Karachi operation: Families of arrested MQM workers hold protest at KU

The workers were detained by the Rangers from the university’s staff colony on Tuesday

KARACHI: The University of Karachi (KU) administration on Friday faced protests by the families of four Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) workers who were detained by the Rangers from the varsity’s staff colony late on Tuesday night. 

The party workers, identified as Muhammad Shahid alias Athara, Zeeshan Amin alias Shaan, Muhammad Adnan Habib alias Chars and his brother Muhammad Faizan Habib alias Fido, were taken into custody when paramilitary personnel in around a dozen vehicles raided the staff colony.

The former three are a part of the university’s non-teaching staff, confirmed the KU’s campus security advisor Dr Muhammad Zubair, adding that the families wanted the university administration to play its role in recovering the staffers who were arrested from their homes without any formal charges.

Sources in the Rangers claimed, however, that the four suspects were taken into custody as their names came up for involvement in a ‘number of criminal and terrorist activities’ while interrogating other MQM workers who were already in a 90-day protective detention with the paramilitary force.

Earlier, on May 20, the MQM coordination committee had condemned what they termed the ‘arbitrary arrests of four innocent party workers’ from the University of Karachi in the name of the Karachi Operation. Members of the coordination committee declared that the arrested persons were workers of MQM’s Scheme-33 unit.  “The harassment and arbitrary arrests of MQM’s innocent workers should immediately be stopped,” demanded the coordination committee.