by whom, a court was told here on Tuesday.
The court has taken up two petitions regarding the death of Waseem Abbas on September 2, from injuries sustained in a fall from the roof of a house where a wedding was being celebrated.
The first petition, filed by Ghulam Abbas, the brother of the deceased, blames his death on the family living at the house where the fall took place. The applicant alleged that the accused, seven of them, pushed Waseem from the roof because they owed him money.
The other petitioner, Muhammad Sadiq, the owner of the house where Waseem fell, alleged that four policemen had raided the wedding venue and beaten up the deceased because he was drunk, resulting in his fall from the roof.
At the previous hearing, the judge had sought a report from police on the matter. Sabzazar police officials told the court on Tuesday that Waseem’s body would be exhumed and an autopsy conducted to determine if there was any foul play in his death or evidence of who had killed him. The court instructed the police to submit a detailed report on the investigation by September 25.
In his petition, Ghulam Abbas said that his brother had gone to the house on September 2, apparently to attend a wedding.
He said that he had found out later that his brother had been admitted to Services Hospital after falling from a roof. He said that he had investigated and found out that Waseem had loaned his friends Imran and Shahbaz some money and had demanded the money back on September 2. He alleged that they had got into a fight and then pushed him from the roof. He approached the Sabzazar SHO and lodge a complaint against Imran, Shehbaz, Abid, Shehla Bibi, Shazia Bibi and two unnamed persons.
Muhammad Sadiq, the owner of the house, in his petition said that the incident occurred after the wedding, when most of the guests had gone home and his sons and their friends, including Waseem, were having alcoholic drinks.
He said that four policemen on two motorbikes arrived at house and conducted a raid. Waseem ran up to the roof to escape the policemen, he said, but was caught and beaten. During the beating by policemen, he fell from the roof to his death, Sadiq stated.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 25th, 2013.