Rally attack case: Non-bailable warrants issued for Hammad Siddiqui, others

Six people, including a woman, were killed and nine others were injured when they attacked it from multiple sides

KARACHI:

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) issued on Tuesday non-bailable warrants of arrest for an expelled leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Hammad Siddiqui, and others in the case of a deadly attack on Sindhi nationalists' rally in 2012.

Siddiqi, the then chief of MQM's Karachi Tanzimi Committee, and a dozen others were booked in the case following the revelations of a party worker, Amir Ali alias Sir Phata, who was arrested in the March 11 paramilitary raid on Nine Zero. Ali, according to investigators, said that the attack on the anti-Muhajir province rally carried out by Sindhi nationalists was devised by Siddiqi. Six people, including a woman, were killed and nine others were injured when the rally was ambushed from multiple sides in Old City.

The ATC-III ordered the arrest of the absconding suspects with directions to the investigation officer to produce them on the next hearing on August 18.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2015.