Killings and kidnappings: MQM goes global to protest missing activists

Party chief urges workers to stay peaceful.

KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has decided to go on a countrywide protest against the recent killings and kidnappings of its workers.

The party’s new coordination committee took the decision on Thursday after four party activists were shot dead on Wednesday. The members were also upset about the raids being carried out against their workers and said they were being arrested illegally.

The party has decided to carry out demonstrations across the country and abroad to condemn the ‘inhumane’ treatment of its activists. They said that workers were being picked up from different parts of the city, and then tortured in custody. The death of their worker Ajmal Beg has been called as extra judicial murder, they pointed out.

Apart from carrying out protests, the party has decided to take up the killings and kidnappings of their workers to the courts, and would file cases against these incidents. In the meeting, the members of the coordination committee along with the deputy conveners also expressed their concern over their missing nine activists. In the last 48 hours, the party has lost seven of its activists.



However, some officials said that MQM chief Altaf Hussain has strictly directed his workers not to react to the ongoing violence against them, and told them to be tolerant in the current situation. Hussain has told his workers that peace should be maintained in the city at all costs, and they should not respond to the violence.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2013.