KARACHI, Feb 1: The medical superintendent (MS) of the Services Hospital submitted on Friday in an anti-terrorism court that a medical board had been constituted and it would conduct an ossification test to determine the age of the prime suspect in the Shahzeb murder case on Feb 6.

Shahrukh Jatoi, Nawab Siraj Ali Talpur, his younger brother Nawab Sajjad Ali Talpur and their house servant Ghulam Murtaza Lashari have been booked for killing 20-year-old Shahzeb in the Defence Housing Authority on the night of Dec 24.

Submitting a reply to a show-cause notice issued by the court a couple of days ago, the MS of the Services Hospital had stated that neither a letter issued by the court for the constitution of a medical board was delivered to him, nor the investigating officer had informed him about it.

As per direction issued by the court in the show-cause notice, the MS said he had constituted a five-member medical board to conduct ossification test on Feb 6 to decide the actual age of Shahrukh Jatoi, who has been in juvenile prison since Jan 26.

Meanwhile, judge Ghulam Mustafa Memon of ATC-III directed the superintendent of the juvenile prison to produce the suspect before the medical board for the ossification test on Feb 6.

On Jan 17, the counsel for the defence claimed that Shahrukh was below 18 years and he might be tried under the juvenile ordinance and the court directed the MS of the Services Hospital to constitute a medical board for conducting the ossification test.

However, a report in this regard was prepared by a police surgeon and submitted in the court on Jan 26, which declared the suspect underage.

On Jan 30, the court issued a show-cause notice to the medical superintendent for not complying with the court order and directed him to constitute a medical board for the purpose and submit a report by Feb 11.

The court also issued a similar notice to Police Surgeon Dr Jalil Qadir and asked him that on whose directions and under what capacity he had issued an age certificate since no direction was given to him to issue such document.

According to the prosecution, the victim had an altercation with the suspects since they tried to tease his sister and later the issue was settled by some elders, but Siraj, Shahrukh, Sajjad and their accomplices killed the victim by opening indiscriminate fire on his vehicle on the night of Dec 24 in Phase V of the DHA.