Political parties condemn murders, reaction in equal measure

Jamaat-e-Islami accused the MQM of taking revenge on the people of Karachi for its workers’ deaths.

KARACHI:

Political parties condemned the killings and sympathised with the families but were critical of the violence that broke out in Karachi.

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) accused the MQM of taking revenge on the people of Karachi for its workers’ deaths. JI’s Karachi chief Mohammad Hussain Mehanti said at a press conference on Tuesday that the government had left Karachi’s residents at the MQM’s mercy. Mehanti also said that the solution to terrorism in Karachi was not a military operation but effective implementation of the law. He accused the MQM of not taking any responsibility for security in the city. He also said that while extortion, murders and robberies had become the norm in Karachi, it was an open secret who these trends were linked to - the MQM was allowed to halt and start business in the city at its will.

Mehanti expressed his sorrow over the two deaths but said that the case and the ensuing violence in the city needed to be investigated.

For his part, Awami National Party’s Senator Shahi Syed also condemned the murders, but said that burning dozens of vehicles was part of a “well thought-out plan.” As if kidnappings, target killings and extortion weren’t big problems in the city, now people were being shot dead inside their homes, he lamented. Violence is becoming an ever-increasing part of the city’s politics, he added.

While not directly naming the MQM, ANP Sindh chief Bashir Jan blamed a party’s “irresponsible behavior” even though it claims Karachi as its fiefdom.

Caught, yet again, between a rock and a hard place, lawmakers of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) tried to give assurances that the culprits would be arrested. The provincial interior minister, Manzoor Wassan, formed a three-member committee, to investigate the murders in PIB Colony.

Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri held a press conference and blamed a “particular mindset” for the recent spate of target killings in Karachi. She condemned the murders of the MQM activists, and also the subsequent violence that later paralysed the city. “Karachi is the engine of revenue for the whole country. By destabilising Karachi, these forces want to subvert the economic condition of this country.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 28^th, 2012.