MQM hits back at Mirza

Accuses him of patronising terrorists, target killers and kidnappers.

KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Sunday refuted the accusations levelled by former senior provincial minister Zulfiqar Mirza and said that it was part of a conspiracy to create a rift among various nationalities settled in Sindh.

Accusing Mirza of “personally patronising terrorists, target killers (and) kidnappers”, members of MQM’s central coordination committee said that Mirza had been making such statements in a bid to create disharmony.

Saying that Mirza was fuelling ethnic tensions in Sindh, members of the committee said that in so far as Mirza’s allegations against MQM were concerned, they were not new. “Elements who oppose the MQM have been stooping to such tactics to defame the party”.

The committees said that the people were “well aware of these tactics and fake allegations”, adding that none of the allegations against the MQM had ever been proved to be true.

The committees said that in the past, the MQM had even been accused of conspiring against the country to create a ‘Jinnahpur’.

Ironically, the committee said, people who had levelled these allegations had themselves refuted them later on.

It urged Mirza to explain why traders were increasingly targeted for extortion and incidents of kidnapping for ransom increased sharply “soon after he was sworn in as Sindh home minister?”

(Read: Mirza returns, reshuffle in cabinet expected)

The committee also asked Dr Mirza to identify extortionists and kidnappers and their backers, besides naming the criminal elements in the “Peoples Amn Committee who killed innocent traders in Sher Shah scrap market why they surrendered to the police, and how many of them were from Dr Mirza’s office.”

The committee also asked Dr Mirza to “tell who had (compelled) eyewitnesses not to recognise the killers” of Sher Shah Market traders and “at whose behest had terrorists of the Peoples Amn Committee kidnapped innocent citizens, took them to torture cells and decapitated them. He should also tell from where the hostages were recovered.”

The committees asked Dr Mirza to tell who was responsible for the “riots in the city with the assistance of drug, land and ammunition mafias”.

The committees said: “In fact, it is Dr Mirza who has personally been patronising terrorists, target killers, kidnappers…and other (criminals)…This is why Dr Mirza could not keep quiet after the law-enforcement agencies launched operation in Lyari against the criminal elements.”

The committees said that Dr Mirza was so inflamed by the operation in Lyari that he even blamed federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik for patronising terrorists.

“However, the fact is that Dr Mirza is directly involved in the bloodshed in the city,” the MQM forum said.

The committees said that MQM has clearly been supporting the ongoing operation against criminal elements.

The committees demanded of President Asif Ali Zardari and the top PPP leadership to take immediate notice of Dr Mirza’s provocative allegations and clarify their positions. Urging the people not to react to Dr Mirza’s “baseless and shameful allegations”, members of the coordination committee urged people to remain peaceful.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th,  2011.

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