Missing activists: MQM to hold protest rally on Thursday

Haider Abbas Rizvi alleges 21 workers killed in encounters since September 2013.

KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has announced to protest the alleged 'disappearances' of its activists in Karachi. The party will hold a demonstration in Karachi on Thursday and will protest across the country on Friday.

MQM leaders once again lashed out against the 'illegal and unconstitutional' arrests and detention of its activists, claiming that 46 workers, who had been detained by the law enforcement agencies during the operation, were still missing.

Addressing a press conference at the Khursheed Begum Secretariat, party leader Haider Abbas Rizvi said that of the missing workers, 20 were taken away by the police and Rangers officials while the rest had been abducted by men in plain clothes. "Why are the men not being produced in court?" he asked.

Rizvi claimed that since the targeted operation began in September 2013, around 250 people had been killed in different incidents. Of these, 21 were MQM workers.

He demanded that action be taken against the plain-clothes officials who were "arresting their workers and taking them away in double cabin vehicles with no number plates".

"Chaudhry Nisar had ensured us that no activist would be arrested by men in plain clothes but this is not being done." The MQM leader said that workers were being tortured in custody, after which their bodies were dumped in different parts of the city.

Speaking about the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, he said that the party had many reservations over it. He said that the ordinance was being implemented in Karachi, even before becoming an act, claiming that 18 MQM workers had been kept detained for 90 days.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2014.