MQM leader Waseem Akthar. PHOTO: SHAHID SAEED
MQM leader Waseem Akthar, while speaking to the media, said the whereabouts of the party workers should be determined immediately or the Rabita Committee will decide on future course of action.
He called on the Sindh government to get rid of black sheep in the city police force and stop the killing of “innocent people.” He further requested the president, prime minister and army chief to take notice of the ongoing bloodshed.
Extra-judicial killings
MQM leader Haider Abbas Rizvi alleged that the Karachi police had admitted to killing MQM party worker Muhammad Salman in front of another worker Fahad Aziz.
Rizvi made this accusation during a press conference in Karachi.
Unidentified men had allegedly kidnapped Salman on February 3 and his mutilated body was found a day later from the Shah Latif Town of Landhi.
Aziz, 30, was arrested on February 8 when he was en route to his wedding and allegedly subjected to torture during interrogation.
Police extortion, brutality
During the press conference, MQM leader Rizvi also alleged that Karachi police extort Rs220 million every day from the general public of the city. He further added that it was unfortunate that the same police was conducting operations against extortionists.
He also stated that a father and son, belonging to MQM, were victims of police torture in the Nazimabad area of Karachi. They were stopped by the police and were beaten up when they failed to pay the asked bribe of Rs10,000, Rizvi said.
The father died because of a heart attack after being subjected to torture, the MQM leader added.
He alleged that MQM members were often subjected to such torture by the police.
Rizvi also recalled an incident that took place on October 7 last year. Three members of MQM belonging to the PIB sector were arrested by unidentified police officers and the whereabouts of these members is not known as yet, the MQM leader stated.
He added that there are 45 such people who have disappeared since last year. “They have vanished. They are nowhere.”
Rizvi said that MQM does not know whether they are dead or alive, adding that the party has failed to track their whereabouts.
MQM feels alienated
MQM MPA Khawaja Izharul Hassan, while addressing the Sindh Assembly, stated that the law was being violated openly in Karachi, adding that no institution was above the law.
Hassan also said that after bodies of MQM workers were recovered, the party's sense of frustration changed to a sense of alienation.
After Hassan finished his speech, MQM members walked out of the assembly in protest.
Addressing MQM’s complaint, Sindh Minister for Information and Local Government Sharjeel Inam Memon said that the operation in Karachi was not against any one party. He added that people in Lyari and members of banned outfits were also being arrested as part of the operation.
Acknowledging MQM’s concerns, Memon further stated that if it was proven that a police officer was involved in a criminal act then he will be treated just like everyone else according to the law.
COMMENTS (26)
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There is no excuse why government will not do enough to locate missing persons. It is however absurd for one party (MQM) to press the government to spend all its effort to locate its missing workers only. Is it because lives of other citizens are not as important as MQM workers? And why MQM didn’t do enough to locate missing persons when it was in power, and why it is crying foul only when it sits in opposition?
@ConcernedCitizen: @Uza Syed: @ConcernedCitizen: Hey kiddo!
Ms.Uza Syed your reply won't let CC sleep for at least a week ! Nice and befitting reply.
@Concerned_Citizen: Hey kiddo! They in BeaconHouse, sure have taught you to write English but your style lacks any thinking behind these words, and believe me words without any pondering are just words, empty words, useless words. But than thinking is not and has never been a trait common among the kids of the moneyed & powerful elites in Pakistan, anyways, wouldn't the living condition of the masses change here if they did. By putting us, one of you actually, in the same equation with Taliban reflects your ignorance at best or bad intentions. Fine, we would continue fighting, without any apologies, the worst enemies Pakistan ever got threatened and attacked by (you are free to name our struggle anything that your limited imagination can contrive) and you keep begging and appeasing and accommodating our enemies Talibans, call them yours, call them stake holders. call them your best good friends but they still won't desist from their act of violence, brutality and barbarism against our country and our people and we hate them for these bipeds, these manimals and we would fight them until they are destroyed and we would do this for the love of Pakistan and our sisters and brothers, including yourself.
@True Karachiwala: thanks , i totally agree with you
Only the family members of these missing persons know the agony they are experiencing, not a friend or a colleague. Then what to say of biased opponents. Their comments are not surprising.
@Aysha M: Listen woman, a criminal is a criminal, Mohajir or non-Mohajir. I was on a flight form Lahore to Karachi, where MQM youth were celebrating the shahadat of SP CID Chaudary Ashraf. Why? Doesn't MQM proclaim itself to be some sort of forefront against the Taliban? Why were they celebrating what the Taliban did? I can give an answer, believe it or not. . Because MQM provided these youths with shelter, home, employment, food and a gun. Power beyond their imagination. These youth are not against the Taliban. They are in competition with the Taliban, to extract funds via extortion, kidnappings and target killings. Why then, are you surprised at extra-judicial killings? There are no witness protection laws, and in Karachi, I think there is a need for a judge protection law as well, as no court will convict these criminals. . How else do you expect the LEAs to act?
As usual they would take the revenge from people of Karachi by forcing their businesses shut
why the human right of Pakistan and civil society silent against to the reign of terror on the urdu speaking people by men in uniform
@CK: Keep dreaming :)
@Imran: MQM & we the people who vote and support MQM don't owe any explanation to those who suck up to enemies of Pakistan and wish appeasement & talking to the terrorist who are destroying lives & properties of Pakistanis. Your shameless kind has no standing in any matters relating to us, Karachi or Pakistan. Go and do what you do best, suck up!
@CK: yah drama , go and see the pictures of torture on fahad, i am amazed how people loose all sense when rights of mohajirs , now at the moment citizens of karachi are treated on ethnic lines and subjected to heneous torture , why could not police get information out of fahad through humane method , when they picked him at most appropriate time and manner .
Above all, MQM justify your extortioning first.
@Aysha M: @The Only Normal Person Here:
This state terror has got to stop and must stop right now. Our security must ensured and it has to be done by any means necessary. We are people in addition to being citizens of Pakistan and we have every right demand our security that any State is bound to provide, failing we must do whatever is necessary to protect our lives and our honor. Shame on a those in Pakistan who support favorable treatment of Taliban and go after peaceful & law-abiding citizens of Pakistan merely due to our political dissent.
@Ricky @Uza Syed:
MQM workers are not secret, sinister individiuals that hide in safe houses by day and come out at night. They are everyday common people, office workers, taxi drivers, plumbers, restaurant owners and shop owners themselves. They are also affected by what happens in this city and are therefore part of a movement that wants to restore ownership and administration of Karachi to Karachi dwellers.
All those who're spitting poison in these comments trying to justify this torture as some sort of poetic justice are victims of their own propaganda.
MQM workers and its supporters and its voters are also people of this country with equal rights like any other citizens of Pakistan. I demand my governments both here in Sindh and at the Federal level to fulfill its duties and legal obligation to provide security to all the citizens here including us the Mohajir community. Our political stand vis a vis our political adversaries is not good enough reason to force us to submission or face extermination through state terrorism. We must organize and demonstrate our dismay, anger and strength against all forms of subjugation and chicanery. MQM must be supported by us and by the rest who are against selective and discriminatory justice.
If you let loose gangsters who are also motivated by their biased agenda of hatred and discrimination against your political opponents which we the Urdu speaking Sindhi Pakistanis are then this is exactly what happens. In the name of law & order you can not be allowed to continue reign of terror on our people. This is violation of our rights as citizens and we must assert our rights, stop this act of terror now, before we react and resist the state terrorism.
Extra judicial killing by Police and Law Enforcers has become a norm in Karachi specially and in the country as whole.
Extra Judicial killing against any ethnicity or race is most unacceptable.we might have millions of differences with MQM but by not raising our voice against these atrocities,we are doing no good to the cause of Pakistan. Having said that,on the average 20 people have been dying in Karachi for the past so many years yet all the three rulers MQM,PPP and ANP kept mum,we only get moved when suffering strikes at home
Killers in uniform let loose in Karachi
MQM will take all the legal measures for justice for Salman. Hopefully.
People are killed by dozens every day. Yet there are some lives more valuable than the others. While there are news that the killers of Dr. Imran Farooqi are in Pakistan but nobody is worried about their arrest for killing the founding leader of MQM. When are we going to hear demands for their arrest and expose the brutal murder of MQM founding leader?