ISLAMABAD, June 21: A report prepared and released by the chemical examiner, Punjab, on Thursday night showed that Kafeela Siddique, a Canadian national of Pakistani origin who had reportedly been living with former minister of state Shahid Jamil Quershi, had not died because of consumption of any hazardous substance.

The body of Kafeela Siddique would be exhumed in a couple of days for a second autopsy at the request of her husband Salman Qaisar, Dawn learnt on Thursday.

The request of Mr Qaisar was sent by the Islamabad administration to the Sindh government on the day when the chemical examiner’s report on Ms Siddique’s stomach reached the capital from Lahore.

An official said the report prepared by the Punjab chemical examiner and sent to the administration and the capital police showed that the death was not caused by any hazardous substance.

An official of the capital administration said Mr Qaiser wanted another autopsy because he believed that she had been killed.

The Islamabad administration, he said, had asked the Sindh home secretary to allow exhumation of the body buried in Karachi.

He said Islamabad’s Superintendent of Police, Investigation, Islamabad, Ashfaq Ahmed, would proceed to Karachi to supervise the exhumation and autopsy.

Mr Qaiser had accused the former minister of kidnapping the woman and keeping her in illegal confinement for over one and a half years.

Interior ministry spokesman Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema said that about 10 people, two of them servants of Mr Qureshi, had been arrested in the case.

Our Staff Reporter Munawer Azeem adds: President Pervez Musharraf has accepted the resignation of Minister of State for Communications Mohammad Shahid Jamil Qureshi.

A notification issued here on Thursday said that the resignation had been accepted under clause 3 of article 92 of the Constitution, with effect from June 21.