Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The leader of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party Senator Usman Kakar’s death came as a shock to everyone. The senator termed the accident as ‘mysterious’ and ‘murky’ after which the family demanded the autopsy of the late senator.

According to sources, there are no signs of torture or physical abuse of any kind were found in the autopsy report. The only scars found of the body were due to the surgeries and cannulation during his treatment at the hospital.

The precise cause of death will be declared in the pathology report, for which several samples have been taken from his body.

The senator’s body has been handed over to the family for the burial procedures. His family has announced that they will get the pathology samples counterchecked.

Senators demand probe into Usman Kakar’s ‘sudden death’

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) leader and former senator Usman Khan Kakar passed away in Karachi on Monday. He was 60.

Kakar’s personal physician, Dr Samad Panezai, while talking to a private channel, said he had received a head injury at his residence in Quetta and was shifted to a hospital within 30 minutes where he was operated upon and put on a ventilator. He was later shifted to Karachi’s Aga Khan University Hospital on a special air ambulance where he passed away earlier on Monday. Panezai said the cause of his death was accumulation of blood in his brain due to the injury. Panezai said it was not known what caused the injury to Kakar, who had been found by his family lying on a carpet in his drawing room with blood flowing from his head.

Condolences poured in from leaders across the political spectrum after the news of his demise. PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz praised him as a “a strong voice of democracy and a front line soldier of the struggle for civilian supremacy”. She added she would always remember her conversations with him and the memory of his struggle would be kept alive.

Federal Minister for Science and Technology Shibli Faraz said he was “deeply saddened” by Kakar’s sudden demise. He said Kakar had been a “dear friend” whose services for democracy and politics will be remembered forever.

However, members of the opposition in the Senate on Monday raised suspicion over the ‘sudden death’ of Kakar and demanded a parliamentary probe to ‘dig out the truth’.

Speaking on the floor of the House, Senator Muhammad Akram of National Party claimed that Kakar would always say that he faced the biggest threat from certain quarters. He added that Kakar’s sudden death may have “some background to it”. Senator Saleem Mandviwala of the PPP said Kakar’s family believed his death was a “murder”. He said doctors were also skeptical about how such profuse bleeding in the head could be caused by a mere fall. Senator Kamran Murtaza, Maulana Attaur Rehman belonging to the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Pakistan (JUI-P) and Senator Haji Hidayatullah said the nature of Kakar’s death had raised questions, adding “it is now responsibility of the House to order a probe into his ‘suspicious’ death.” The initial post-mortem report, however, revealed that Usman Kakar’s death was caused by a brain haemorrhage while no torture mark was not found on his body.