Gujar khan  -  A civil judge and Section 30 magistrate in Gujar Khan has granted permission for the disinterment of the body of a 21-year-old woman believed to have been raped and poisoned, after a request was made by the Jatli police on Saturday.

   Sub-Inspector Israr Hussain, the investigating officer in the case, approached Magistrate Hasnat Aslam Gondal to obtain authorization for exhuming the 21-year-old’s body, which had been buried in Natha Chatter village on January 13. The police have suspected the circumstances surrounding the death of Sadia Bibi after some reports on social media claimed that she was an orphan and used to live at the house of her elder sister’s husband in Natha Chatter village and was allegedly raped and poisoned to death after it was discovered she was seven months pregnant. According to the court order available with The Nation, the magistrate has ordered the medical superintendent of the District Headquarters Hospital in Rawalpindi and the local authorities to exhume the body of the deceased on January 28, and to perform postmortem. 

According to the report submitted by SI Israr Hussain, the head of the Homicide Investigation Unit (HIU) at Jatli Police Station, determining the actual cause of the woman’s death was crucial. He said that the matter was not reported to the police by any relative or legal heir of the deceased and came to limelight after being highlighted on social media. He maintained that the police were investigating the death under Section 174(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on its own. 

Meanwhile, relatives of the deceased, including her sister, uncle, and aunt, were also produced before the court on Saturday. Police sources have said that further action would be taken in the light of the postmortem report.