MQM-H women want attackers arrested

The police are refusing to lodge the FIRs, says women’s wing.

KARACHI:

The Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi’s (MQM-H) women’s wing has appealed to the government to arrest the men involved in the killing of their party’s activists and the burning of their houses and properties.

The wing’s organiser, Rida Fatima, held a press conference at the press club on Sunday, along with other members and activists. “The government should ensure the safe return of thousands of Mohajir activists to their homes,” she said. They have been living away from home for nine years.

She demanded the government immediately demolish all the pickets and check posts constructed by “armed terrorists” in the city. “A few days ago, some of our companions went to Malir without party permission to meet their relatives, brothers, sisters and parents but the terrorists of the so-called representative party of the city surrounded them from four sides and opened indiscriminate fire on them with automatic machine guns,” she said. “Four of our workers died on the spot and numerous others were seriously wounded.”

She said that the house of MQM-H Karachi division president Maqbool Hussain was set ablaze after it was looted and the women and children were beaten. She said that the attackers also torched the houses of two other MQM-H activists, and shot dead the young brother of an activist. She said that the family was not allowed to attend the funeral.

The police are not registering their FIRs against the people they want to nominate, she added, while demanding that the president, prime minister and federal interior minister provide them protection.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th,  2011.