Chicago:
The body of 46-year-old Indian-origin businessman, Urooj Khan, who died of cyanide poisoning days after winning a million dollar lottery, was exhumed in a bid to find answers to his mysterious death.
Judge Susan Coleman of the Probate Division of the Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois last Friday had approved the Cook County medical examiner's request to exhume his body.
The body of Urooj Khan was exhumed on Friday morning. He had died last July, a day after he collected a cheque of $4,25,000 as his prize money.
Family members say they hope the dig at Rosehill Cemetery, on Chicago's north side, will lead to answers as to who may have killed Khan, and why.
"We are confident he was a healthy person and cannot die like that," Khan's brother, Imtiaz Khan, said.
"We are just praying to God that justice be serviced, and whoever did this be punished," he was quoted by NBC as saying.
Mr Khan's death in July, a day after lottery officials presented him with the cheque, was originally attributed to natural causes. A relative later requested the Cook County Medical Examiner take another look in the case.
Medical Examiner Dr Stephen Cina said that second look revealed lethal levels of cyanide.
Dr Jon Lomasney, the Director of Autopsy Service at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said that while the upcoming autopsy will be difficult, it should reveal new details.
Urooj Khan had relocated to the US, from his home in Hyderabad, in 1989 and set up several dry-cleaning businesses in Chicago.