Celebration takes an unpleasant turn

KARACHI: Soon after the polling for the fiercely contested NA-246 constituency concluded on Thursday, hundreds of cheerful supporters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) took to the streets to celebrate the unofficial victory of their candidate.

The celebrations, however, took an ugly turn when jubilant activists holding MQM flags came face to face with supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) at the latter’s election office set up inside a building in Karimabad.

MQM activists reportedly pelted the PTI office with stones and burnt the party flags and banners put up for the election campaign. The ensuing violence left dozens of PTI activists trapped inside the office.

“The situation in Karimabad is getting dangerous and I am disappointed in the way the MQM workers have resorted to violence,” said PTI’s election hopeful Imran Ismail when the situation in the area was still out of control. “More than 40 of our workers are stuck inside the election office currently under attack.”

Several MQM leaders, including provincial lawmaker Faisal Subzwari, arrived in Karimabad to defuse the situation, but to no avail: the mob refused to listen to party leaders, including MQM chief Altaf Hussain who had asked them to respect their political opponents during celebrations of expected victory.

MQM’s candidate Kanwar Naveed, however, said his party was not involved in attacking the PTI’s camp. “Those responsible for violence in Karimabad are Karachi’s citizens and not MQM activists.”

In view of the worsening situation, police officials, followed by the paramilitary Rangers, arrived on the scene.

The law enforcers baton-charged the violent activists to disperse them and rescued the besieged PTI workers from their election office.

The enraged activists, who initially took refuge from the law enforcers in nearby streets, later engaged in clashes with the police until late evening.

They hurled stones at the convoy of District Central SSP Nauman Siddiqui, injuring a policeman as well as two cameramen associated with Express News and ARY News.

The police responded forcefully with tear gas and detained at least two dozen MQM activists for disrupting law and order. However, no case was registered until the filing of this report. Law and order was restored after MQM Rabita Committee members Farooq Sattar and Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui arrived in Karimabad to defuse the tense situation.


Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2015.