Two suspects’ bail extended in Dr Maha ‘suicide’ case

A district & sessions court on Tuesday extended the interim bail before arrest of two suspects, Junaid Khan and Waqas Hasan, booked in the case of Dr Maha Ali Shah’s

alleged suicide.

Dr Maha, who had been practising at a private hospital in Clifton, had allegedly committed suicide by shooting herself at her house in the Defence Housing Authority neighbourhood last month.

The police booked her friends Dr Irfan Qureshi, Khan, Hasan and two others on the complaint of her father Syed Asif Ali, who claimed that they abused her daughter and poisoned her, leading to her death.

Dr Qureshi was discharged from the case until the filing of the final investigation report, while Khan and Hasan were granted interim bail before arrest against a surety of Rs500,000.

The police sought permission from a Mirpurkhas court to exhume Dr Maha’s body for a second post-mortem examination because according to the investigating officer of the case, Sub-Inspector Sharafat, the opinion of the doctors in the first autopsy report and the facts conflicted each other.

According to the report, the bullet entered the victim’s head from the left side of the skull and exited from the right side. However, if the victim had shot herself with her right hand, the bullet would have entered her skull from the right side and exited from the left side.

The court adjourned the hearing until September 10 (tomorrow) with a notice to the IO to present the progress report with regard to the investigation on the next hearing.

‘Quarrels with father’

Khan had told a news conference at the Karachi Press Club on Monday that it seemed Dr Maha was murdered. He claimed that Dr Maha’s family had also refused to hand over her mobile phone to the investigators.

He demanded that a joint investigation team look into the incident, and suggested that drug tests be done on him and Dr Maha’s brother. He claimed that Dr Maha and her father had differences over the separation with her mother and property, and that she used to fight with her father for leaving her mother.