Enforced disappearance: Hundreds of MQM workers illegally detained, says Altaf

Asks prime minister, chief justice to take notice of disappearances.

KARACHI:

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain has demanded that the government make all efforts to recover MQM workers who have been arrested or illegally detained by different agencies. He called on the president, prime minister, army chief, DG ISI Zaheer-ul-Islam, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Sindh’s chief minister to work together on the issue.

“Hundreds of MQM workers and office-bearers are victims of enforced disappearances,” the party chief said in a statement. “These detained workers are being subjected to inhumane torture in government detention centers. They are not being produced in the court of law.”

He said more than 45 office bearers and workers are victims of enforced disappearances, including three members of MQM PIB Sector’s Muhammad Naeem Ahmed, Arif Nizami and Muhammad Ali. According to the MQM leader, these people were arrested from Jail Road on October 7, 2013. “Several months have passed and police and rangers are not willing to tell us their whereabouts,” he said adding the families of the missing workers are desperate to find information. “If there are charges against these disappeared people they should be produced in the court,” he said.



Hussain also appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Jilani to take notice of these disappearances and asked human rights organizations to raise their voice over the missing workers.

Additionally, an MQM MPA while addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club alleged that the police demand heavy bribes from party workers to release them. “After conducting the raid, law enforcement agencies and police arrest our activists, implicate them in fabricated cases and then demand a bribe for their release,” he claimed.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2014.