Mazar-e-Quaid rally: Civilian martial law is imposed on Karachi, says Sattar

Demands lifting of ban on broadcasts of Altaf’s speeches

KARACHI:

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Farooq Sattar claimed on Sunday that a civilian martial law has been clamped down in Karachi and the MQM supporters and workers are being killed.

Addressing a rally at the Mazar-e-Quaid on Sunday, the MQM lawmaker said, “During this two-year operation, some 50 party workers have been killed, 150 are missing, 4,000 were arrested, and almost 5,000 raids have been made at our party’s offices, at our workers’ houses and at their workplaces,” he said.

Sattar said the party workers never retaliated during any raid or any arrest, but the law enforcers should follow the rule of the law. “Instead of presenting the arrested people in the courts, their dead bodies are recovered with marks of third degree torture,” he said.

Addressing the federal government, Sattar said now the party had taken to the streets because its grievances were ignored by the government and the judiciary.



“The MQM has filed 150 petitions about their missing workers. Now that the bodies of four MQM workers have been found, who were murdered extra judicially, the high court must file a murder FIR for our workers,” he demanded.

Sattar said a state department has no right to take law and order into its own hands. He also complained that the party is not allowed to conduct its political and welfare activities.

Sattar said the ongoing Karachi operation is not going in the right direction and is biased. “In the name of targeted operation against the militants, only the MQM is being targeted and a safe entry to Karachi is being given to the ISIS, al Qaeda, Taliban and their political wings,” he said.

“They want us to not participate in the upcoming local bodies’ poll and instead want to bring a mayor from the MQM-Haqiqi,” Sattar said. He also announced that the party workers will go door to door to collect the animal hides during Eidul Azha.

He asked the law enforcers and the federal government to register FIRs and form a JIT on the killings of MQM workers.

“We are not declared enemy of the state, these forces are our forces,” said Sattar. He also announced that the party is ready and in a position to stage a 252-day protest that will eclipse Imran Khan’s 126-day dharna in Islamabad.

At the end of the rally, Sattar tabled a resolution demanding an end to extrajudicial killings, recovery of missing MQM workers, lifting of ban on the live broadcast of the MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s speeches, end of Karachi operation and the media trial of the party.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th,  2015.