Sindh Assembly session: Karachi law and order now much better, says Sharjeel

Claims that the port city’s peace was in peril in MQM’s home ministry tenure

KARACHI: Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon has claimed that the law and order situation in Karachi is now better than it used to be in the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) home ministry tenure.

Responding to the MQM ministers’ criticism in a Sindh Assembly session on Friday against the Sindh government, he challenged the MQM lawmakers and said: “PPP is in power for the last six years. Earlier, home department portfolio was with the MQM.  I want to ask why the MQM failed to control high-profile murder cases, bomb blasts, kidnapping for ransom, street crime and targeted killings in its tenure.”

Sharjeel Memon noted that the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) sitting MPA Abdullah Murad Baloch was killed, Munawar Soharwardi of PPP was gunned down, the incident of Nishtar Park took place where 57 people lost their lives and other untoward incidents like the May 12 and October 18 2007 happened during MQM’s tenure.

“I want to ask who the home minister was when the then corps commander Karachi and French engineers came under attack? The department worked under MQM,” he mentioned.

The Sindh information minister further said that during the General Musharraf tenure political workers were targeted, their offices were demolished and a majority of the workers of a particular party were killed in targeted actions.

“The media was not independent at the time, otherwise it would have exposed progress of the then government,” he stated.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2014.