‘Extrajudicial killings’: MQM demands prosecution of law enforcers behind missing workers

Party leader Farooq Sattar told media that two workers were killed and buried as unknown.

KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) demanded on Wednesday that those officers of the police and Rangers who were behind the torture and extrajudicial killings of their workers should be arrested, removed from their posts and prosecuted for murder charges.

The party also appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of the situation, as their activists were being tortured and made victims of extrajudicial killings. MQM leader Farooq Sattar made these demands while addressing a press conference on two MQM workers who had gone missing and have now been found buried in Hyderabad’s Tando Yousuf graveyard.



“The men, Yawar Abbas and Shamshad Haider, were labelled unknown and unidentified by the Edhi foundation and were buried in the graveyard. The families later identified them from the pictures taken by the organisation before the burial.”

Abbass, who belonged to the PIB unit, was picked up by Rangers officials from a house in Ghousia Colony on November 6, 2013. Meanwhile, Shamshad Haider of Aligarh secretariat was taken away from his shop in Tariq Toad on January 6, earlier this year. Both families had filed petitions in the Sindh High Court for their recovery.

“The law enforcement agencies are violating the law by picking up our workers and not presenting them before the court. Those behind these incidents should be arrested.”

The MQM leader said that dozens of his party workers had been arrested during the targeted operation and tortured. “Many are still missing and there is no information about their whereabouts,” he claimed

Sattar said that it was responsibility of the government to recover all their missing workers and said that investigations should be held about their whereabouts.

He appealed to the chief minister and law ministry to form a judicial commission and investigate the arrests of innocent citizens and extrajudicial killings, and submit their report within three to five days. The party also requested the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and other human rights organisations to take notice of the extra judicial killings of their workers.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2014.