KARACHI: Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has formed a multiagency team to investigate the murder of a young Karachi businessman and sought a separate inquiry into a possible police cover-up, following a judicial commission’s findings of serious failures in the initial investigation, official documents showed on Saturday.

The decisions mark a significant development in the case of 25-year-old Mir Raza Ali, whose body was found with a gunshot wound in Karachi in July. Police initially pursued a suicide theory, which his family rejected, while a subsequent autopsy raised serious questions about the circumstances of his death, triggering public outrage and demands for an independent investigation.

“The Commission, in its report, recommended formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) under the leadership of DIG Irfan Baloch, comprising senior representatives of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) and the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA),” the Sindh Home Department said in an Oct. 23 letter.

The department said the provincial government had constituted the JIT under Deputy Inspector General Baloch following approval by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, and requested the participating agencies to nominate senior officers, preferably within seven days.

Separately, the Sindh government has asked the federal interior ministry to nominate a senior Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officer to head an inquiry into possible criminal misconduct by police officials involved in the initial investigation.

The development follows the judicial commission’s recommendation of a high-level inquiry, preferably led by the FIA, to determine whether police officials involved in the first 10 days of the investigation had committed offenses relating to the destruction of evidence, disobedience of legal directions or preparation of incorrect official records.

The victim, a graduate of Karachi’s Institute of Business Administration, operated a waffle business called Wafflix. He went missing after leaving his home in the Pakistan Employees Cooperative Housing Society on July 28. His body was discovered in bushes in Gulistan-e-Jauhar the following day.

Ali’s family disputed the initial police suggestion of suicide, pointing to injuries on his body and questioning the handling of evidence. The case attracted widespread attention as disagreements emerged over the original postmortem examination and the conduct of investigators.

A court subsequently ordered the exhumation of Ali’s body, and a second autopsy conducted on Aug. 8 found that the fatal bullet had entered through his back and exited through his chest.

The final medical report, released later that month, concluded that the findings were inconsistent with suicide.

The provincial government established a judicial commission headed by Justice Sial on Aug. 24 to examine the circumstances of Ali’s death and possible negligence by police and medical officials.

The commission subsequently submitted its report, concluding that Ali had been murdered and sharply criticizing the investigation, including failures to secure the crime scene, preserve evidence and properly examine leads.

The government has also constituted a separate one-member committee headed by Additional Inspector General Zulfiqar Ali Larik of the Counter Terrorism Department to examine the performance of police officials named in the commission’s report and investigate an officer’s alleged role in the burning of the crime scene.