Brewing trouble: PTI office in North Karachi ‘attacked’

Party activist blames MQM for ransacking tuition centre housing PTI office

KARACHI: Around 30 men armed with sticks and rods attacked a tuition centre near the Powerhouse Chowrangi in North Karachi, which according to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, houses the party’s zonal office.

Saad Anjum, the PTI district education secretary, said the armed men ransacked Spectra Coaching Centre, where party members had been invited for discussion on the NA-246 by-election.

“Ten minutes before the meeting was about to start, as many as 30 Muttahida Qaumi Movement workers barged into our office,” he told The Express Tribune. “They threatened them with severe consequences if they (PTI workers) continue to carry out party affairs in the area.”



Anjum added that two PTI supporters, Junaid and Rashid, were injured in the attack and another supporter Hassan from Shadman Town was missing.

DSP Altaf Hussain has assured the PTI leaders of deploying a police van at the office.

However, Rehan Hashmi, the MQM lawmaker from the area, said the PTI was adopting cheap tactics to gain political leverage. “Our whole attention is on Azizabad police station since the evening,” he explained. “PTI activists themselves did it to divert our attention.”

On a question that the attackers were shouting MQM slogans, he said the PTI workers did not have any evidence to prove that. “When PTV was attacked, the attackers were draped in PTI flags,” he pointed out. Some people in the area said the attack was not political and was just a personal scuffle between two young men over some girl.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2015.