MQM protests against ‘enforced disappearance’ of activists

Party claims nine workers have gone missing over the past two months.

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) held a protest on Friday near the Sindh High Court to voice its anger on the ‘enforced disappearance’ and killing of its activists.

According to the party, more than nine of its activists have gone missing in the past two months. MQM gathered the families of the missing and killed activists outside the high court, where its leaders delivered emotionally charged speeches.

MQM leader Khawaja Izharul Hasan demanded the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of the “picking up” of party workers by law enforcement agencies, including the Rangers. He added that the missing men didn’t have any cases registered against them and were not criminals. “Yet they were whisked away into cars.”

MPA Faisal Subzwari said that if there is any law and order in Pakistan, then the ongoing injustice against MQM should be noticed. A charged Haider Abbas Rizvi claimed that thousands of the party’s men were tortured and eventually died. “The transition from the previous government to the new one is because of us. We sacrificed our workers, the bomb blast victims gave up their lives and we made sure that democracy was not derailed,” he said.



Among the protesters was the sister of Ajmal Beg, an MQM activist who died last week. “He didn’t get food or water for 11 days. He was tortured and his feet were given electric shocks.”

Another woman said her son Farooq Zahoor was picked up from the Lines Area just after his baby boy was born. “Two months have passed since Farooq’s disappearance and I have filed a petition in court.”

An elderly man said that his son Zeeshan and his friend were picked up while they were playing snooker. “Do they want to make Karachi into another Balochistan?”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2013.