Karachi operation: Extremist elements still active in Pashtun areas, says Shahi Syed

Party leaders still receiving death threats and extortion notes.

KARACHI: Leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), Shahi Syed, has said that extremist element are still operating in the Pashtun-dominated areas of Karachi, but the Sindh government is reluctant about providing foolproof security to the leaders of the party.

Addressing a press conference at Mardan House on Monday, he raised question over the success of the Karachi operation, claiming that some elements in the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) government did not want the operation to be successful.

He was of the view that leaders of the ANP were still receiving death threats and extortion slips from extremist elements. “The commander of Karachi operation, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, is a powerless chief minister, while the de-facto chief minister of Sindh, Owais Muzaffar, is the main hurdle when it comes to providing security to the ANP leaders,” he claimed.

Referring to the threat calls being given to ANP leaders - Dr Ziauddin and Abdul Razzak Buneri - Syed was of the view that it was the establishment’s agenda to settle extremist elements in ANP-dominated areas as the innocent Pukhtoon people were also getting threats.

He asked leader of the PPP, Asif Ali Zardari, to take strict action against corrupt elements in his party to make the operation successful.

“If the PPP leadership does not take strict action against such elements, the ANP will abandon its consensus policy with the PPP,” he stressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2013.